Candace

Everything was white, a pungent smell of antiseptic coated the warm air. My eyelids felt too heavy as I tried opening my eyes.

"...showing signs of delusion and self harm..."

My brows furrowed as I tried to place that voice. It sounded so far away. Where was I?

After what felt like forever, my eyelids fluttered open. The light above me was too bright. I wanted to shield my face from it but my hands wouldn’t move.

I blinked rapidly and the white ceiling swam into view. White spots drifted across my vision like ash. I tried to lift my arm and the clanking of metal reached my ears.

My head dipped further into the pillow to see cold iron was cuffed around my wrists and bolted to the frame of the bed under me.

What on earth?! What was going on?

My hands were wrapped in thick bandages. Searing hot pain drifted across my back. I couldn’t lie against the mattress properly and had to angle myself slightly off it.

What a fucking pity. I hadn’t slept in a bed in three years and the first time I did, it was at a hospital? Everything and everywhere hurt.

"...hurts and scars herself. Accuses her family of the most outrageous things..."

A weak groan tore through my lips as I tried to sit up, maneuvering around my cuff hands to the bed.

Was this really the pack hospital though? It was so eerily quiet except for the voice I was hearing outside the room.

A high jagged sinister laugh rang out behind me. I whipped in the direction and my jaw dropped.

My eyes traveled the length of the room and kept traveling, past beds, past bodies, past hollow eyes and metal glinting under the pale chandelier light. Several people were handcuffed to metal cuffs.

The man in the bed nearest to me was yanking at his chains with both hands, his head thrown back, cackling at the ceiling. His eyes were wide and empty as he laughed like a maniac.

My heart raced fast, sweeping over the others.

Across from him a woman sat perfectly still, her hair covering her face. Further down, someone was hitting their own head hard against the padded headboard.

Oh goddess. This was Pack’s mental institute! This was where they sent the wolves who had gone insane. They put me in the fucking madhouse.

A strange chill settled into my bones.

My fingers brushed my throat on instinct, feeling for the cold iron ring. My collar was gone, and somehow no one had noticed. I pressed my lips together. I wouldn’t be the one to tell them.

The voice outside the ward that I had been hearing was my Uncle’s voice. The door to the ward opened and a nurse walked in first. She was dressed in yellow scrubs, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. There was a clipboard in her hands.

Behind her was Deidre.

My whole body went rigid. Deidre crossed the room toward my bed. Her face was marred with soft, worried lines, her hands clasped in front of her. She reached toward my arm and I jerked away as far as the cuffs allowed.

"Don’t fucking touch me!"

She blinked and pulled her lips in a wounded expression. "Cousin, you look so battered. How are you feeling?"

Worse now that I get to see you two faced self!

But I couldn’t say that because the nurse interrupted. She stepped forward, tapping her clipboard with a pen. "Good, you’re awake. How are you feeling?"

"Like I was tortured," I spat, my whole body shaking in anger. "Because I was."

She gave me a patronizing smile. "You were brought in after you were found harming yourself. Given the marks on your body and the lacerations on your wrists, I understand-"

"Those lacerations on my wrists are two years old." I tried sitting upright but the cuffs snapped taut and killed my attempt immediately.

"My aunt gave them to me. She held my arm down and used a letter opener because Deidre broke a vase and blamed it on me. I didn’t do that to myself. What’s going on? Let me out of here."

"See?" Deidre sighed. "She’s always talking like this. Why would we try to harm you, Candy?"

"Don’t worry," The nurse turned to her, giving her hand a squeeze. "We’ll give her the best care we can."

"I’m not insane!" I spat, yanking against the cuffs. "She’s lying about this."

The door opened wider and Aunt Elena swept in with Uncle Nathan and Dylan behind her, limping on his bandaged foot.

He tossed me a wink while his mom dramatically held her hand to her mouth. "Can you see? Can you see what she’s reduced herself to? After all we did for you?"

Did for me? Heck, she had tortured me since the day Father died. She went from being the sweetest aunt to becoming the Medusa I never knew existed.

"She even accused her own cousin of trying to touch her," Uncle Nathan muttered, his eyes filled with malice as they held mine.

"We were told she attempted to burn herself as well," the nurse said, turning a page on the clip board.

"I didn’t burn myself." The cuffs clanked as I pulled against them. "I was tortured. My hands were held down on hot coals by guards in the packhouse courtyard in front of at least fifty sadists!"

"Candy." Deidre’s called softly. "Sweetheart, we’re worried about you."

"Don’t call me that!" I turned back to the nurse. "I’m not delusional. I’m not a danger to myself. Every single mark on my body was put there by someone in that family. I can account for every single one of them if someone would just listen to me."

