Compelled (Shadow Beast Shifters Book 5)

As the daughter of a pack enforcer, I wasn’t a stranger to pain. My father had been a big believer in tough love, especially when he was trying to teach me a lesson. After all, no good enforcer would flinch in the face of torture, right?

And what was the best way to ensure I wouldn’t flinch? Years of staggered torture.

You get used to things, he’d say to me. Pain and fear could be overcome with strict training.

Mom had stopped him from ever going too far, but I’d still been on the receiving end of his “training” many times. This training was how I knew after the blast of the stone that my body was broken, burned, and shattered.

Mera had always wondered why I’d been a “sucker for punishment” as she put it, sticking around as the best friend of the pack’s punching bag. I’d never told her the truth because she had so much going on already, but I was never afraid of school bullies. There was a much worse one in my house.

As I went in and out of consciousness, knowing that the stone had torn me to pieces, I was aware that someone was gathering up the parts of me that were no longer attached. Gathering them and stitching me back together.

This pain was beyond all torture, as I was burned and pierced and cut with no relief in sight. I welcomed it when the pain got too hard to handle and the darkness found me.

I should be dead. There was no doubt in my mind. And even as my body was rearranged and placed into a huge bath of liquid, I had no idea how I was alive. Not just how but also who had done this? Who held me now?

It wasn’t Lucien; the blood in the bath was foreign, and while it might be healing me, it also made me want to vomit all over my broken self.

Eventually, the healing reached a point where I could crawl out of the pain-filled space in my head and force my eyelids to lift. It was hard. It felt like a million tons of bricks sat on my face, but I worked my way through it.

The room came into view slowly, and as the shadowy area grew clearer, my blinks slowed over gritty eyeballs. There was nothing familiar around me; I’d never been here before, but from what I could see, the room wasn’t much bigger than my apartment back home. The walls were dark grey stone, and the equally grey metal bath I floated in was much wider and longer than my body.

I couldn’t move my limbs or even really lift my head, but I could see just enough down my body to note that half my right leg was gone and my internal organs were floating on the outside.

Nausea rose in my throat at the sight, so I lifted my gaze to the ceiling, breathing through the moment. Needing another focus, I wondered again who was to blame for this. Was it Carter’s doing? Or had it been Hattie’s parents?

Or was there another enemy out there I was unaware of?

Only one way to find out. “Hello?”

I always hated in horror movies when the person about to die stupidly alerted the killer to their location by repeating “hello” over and over. In this instance, though, it wasn’t like I was hiding. Someone had put me in this bath. Someone was out there watching me. Someone had better let me know what the fuck they wanted from me.

“Show your fucking face,” I called, voice sounding perfectly fine even though the rest of me looked like a damn woodchipper had done me over. “Face me like a man.”

In the back of my head, I blamed Carter for this. And I might have been wrong, but I couldn’t shake the feeling.

A deep, echoing sound suddenly filled the stone room, like someone had beat one of those large brass gongs. It was eerie, seeming to build in strength the longer it went on. The room vibrated, and as the water around me shook, I wanted to scream and cover my ears, but I still couldn’t move.

Closing my eyes again, I moved my focus inward, hoping that I might be able to push the healing of my body along. Inside, the pain was almost stronger than outside, and I found my wolf in agony, taking so much of it into herself to protect me. No, I whispered. We face it together. Release the pain and rise.

Her howl was broken, and it broke me too. I’d have taken the torn skin, burns, and severed muscles any day if it meant she didn’t ever have to feel this pain again.

It took more coaxing, but eventually she released the bubble of energy she’d been using to shield me, and I screamed as new and more vicious agony raged through me. My scream went on so long that I felt like I’d suffered permanent damage to my hearing and voice by the time I could stop.

Pain was odd in that, if the initial shock didn’t kill you, your body adjusted. Your pain threshold grew so you could handle more than you ever thought possible. Once the first burst of pain registered, I was able to compartmentalize it so I could go back to figuring out who was in the room with me.

My wolf wrapped around me and offered her sight to help me see. Not that there was anything other than stone walls, ceiling, and a metal bath visible.

The gong continued on, and I prayed for the ability to lift my hands and cover my ears. Until it suddenly stopped, and a voice rumbled around me.

“That’s what you pray for, child?”

It was deep and dark, like a dream and nightmare collided. It came from nowhere and everywhere, and I sensed that I was about to find out exactly who had dropped my body parts into a bath of blood.