For long, Pain wasn’t just a feeling to me; it was the very fabric of my existence. I couldn't remember the first time I felt it, as if my first breath had been drawn from a well of agony. It was a constant, suffocating weight, an intimate acquaintance whose scent, taste, and texture were engraved into my soul. Pain was the armor I wore, the blood in my veins. It pulsed within me every single time my father hurled venomous, hateful words at my face, every time Alpha Victor’s whip tore into my flesh, and every time the pack members used my fragile frame as a canvas for their cruel, misplaced rage.
I felt that agonizing ache whenever Alpha Victor forced himself upon me, whenever the unmated pack males took what they wanted from my broken body, and most recently, when Fredrick’s icy tone del
