Humanity Shaken
1545 Words
LUNA
I try to run to Mal, but my mother clamps her arms around my waist, pinning me back. My father blocks the entire stairwell with his bulk, like a wall I’ll never be able to climb. I wonder if he always liked being a wall—unmoving, immovable, unarguable.
And then I see Mal.
He stands in the wrecked doorway, dark and predatory, hair mussed, glasses gone, eyes strangely bright. He looks like someone who hasn’t slept, someone who’s seen a hundred nightmares and kept walking anyway. And when he locks eyes with my father, I swear the air crackles.
“Rogue Alpha Mark Lenning,” Mal growls, voice deeper than I’ve ever heard.
Alpha. What?
My father tilts his chin, returning the growl. “Alpha Mal.”
Alpha what? Like… dogs? Wolves? Mafia bosses? What dimension have I been dragged into?
“I have come to take her to the pack,” Mal says, and my heart caves in on itself.
Take me. Somewhere. Anywhere.
“She’s going nowhere with you, pup. She’s mine.”
Something violent snaps inside me. A string that was stretched too tight finally gives way, releasing something hot and furious and wild.
Mine.
There’s that word again, like he owns me, like I’m a prize or property.
Mate, something whispers inside me, slow and reverent.
The voice feels ancient and terrifyingly certain.
Mal looks up at me—dark brown, fractured with gold—and my body reacts without permission. My pulse stutters. My lungs burn. I suddenly know what home feels like, and I hate that I know it.
No. Not hate. Fear.
I elbow my mother hard and wriggle under my father’s arm, dropping to the floor and sprinting toward Mal like gravity is tilted toward him.
Mal catches me, arms wrapping around me in a way that feels like protection and possession all at once. I bury my face against his chest, breathing him in like oxygen.
Mal will help you.
I startle, because that wasn’t my thought. Not fully.
I will, he echoes back—without moving his lips.
Oh god. Am I hearing voices? His voice? Inside my head?
We turn as one—him holding me protectively—to face my parents. My mother’s eyes glisten with tears she doesn’t let fall. My father’s face curdles into a mask of pure violence.
“YOU CANNOT HAVE HER!” he screams.
“Mine,” Mal growls, like he’s ancient stone refusing to crumble.
“YOU CANNOT KEEP HER!”
“Mine.” Louder. Final.
The sound is primal enough to shake the walls.
I barely register my father shifting until bones crack and skin splits. Horror floods me as his body contorts into something monstrous—fur, teeth, claws, a grotesque mixture of man and nightmare.
I scream, and Mal tightens his hold, murmuring soothing sounds I don’t understand.
“How dare you make me do this in front of my daughter,” my father snarls, voice distorted, feral. “You’re going to pay.”
How could I ever call that thing ‘dad’?
Mal steps forward slightly, still holding me, as if shielding me from the sight.
“How could you suppress your daughter’s very essence," he growls, "forcing her to hide from what she is?”
Essence? Hide from what?
My head grows foggy—warm, heavy. Oh god. The injection. The syringe. Whatever he put in me earlier slithers through my veins, dragging me down.
Mal lifts me effortlessly and lays me on the couch. My eyelids flutter, but I fight it, desperate, terrified.
No. I need to see. I need to know.
Not yet, Jade. Sleep.
Jade? Who is—
His voice threads through my mind again, soothing, commanding.
And as his body begins to tremble—shifting—I finally fade.
-----
I wake in a bed too big to be real. The sheets smell like Mal—something that makes my stomach flip dangerously.
An IV tugs at my arm. I’m in a massive, dim bedroom—bigger than anything I’ve ever slept in. I feel small, misplaced, like a pet dropped into a castle.
I turn and see Mal slumped beside me in a chair, head bowed, breathing soft and even.
Mate!!
The word slams through me like a siren.
He startles awake instantly, eyes snapping open. His gaze lands on me, softening every sharp corner of his face. Something inside me melts, unwillingly, pathetically.
