Chapter 122

Sinclair Don’t shift, don’t shift, don’t shift. I think manically Ella needs you.

Listening to Ella recount her childhood always makes me furious, but this time is worse than all the others. I’ve suspected that Ella suffered terrible traumas for some time now, but before this night l’d been able to pacify my outrage with the hope that I’m wrong.

No longer.

As Ella speaks, I wonder how she could ever imagine herself weak. I can’t even stand to listen to her story, but she actually lived it. She sacrificed herself for her sister, and she survived things I can only imagine “When the matron realized it was me, she smiled so cruelly that my stomach turnedshe was only too glad to take, me instead of Cora.” Ella continues, shuddering with the memory. Her unease gives my wolf the push he needed to put aside his own rage and comfort her. I finally manage a weak purr, and Ella presses her nose to my chest, breathing in my scent.

“She took me to her own room and put me in her bed, and then she got in with me and.. started touching me in ways I didn’t like or understand.

She made me touch her too, and she never stopped talking She told me how pretty I was over and over, and kept asking me if I liked it. I said no, but she just insisted that this was a special, secret game I was lucky to play. She said everything I was feeling might be confusing, but it was good and right and natural. She said it took practice, but that we’d have plenty of time.. Afterwards she took me back to the dorm with a reminder not to share our secret. Cora asked me what happened but I didn’t know how to explain.”

“The next day I went to the doctor in residence, and I told him what the matron had done. I’d never liked him much, but in my heart I knew what had happened was wrong, and I didn’t know who else to tell. I thought that since it was about my body, the doctor was the one who could help. There was no such thing as sex ed at the orphanage and no one else ever talked to us about our bodies. At first I was relieved to tell someone. The doctor seemed very concerned, and agreed that it sounded strange.”

“Then he told me that he needed to examine me..

Ella’s words are coming in starts and stops now, and her shaking is getting worse. The bath is still steaming around us, so I know she isn’t cold and I know the worst isn’t over yet. “He took off my clothes and put me on the exam table. and then I’ll never forget the way he said, ‘now it’s very important that you be still, Ella. This is a different kind of exam than you’re used to, and if you move too much I could hurt you.

Tears stream down Ella s cheeks as she quotes the doctor, and it takes all my strength to contain my wolf. “Then he said, T know little girls can have a hard time staying still, so I have these nifty straps to help you. He pulled out restraints from under the table and strapped me down. and then he asked me exactly what the matron did, and when I explained he would touch me exactly how she had, saying like this? and if I didn’t answer, if I cried or objected, he would only do it rougher and demand I tell him”

“After the first minute or so I figured out what he was about, and I didn’t want to answer his questions anymore, but if I didn’t speak he would start guessing more and more abuses, always demonstrating them on my body. They were far worse than anything she’d done.. So I answered. I told him how to hurt me.” Ella is interrupted by my ferocious snarl, and she looks up at me for the first time since she started speaking. Her eyes are overflowing, but she offers me a bitter smile and reaches up to stroke my jaw. “It’s okay, big bad wolf, it’s almost over.

My snarl becomes a whine, and Ella determinedy forges on. “I was too young to understand why they did those things, but I knew how it made me feel: guilty, tainted, defiled.. I never wanted it to happen again, but I was already broken, and there were other girls like Cora who weren’t yet.

Oh no. No, no, no tell me she didn’t!I have a horrible sick feeling in my stomach, and I wish could go back in time and whisk Ella away from that horrible place before anyone could hurt her.

Of course, that only would have meant other children would be hurt, which is how I already know what Ella did. My brave, brilliant little mate would never stand by and let another child be abused... even if it meant being abused herself.

“So I stopped hiding at night. I gave myself up so the others wouldn’t be touched.. I figured I couldn’t be ruined more than I already was, and it was better than allowing someone else to be destroyed.” Ella shares, confirming my fears but also magnifying my despair by explaining her logic. “The matron came almost every night... and the doctor would call me in for check ups every few weeks. I hated those visits worse than anything. the matron was sort of gentle, and she never tied me down or gagged me.

She didn’t want to inflict pain, she seemed determined to make me like it.”

The doctor was different. He was a true sadist; he loved my fear, loved my pain. And he escalated over time.” Ella hides her face in my neck as she concludes her horrible tale “When I was twelve he r*ped me, and that’s when Cora and I ran away. I invited the other girls to run with us, but most were more afraid of living on the street than they were of the matron. Luckily they didn’t know about the doctor, and I warned the ones who stayed behind to never confide in him.”

My hands are clamped so tightly on Ella I’m afraid I must be hurting her, but she doesn’t complain.

She’s still crying, but her muscles have unwound now that her story is complete.

There are tears in my own eyes, and I can only kiss and caress my sweet mate as I process everything she shared. “

Are they still there? The matron and the doctor?” I finally ask, my voice a dangerous hiss.

“No.” Ella replies. “Cora and I could only live outside during the summers, and we tried to stay away through the first winter, but eventually the police found us squatting in an abandoned building and returned us to the orphanage. When we got back they had both been fired. Apparently a state inspection was run and the entire staff was booted out. The new regime wasn’t much better, so we kept running away in the summers, but it was safe enough to return each winter.. I have no idea where those two are now.

I’ll hunt them down.” I decide, bloodthirsty fantasies already racing through my mind. If it’s possible, my wolf is dreaming of even gorier revenges than I am, particularly for the doctor.

We’ll just see how he likes being tied up and gagged. How much he enjoys pain and having things shoved.

“You don’t have to do that.” Ella interupts his disturbing plans, nuzzling my throat. “I survived, and I’m safe now.” She says it almost as though she’s trying to remind herself more than me, and I scold myself for turning to vengeance when she still needs comforting.

“You are safe.” I confirms, stroking her hair and depositing kisses everywhere I can reach. “You’re safe and loved and the only way anyone will ever hurt you again is over my dead body.”1 don’t add that I still plan on finding her abusers, if not for vengeance than to ensure they never harm another child. I’m painfully aware of the fact that other children might be in their grasps at this very moment, but Ella doesn’t need to hear that Ella pulls her head up, narrowing her red eyes at me “Dominic, I would rather be hurt than lose you.

No. I proclaim, the corner of my mouth twitching up. “I will lay down my life before I allow you to get so much as a paper cut. I will throw myself to the wolves if you even stub your toe.

Ella manages a small laugh, and the pain in my chest eases slightly She peeks up at me from beneath her lashes “But if you’re not here then who will kiss my injuries better? Who will keep me from bumping into furniture and bruising myself?

Hmm, you make a good point.” I decide, “perhaps we can negotiate the level of injury that warrants my death.”

“How gracious of you” She smiles, sighing as I run my hands up and down her sides.

I’m infinitely relieved that Ella has finally relaxed, but I can’t get over what she told me.

“You’re incredible, you know that? I inquire, knowing she doesn’t want to hear it, but shushing her objections. “I mean it, Ella. I know you were angry with yourself for panicking when you were trying to help me, but the fact that you did is the direct result of the sacrifices you made to protect your family. It’s not a sign of weakness Sweetheart. It’s evidence of your strength your resilience. I lean down to kiss her You were born to be a Luna, and you will be mine.