Cobra still looked pissed, but he hobbled out of his bed and leaned against the wall for support.
Both men stared at me. Cobra’s eyes wrinkled slightly with concern.
“P-P-Please stand r-r-right h-here.” I pointed at a random spot on the far wall.
Both Ascher and Cobra looked at me distrustfully, but I filled my eyes with tears and gave a pathetic little sniffle.
They both went to the far wall and leaned against it.
With all my remaining strength, I threw myself into the bathroom, slammed the door, and locked it behind me.
“What do you need from us, Princess?” Ascher called out, his voice thick with worry.
“T-T-To leave m-m-me the fuck a-alone!” I screamed, and they shouted expletives back at me.
Actually, Ascher swore up a blue streak and shouted. Cobra calmly launched into a tirade about my pathetic character and how I was probably a spy.
Ripping off Jax’s oversize clothes, I fell over a couple of times as I tried to get my frozen limbs to work.
With my eyes shutting from tiredness, I barely manage to dump the entire bag of healing salts into the tub. Unfortunately, I also dropped the bag itself into the tub, but I had bigger problems.
Stumbling forward, I once again face-planted, naked, into a hot bath.
Except this time, I turned over and screamed in agony.
The warm water burned impossibly, and I reckoned my skin was melting off the bone. I fucking hated the cold.
I reminded myself why I was putting myself through this shit. Lucinda was still safe and at school. I needed to get her away from Dick.
In the meantime, I couldn’t get myself killed. I had to obey the oligarchy.
Outside, Ascher bellowed as I screamed, and slammed against the door. Cobra laughed like a psychopath.
“Congrats, little girl. If it burns, that means you’ll live.” Cobra chuckled like my agony was the funniest thing in the world.
I fucking hated it here.
Lying back in the boiling tub, I squinted my eyes shut with pain and fantasized about slowly dismembering a certain pale alpha.
There was a small zing on my back as the little shadow snake laughed in agreement. It didn’t care about how violent my thoughts were; it always got happy when I thought about Cobra.
Little snake was as fucked up as he was.
Sinking deeper into the boiling tub, I closed my eyes and prayed I would wake up in a different realm. I prayed that everything about the shifter realm was just a bad dream.
Spoiler—it wasn’t.
JAX
RAGE
A few seconds later…
I sprinted as fast as I could through the forest. Inhaling icy air, I exhaled pure rage and…pain.
The forest flashed around me in a blur as I ran away from Sadie and toward John.
A goddamn coward.
