Mending the Beast (Awakening Pride #10) - Lacey Thorn Page 0,3

was still bright in the sky when she stepped into the cool air and headed toward her car. At least, Daniel was with Murphy Dockery. She liked Murphy. Considered him and his brother, Finn, to be friends. The brothers teased and joked with her, making her feel like a little sister, at times. Murphy would keep Daniel safe, though she’d heard Finn’s mate, Laura, worry that Daniel seemed to have a death wish. Because of Ariel. They weren’t even mated, and she was already destroying him. Why couldn’t they all open their eyes and see that?

The Dockery brothers thought Ariel hated Laura. And Ariel had for a bit, but not for the reason they believed. She’d hated the other woman because she’d left her mate when he needed her the most. When Laura had first come across Finn, he’d been bleeding out and dying. Finn had only remembered that Laura had left him there, alone. Why wouldn’t Ariel hate the other woman for that? But like most things, there was more to the story. Finn actually had died, but Laura’s blood had managed to mix with his, and that had brought him back.

They thought Ariel hated Laura for another reason. For surviving. Maybe, a part of her had. She’d certainly screamed that at Laura. Laura had also been wooed by a hunter keen on tricking a female shifter into trusting him, following him. Straight into hell.

That such vileness existed sickened Ariel. It wasn’t enough for shifters to be hunted and killed. No. The purist society believed shifters were an abomination to be eradicated from the earth, but they had even worse plans for some. They had special places of torture where the captured could be drugged and experimented on. Where they might be forced to fight one another to the death. A lab where scientists would cut them open and poke at their insides while they were awake and unable to defend themselves.

Then there were the sexual games. Some hunters searched out solitary shifters, luring them into a trap. She’d been one of those. She’d been on her own for a year when he’d found her and easily wooed her with an offer of friendship from a man with a cute smile. She’d found him attractive and momentarily wondered what his touch would feel like. She’d been a naïve girl on the cusp of womanhood, but she still berated herself for that. For a momentary attraction to a monster. She’d laughed and gotten chummy with him, agreeing to tag along with him for a bit. For three days. Then she’d been drugged and had passed out cold, only to wake up with the sun rising above her. She’d been stripped naked, her limbs staked wide from her body, making her feel displayed.

Ariel growled as she wiped a stray tear from her cheek. Tears were useless. They hadn’t helped her then, and they wouldn’t now. She’d been young and foolish. Greedy for friendship. Nursing a desire to belong…somewhere. Anywhere. She’d fallen easily, and that one moment of need, of…weakness, would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Terror had filled her when they’d realized she was awake. The monster had been in his eyes that day. He hadn’t hidden behind a façade. He’d described in detail what he and his companions were going to do. Then they’d paraded through the male shifters they’d caught and drugged, letting her see what awaited her.

She was only part of their game, though. First, they made the males fight each other for the prize. She’d never forget the screams as two of them had turned on the third and ripped him apart. They’d been covered in blood when they’d turned to her. When they’d…

She choked back another growl as she jerked open the car door. Her animal had been drugged that day, forced to sleep inside her. There were certain things from that day she’d always remember, no matter how much she tried to nail shut the box inside her mind. The feel of the dirt under her back. The burn of the sun against her skin as morning turned to afternoon. The jeers and comments from the hunters as they’d watched. And the eyes of the two shifters who’d been forced to play a role in the sick torture that day. The sorrow and pain as they’d fought and lost against the drugs they’d been given.

I’m sorry.

Those two words had her breaking out in a cold sweat. Nausea brought bile to her throat as