Page 23 of His Curse
"But it was bad last time. So bad,” Bella continues while her eyes bounce between the door and the clock on the wall. "You were in the Black Box almost a month, Lark. We thought you were... we didn't think you were coming back but you did, and you should just let it go. Maybe they'll let us out eventually."
I roll my eyes. "I've been here forty-five years, Bella. If they were going to let me out don't you think they would have by now? Especially since I'm such a pain in the ass."
Chumani bites her lip. “Whyareyou here, Lark?" Then her big brown eyes go wide. "Not that I'm complaining! I'm glad you're here with us but you're a wolf, a Luna for sure, but that doesn't really make you special.” Then she blurts, "No offense."
With a slight and probably out of place smile, I sigh. "Kentworth found something in me he liked, something he hasn't found in anyone else, and he's put up with my shit so long because of that. I'm not special, no more than any other wolf, but I am different."
"That have anything to do with your face?" Bella asks while not looking at me because she’s still staring at the back door.
Most people would probably be offended by that but I'm not. Never have been.
My face might be a little mangled, and my neck, shoulder, and my chest may all be pretty scarred, but I don't mind.
Not even after I healed and went home only to be shunned, to be exiled by my pack, directly by my father.
These scars were given to me by a version of my mate—my Colton—and I wear them with fucking pride.
Maybe that's messed up, but I don't care.
I love him. I love him so much, and I knowhedidn't do this to me just like I know he's the one that stopped that hideous wolf from killing me.
If my mate wasn't in there, if he hadn't continued to fight whatever was happening to him then I wouldn't be sitting here right now, and that is all I need to know.
My mate loves me as much as I love him and these scars are proof of that. Something I don't share with anyone because they wouldn't understand.
Hell, I barely understand it.
I mean, I don't understand what happened that night, anyway. The wholefinding my mate and falling in love with him instantlyI get, but not what actually happened to him, or to me that night.
And whatever it was didn't just leave me with scars, it left me with something else that Kentworth finds fascinating enough to keep me around.
"It has everything to do with my face.” I grin, the puckered skin pulling tight along my muscles while I do. "I'm just too pretty to set free."
Chumani reaches across the table and stills my hands. "You are beautiful, Lark. Your scars don't change that. And I'm not just saying it to make you feel better, you really are gorgeous."
I give her hand a squeeze then resume picking paint. "Regardless of my stunning good looks, Kentworth keeps me around because of something he's found in my blood. Something he's never seen before."
"Something dangerous,” Bella says seconds before her face breaks out into a beautiful smile I can see out of my peripherals and she’s on her feet and racing toward the back door even quicker, slamming into Wes without her divined knowing what was about to hit him.
We've been waiting about a half hour for the males to be let into the yard, and since they were late, my friends have been very anxious and nervous about why that is the entire time.
Probably just another tactic to fuck with us. Especially after such a big purge.
Our routine allows for yard time once our chores are done and after we eat our meals. If we do everything we're supposed to then we get an hour after breakfast and lunch, two after dinner for exercise and socializing in the yard with the others.
It's the only time all three halls are allowed to mingle, and we are heavily guarded at gunpoint because, despite the research it allows for, it's also incredibly dangerous to have so many shifters together at once. Even more so if we're fortunate enough to have someone like Bella or Wes around, and we’re watched even closer after dinner when the vampires are let out.
All the shifters and vamps have to wear collars, big bulky things that sit on our shoulders and close like a noose around our necks. If we were to shift with them on they would instantly decapitate us, most of us, those of us left anyway because of the way they’re rigged.
I saw a falcon shifter try to shift with his collar on once. Troy. He thought he would be small enough to slip out of it but that's how we discovered the serrated blade expands and completely closes at the center. Cut him right in half before he even spread his wings.
The vampires wear one that does the same but since evolution has made it almost impossible to cut their heads off, it also has a skinny rectangular panel that extends down the center of the chest, covers the heart and contains an iron spike that will go straight through the sternum, if need be.
Those are rigged to respond to the increase in heart rate along with the drop in body temperature that happens when a vampire goesfull vamp. That was a lot of trial and error over the last forty-five years since their bodies don't physically change much, and figuring out the signs was something that took more experimentation than even the doc thought it would.
Lost a lot of good people that way, too.
For those like Wes or Bella, well, that is a learning experience even for someone as crazy as Kentworth.