"I understand you’re upset,"

"I’m not upset, I’m telling you the truth,"

Her eyes widened and she took a step back slamming a button under the bed. "Just try to stay calm,"

That could not be good.

"Let me out of these cuffs." I pulled hard against the iron, the metal biting into my wrists. "I want to leave. You can’t keep me here. I haven’t done anything to be kept here!"

Two men in white ward coats walked in and fear curled in my gut. Uncle Nathan and Aunt Elena had built a different version of what happened and told it to the doctors.

Why had I expected anything different? Every truth I had ever told in this pack had been taken and turned inside out.

Dylan’s attack on me was rewritten as seduction. As if I would ever want to seduce that disgusting asshole! Three years of their boots on my body was now rewritten as self-harm.

There was no proof. I had no proof and even if I did, who in the GraceSpring pack would look at it?

I was still pulling at the cuffs when the doctors moved quickly, one of them whipping out a syringe.

"Get away from me!" I twisted, screaming and kicking my feet in the air. The two of them caught my legs and a stab pricked in my neck.

They injected me. My eyes grew drowsy, taking in the smug looks on the faces of people that were once my family.

Hatred and anger coursed through me like wild fire in my veins as I thought of the many things I’d do when I became free.

Dylan’s dick would go on a long sabbatical.

He was a bastard and didn’t deserve having one anyway, just like every other man who touched any woman without her consent.

The drug hit my bloodstream and my vision blurred. The ring on Deidre’s fingers caught my eyes, swimming in and out of focus.

If she married them, if she became their Luna, I wouldn’t survive what came after. Deidre Sinclair already made my life hell. Deidre Pendragon would make me wish for death.

I had to stop that from happening. But what could I do? As the drug overpowered me and I drifted unconscious, a voice that I had almost forgotten existed rang through my head.

"Hello, Candy."

***

Two weeks later, the packhouse smelled of flowers. They had been two gruesome weeks of white walls and sedatives and Deidre’s concerned face appearing at the ward door.

Two weeks of being told I was delusional while my wounds healed faster than anyone noticed. I would never forget them.

White roses had been wound around every banister, every doorframe, every surface that could hold them.

Ivory silk draped in the hallways, caterers moved through the corridors and somewhere in the east wing a group of singers were rehearsing for Deidre’s mating ceremony.

"Oh my gosh, mom, I can’t believe this!" Deidre gushed, clapping her hands over her cheeks. "It’s my wedding day!"

I stood in the corner of her quarters in a pink bridesmaid dress, watching Elena circle around her daughter. Deidre was all covered in white in the most humongous wedding dress I had ever seen.

That was the only reason Aunt Elena had dragged me out of the mental hospital. She had wanted someone to slave around and carry Deidre’s heavy dress when she walked the aisle and I was apparently perfect for that.

I was sure they also got me out just so they could watch me suffer. My mates...ex-mates, were getting married to my cousin afterall. Deidre and her family wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to twist the knife they stabbed me in the chest with.

"Perfect," Her mother breathed, smoothing the veil with both hands.

"Absolutely perfect. Do you see? Do you see how beautiful you are? Your father is going to weep. Finally, you’ll become the Luna,"

Deidre turned in front of the mirror, beaming. "Ugh, mom, I look like a Queen!"

"You are already the queen, Didi," Elena gushed. "You’re perfect, my baby girl,"

My eyes dropped to the marble floor, blinking back the hot tears. My mother used to brush my hair before pack events. She would section it with her fingers first, humming, telling me I was her angel.

That time felt so far away. They took it all from me. I wasn’t even sure mom was still alive.

No, no more tears.

Tonight, I just had to get through tonight. When the celebration was at its height and everyone was drunk as hell, I would leave. I would walk out of this pack without looking back. I would rather die in the forest than go back to that mental institute.

"I know you didn’t want to agree to be my bridesmaid." Deidre’s eyes found mine in the mirror, that malicious smile on her lips. "But come on, cousin. You have to be happy for me. It’s my special day."

I would rather chew stones. She shrugged and turned back to her reflection, satisfied.

Nobody had noticed the collar was gone. With the two weeks of chaos and wedding preparation, not one person in GraceSpring pack had registered that the iron ring that had suppressed my wolf for a year was no longer around my throat.

They were all paying attention Deidre and I would be a fool to tell them.

I knew I had said I wouldn’t go. I would clear my father’s name. But I needed power. I had nothing and no one. I couldn’t avenge anyone from a madhouse or a grave. So I had to get power then I would be back to make everyone pay.

Star,my wolf stirred in my chest, purring. Thanks to her arrival, my wounds were rapidly healing. I could leave. I could finally leave.

Nothing good awaited me if I remained here.

Tonight, I thought, smoothing the pink dress with bandaged hands. Tonight, I would leave.