Chapter 2

• I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but I’m back in time. I traveled back to right before the wedding to Lachlan.
• I don’t know what I did wrong. I thought I was ending it all. I thought I was finally going to find freedom and peace in death. I guess even that is too much to ask for. Here I am, back at the beginning of my hellish marriage.
• “You look so beautiful, Elelira, dear,” Mimi coos as the omega doing my hair finishes pinning the last tendril in place.
• “Ela. You can call me Ela,” I told her with a warm smile as I stared back at her reflection in the mirror. Her soft, wrinkled cheeks glow a soft pink as she smiles back, an all too familiar motherly smile.
• I loved Niomi, my Mimi, because she always smiled at me this way, filling that motherly void. When I needed support through the first year of my marriage, before I had completely closed myself off to my husband for good, she was there, holding the pieces of me together, then showing me that motherly smile, telling me how proud she was of me for enduring the pain.
• She thought the pain was from a fated mate I left behind without rejecting in my uncle's pack. I never told her it was Lachlan. I wanted to, but I was scared. I was scared of what others would do if they found out I was part fae. I was past the age where pure Lycan’s are able to find their mate, but because my lycan was cloaked in my repressed magic, no one would believe me if I told them I was the Alpha’s fated mate. Not without me revealing why I could detect him, but he couldn’t detect me.
• This pack has a long history of wars with other races. That is why Lachlan holds the brutal reputation that he bears. The reason Lachlan entered this alliance with my uncle in the first place was to prevent a coming war with the Northern covens and clans over land as they sought a passageway to the southern sea. Lachlan needed the alliance to give him time to rebuild and strengthen his army.
• Uncle wanted to keep Lachlan on a leash, hoping that my marriage to him would result in an heir to the pack. When I was captured by my uncle’s forces, that was what he revealed to me. I had failed, so I was rendered useless, like my mother, and given to his men. He did not want the threat of my magic and my true father’s revenge on his pack, so I was to be done away with when the men had enough of me.
• The hell and horror I faced during those weeks made the betrayal pains seem like tickles and mild heartburn.
• It has turned my heart into stone, and I truly never want a man to touch me ever again.
• There was some good, if you can call it that, that came from my uncle confronting me one last time. He knew who my true father was, and I now have a small clue about how to find him.
• ~~~~~~~~~~~~
• *(flashback contains triggers: implied rape and assault)*
• “Well, look who came back. I had my port guards and warriors on alert for the chance of your return, but I didn’t think you were this idiotic to actually come on shore. Not when your ex-husband is on the hunt for you.” My uncle smiled menacingly, crouching down in front of me, where I was being held in place, kneeling on the floor between two guards.
• I just wanted to sneak on shore for a moment. Just a moment to visit the public record office, to see what fae or siren representatives may have visited in the months before my birth. I had been searching the seas for months, and was no closer to finding the entrance of the siren liars.
• I knew that they visited land with the fairy courts when they sent out their delegation parties every 7 years, but I had no idea how to find them.
• Coming to land was my last resort, and what led to my tragic capture.
• “When that monstrous asshole sent word demanding atonement for lying about your birth father, I knew. I knew that the reason your Lycan side was weaker, and why, after your 20th birthday, you were able to escape by sea was that he was truly the one who fathered you. He always showed your mother favor above the other whores.” Uncle cackled in his sick, gravely voice. “You have greatly angered your husband. Or should I say, ex-husband. You are more worthless than your mother,” he scoffed. "You had one job. Open your legs and give him a son. How am I going to control that pup and his ports now? My own daughter has just found her mate. Looks like I will have to take this to war. There is no other choice now. And you," he chuckles menacingly, "You failed to open your legs properly for him, but I'll let you atone for that until your death now."
• Valerina growled menacingly through me, and Uncle looked up at one of his guards, nodding with a sick smile. The guard produced a vial from his pocket while the other bent over me, holding my head in place, pulling my jaw down with so much force I felt it dislocate with excruciating pain as the other poured the contents of the vial down my throat.
• I sputtered, but without the use of my jaw, I couldn’t fully close my mouth. Valerina couldn’t heal me enough in time before the medicine kicked in.
• My magic was already being suppressed by the black diamond and pearl cuffs on my wrists, and now my lycan was being restrained inside me.
• “I think we broke her jaw,” one of the men mused like it wasn’t that big of a deal.
• Uncle just snorts. “A broken jaw might be useful for the only purpose she can serve now. After you men are finished with her, make sure she is taken care of. I already have Lachlan, that bastard, demanding her return. He probably wished to eliminate her himself after the embarrassment he faced. But, if her father were to suspect I’d been using and mistreating his own blood, he would retaliate, and that would not bode well for us. She is to be disposed of when she can no longer serve the men. Understood?”
• “Yes, alpha,” the men recite together with devious smirks, eying my scantily clad body in a sick way that makes my stomach roll.
• ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• “Elelira? Ela!” Mimi calls out to me, snapping me out of the memory.
• “Yes?” I met her eyes in the mirror as a look of concern masked her face.
• “Are you alright, child? Is something not to your liking? We can change the accessories if you-”
• “No, no. It’s fine,” I smiled at her.
• I take in my appearance; my youthful face, no longer containing the heavy bags under my no longer dull eyes from all the nights of fretful sleep. My glowing skin, unmarred by the harsh elements that I had to battle daily the last year of my marriage to supply my own firewood, food, doing my own laundry in the stream a mile inland so as not to disturb the maids. Lachlan made it clear I was not his true Luna and could not order his staff as I pleased. I hated that trek to wash my laundry. Without proper shoes to travel across the rocky landscape, my feet would be blistered and bleeding as I came back every time.
• Mimi would take care of all that for me when she was alive, being able to order the maids and staff as she pleases. I did not have that ability. After she died, I was truly on my own.
• “Do you have to do this again, Ela?” Val asked me. “Can we not just run away?”
• “If we leave now, where will we go? Without our fins and our gills, we would be stuck on land and could easily be captured and returned to Lachlan, or worse, my uncle. Also, we need to reject him, Val. If we don’t, we could be living our entire lives with the pains of betrayal. We know he won’t touch us, and no one else will during our time here. We could face worse out there.”
• “There has to be a way to attain your fins and gills before your magic comes in. If not, how do siren children survive?”
• “They are born from siren mothers, so are born in their siren forms. We had a Lycan mother. We can’t access that form until our seal is broken.”
• Val whimpers, not wanting to face the endless rejection of her mate again. It hardened my heart, but hers is still longing for the one she was fated for. She never met Lachlan’s beast. She doesn’t hold the same closure I was able to attain in the rejection.
• This will be the first night the pain begins. Our wedding night was his first act of betrayal.
• I waited for him, hoping he would come, only to be struck by the greatest pain I had ever felt up to that point while he entertained himself with another woman that night.
• This night will not be any different.
• No, there will be a difference. I have known greater pain than he could ever give me. I have been subjected to far worse than betrayal.
• I will not wait for him. I will not long for him. I will not let a single tear fall from my eyes as my chest burns and throbs for hours on end.
• My heart is already closed off, and there is no hope for me in this marriage, fated mate or not. I will just endure once again, biding my time until I can finally be granted my freedom.