“Hey,” he murmurs.
I try to imitate calm. “Hey.” My voice cracks like a teenage boy going through puberty. Great.
Then memories hit like a blade, slicing straight through my chest.
My father’s face—half human, half wolf.
His eyes burning with rage.
My body pinned, injected, drugged.
My stomach revolts. I gag, and Mal bolts upright, grabbing a trash bin and placing it in front of me with terrifying speed.
I throw up until my ribs ache, tearful and shaking. Mal climbs onto the bed, pulling me against him, rubbing slow circles on my back. He doesn’t flinch at the mess. Doesn’t recoil.
He just holds me.
For hours.
I babble nonsense between sobs—begging for normal, for home, for parents who look human. And I hate myself, because I don’t even know if I want them anymore, or the memory of them, or the fantasy version I constructed to survive.
Maybe they were never real.
Maybe I was never allowed to be real.
When I finally pass out, it’s from exhaustion—not peace.
I wake again—this time in a hospital room. The standard white. The metal bed rails. The quiet hum of machines.
Mal sleeps beside me, arms still wrapped around my body like he never let go. His face is unfairly gorgeous when relaxed—brows soft, lips parted.
Why is he in my bed?
Why does this feel right?
Why do I feel safer with him touching me than alone in my own head?
Then—movement.
A woman stands at the door watching us. Tall, slim, blonde hair pinned back, round glasses perched on her nose. She looks like Harley Quinn after a PhD program.
Mal awakens the moment I notice her, a low growl rumbling from his chest.
I freeze.
He actually growls.
Like an animal.
And god help me—heat pools low in my stomach. What is wrong with me?
“Oh, good,” she says dryly. “Princey is awake.”
Princey?!
Mal hisses, voice sharp. “Look what the cat dragged in. Finally come around?”
His arm tightens around my waist, pulling me closer. A territorial gesture I shouldn’t like. But do.
“Luna is my priority,” she says, stepping inside. “So go do princely things instead of lurking in hospital beds.”
I get the sense they hate each other, but in a professional, I-won’t-kill-you-in-front-of-clients way.
I try to speak, but an invisible wall slams down in my mind. Pressure builds, sharp and nauseating. My head pounds. Everything blurs.
The woman rushes to my side, sitting gently next to me. Mal pulls away, freeing me from his grip—and that’s when pure agony detonates.
It feels like metal drills twisting into my skull. I gasp, gripping the bed.
Mal immediately grabs my hand, and the pain lessens—not gone, but less murderous.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“You’ll experience discomfort for a few days,” she says calmly.
Discomfort.
Cute.
“You’re detoxing. Your body needs to adjust.”
Detoxing from… what?
“I’ll be fine once I’m back on my medication,” I insist weakly. “That’s how this works. I… hallucinate without them.”
She and Mal exchange a look that makes my stomach drop.
“Luna,” she says carefully, “I don’t want to tell you anything you don’t want to hear. But I need to understand how much you know.”
My brain tries to sort the words into meaning, but gives up halfway.
Mal squeezes my hand, voice soft. “She needs your version. Tell her everything from the last two days.”
Not the kiss, though. I glance at him. He seems relieved when I skip it. Good, because my face would incinerate.
But when I reach the part about moving—about being forced to leave—the pain spikes savagely.
I release Mal’s hand, and agony rips through me, a scream tearing out of my throat before I can stop it.
He grabs me again, and my body collapses back into his hold, like it belongs there.
“No. I can do this,” I whisper. “I have to.”
I tell them everything.
The strength.
The injection.
My father shifting.
The terror.
The shame of being afraid of him.
When I finish, silence smothers the room. Mal looks murderous. The woman looks horrified.
I feel strangely empty, like my insides have been scooped out and replaced with fog.
Then she asks quietly, voice trembling with disbelief:
“Luna… are you saying you’re human?”
The question hangs in the air like a blade ready to fall.
And I realize—
I don’t know the answer.
Not anymore.
- Writer
