Song of my Heart

Chapter Twelve

Shocked silence filled the room. I hated it, hated that I had done this to these people, hated that I was barely scratching the surface of all I had to tell them. I felt like their ears might bleed and fall off if we kept this up.

Jeremiah cleared his throat, twice. "And you were how old?"

"Twelve."

"Right. Right, um, continue, please."

I sighed. "Master was different to the conditioning. He had rules that I had to follow, and nothing too terrible happened to me if I obeyed. I was barely alive when they brought me to him, and he was gentle with me, in a way. It was..." I struggled, not sure I wanted to let the emotions come out with the words. "He kept me as a pet, just like the others he had taken before me. When I didn't follow the rules, he hurt me. Badly. He was inventive, always thinking of new ways to make me hurt; for ten years he hardly repeated the same torture session twice. But regardless of how I behaved, every night was the same, for about two and a half years."

"Every night..." I heard the question, the confirmation he was seeking.

"He raped me, yes."

Again the silence, that rang in my ears and hurt the fractured edges of my soul. I felt a blast of rage from Marcus' end of our bond before he carefully pulled his shields back up. I couldn't bear to look at his face.

I told them, then, of the new girl he brought in, of the way he decided to have us fight instead of just replacing me like he had with all the others. He had told me about them, the five before me, how they had all barely lasted a year before he got sick of them. But not me. Somehow, he didn't get sick of me. He only brought a new girl in because he felt like he needed a change.

"He made us fight each other in wolf form, and I... I killed her. And it gave him an idea." The fight excited him, fed his fantasies. He fucked me that night while I was still covered in her blood.

"You killed her? Why would you do that?" One of the other Councillors, who had been silent until now, spoke up, the words bursting from her ashen lips. I shrugged.

"I don't know why I went along with it. I suppose it was the one thing I had left to hold onto, at that stage. My family wasn't coming for me, my agency was gone, my body belonged to him. But I had my life, and I fought for it. I killed three others to keep it."

I explained that, at first, the Ring was a fight to the death, and only for the entertainment of Master and his rogues. "On the second fight, he brought a friend along, who offered him a wager. When I killed the girl and Master took his friends' money, he realised what the Ring could become. He began to kidnap more than just one female at a time, not caring as much about their ages, hosting fights and raking in money from the audience he gathered to him. The fourth time I was forced to participate was maybe about six months into the whole operation, and when I stepped into the Ring, this little pup was standing there. She was maybe nine years old. And things changed again."

I had been staring at the table all this time, unable to look at anyone, unwilling to see their reactions. But at this point, I turned to Maria, ignoring the tears slipping down her face, the way her hand was pressed to her mouth.

"It was Alice," I whispered, and her face crumpled in understanding.

"Alice," I was jolted back into the present by Jeremiah's voice, and he checked over his copious notes, confusion clouding his face. "I don't recall any survivors with that name."

I tamped down on the surge within; Marcus didn't need to feel that. "That would be because she didn't survive."

He sighed and rubbed at his forehead. The air in the room was so heavy it was a wonder any of us could breathe. "I think we'll take a break," he murmured, and the Councillors all shuffled out of their chairs, their shoulders drooped as though I had transferred some of my burden onto them. I suppose, in a way, I just had.

Jace was the first one out the door, his face a nasty shade of green. Then the Councillors and Alphas, and Maria, her brown eyes shining with unshed tears and sympathy as they met mine. They all filed out, one by one, until I was left alone with my mate.

He came closer, his broad frame towering over my chair, and slowly crouched down next to me. I felt his gaze searching my face, but I couldn't force myself to look at him.

"You killed a nine-year-old pup?" he asked me quietly, probably trying to confirm what he thought was my most grievous sin.

"No," I replied, my voice barely above I whisper. "I didn't kill a nine-year-old pup. I killed her when she was fourteen."

***

The darkness slowly receded, and I was careful to hold myself still, delay whatever reactions my body decided to have, until I could assess just how bad it was. Lesson learned the hard way.

"He's going to be here soon, and I'm not covering for your arse."

The hushed voice came from beyond my head, and I felt a wash of relief that it wasn't him, not this time, not yet. I made careful, unmoving assessments of my surroundings. I was on a cold, hard surface, curled on my side. Most likely in my cage. So far, so good.

"Why did you make her fight in wolf form, anyway? You know how she gets."

I froze, panic sweeping through me as memories flooded my mind. The panic was swiftly replaced by despair as flashes of what I had done came back to me. I just couldn't remember yet who it was.

"I was bored of the usual fights. We haven't had a really gory one in ages," Goon Number Two spoke up. It wasn't worth learning most of the rogues' names, they were interchangeable. I waited, keeping my breathing even. They had to say the name, had to tell me who they made me fight against.

"You're an idiot," Goon Number One sneered at him, "and you're paying for it, not me."

The other rogue snorted. "I think it was worth it, though. She's brutal. Tore the skinny one clean apart. And did you see her face when she saw who she was fighting?"

No. No no no no no. I remembered, and pure, terrible anguish flooded over me. Not her. Please, not her.

The door opened and the room fell silent, save for the footsteps making their steady way towards me. I knew who it was straight away, but I was drowning and didn't care.

"Who is responsible for this?" My eyes fluttered open at the sound of his voice, and there he was, staring down at me, his expressive face hard.

"Uh, well, you see boss..." The cocky rogue was gone; in his place was a stuttering, fearful male, who, I suspect, knew his days were over.

"Evan," Master's voice cut over the stammering, addressing the other male, "Take him away and deal with him, please."

He crouched down onto his haunches as one male yanked the other out of my room, his eyes never leaving my face. "I would punish you for killing one of my girls," he whispered to me, "but I can see that you're punishing yourself enough, for now."

He saw, he knew what I was feeling. I tried, but I couldn't bury it, not this time, not when the image of her mauled face was screaming through my head. He sighed, eyes remaining ever watchful, and said the one thing that he knew would punish me more than anything physical ever could.

"A pity. Alice was one of your oldest friends, wasn't she?"