Bleeding Hearts Read online

  He hadn’t expected such a heartfelt response from her. Blatantly honest and open. Luke dropped the towel to his side. He didn’t even try and cover himself up. Doll’s eyes looked him over and then away as she stepped back from him.

  “We’re all werewolves here, right?” He said playfully, aware of her awkwardness at his nudity. It wasn’t in his nature as a werewolf to not push a little.

  “Right.” Doll replied lifting her chin up. He kept smiling at her, wondering what she’d do next. For once, he wasn’t dealing with a predictable woman who’d just immediately strip and pour herself all over him. Doll’s inner werewolf was crouching on it’s haunches. It didn’t know better than to be alert and ready for anything. She didn’t know why she was still standing there. Part of her couldn’t let the defiance thing she felt when challenged go. Not after what she’d been through.

  Luke grinned at her and his eyes dropped over her clothes and landed back on her face. He was challenging her, she realised. Doll’s face hardened and then she let out a breath and smirked at him Luke thought. To raise to the challenge or not? Two could play that game; she refused to be a walk over to anyone, anymore.

  She grabbed the bottom of her long sleeved top and pulled it up and over her head, dropping it aside before him on purpose. Putting her arms behind her back, as if on display for him. Was he happy with what he saw?

  Luke’s eyes dropped to her breasts and lingered on her peaked nipples. Pert breasts that’s nipples had hardened at the cold air touching them. Her body tense and warm because of the sight of him. Luke took in the sight of her, she had a slim build but she was underweight, he could see it too easily on her. Her hips stood out a bit too much and her ribs were almost visible. Life on the street had to be hard. Doll was on the thin side and he could see too clearly the definition of her flat stomach. Luke sighed softly looking back up at her, he still didn’t want her to stop, whatever they’d started there. He made a point of silently looking at her jeans.

  Doll sighed impatiently and undid her jeans quickly and slid them off her legs before kicking them aside without regard. Really? This was the challenge? If it meant that was how she and Jeremy, paid their way there, then it was fine with her. She gave him a silent look that asked if he was satisfied with himself, before turning to the shower.

  It was the slight sound of his intake of breath made as she turned her back to him, that suddenly made her feel self-conscious and she stilled instantly, crossing her arms over her bare chest. She had forgotten. How had she forgotten about the scars? They littered her body. Her back, the backs of her arms, her rear and hamstrings. Normally she was incredibly conscious of them. It was why she wore long sleeved tops. And now she was showing him everything about her. Everything ugly about her. Everything the Alpha Pack had done to her.

  Luke noted that Doll was completely still, like a statute, he could barely tell if she was even breathing.

  “What happened?” His voice was hoarse as he realised the dark marks around her ankles, matched similar marks around her wrists. Like a werewolf would get if they were shackled in silver for a long period of time.

  Werewolves had the ability to heal themselves from injury and scaring through shape shifts. Of course, there were still ways to permanently scar a werewolf. One of them would be by shackling them for a long period of time, in silver. It tended to leave burn like marks on the body if left for extremely long periods of time.

  Luke walked up to her, dropping the towel from his hand. His hand ghosting over the rough criss-cross marks over her back. She remained absolutely still. Her whole back rigid with tension. Whip marks. His anger flared to life. Who would whip someone like Doll? And if they were permanent scar marks on her, it probably meant she’d been whipped with silver while chained in silver.

  “Who did this to you?” He demanded angrily.

  Doll’s breathing become almost as still as her. She tensed up. Luke reigned in his anger, realising he was just freaking her out further. He walked around to the front of Doll. She dropped her head, her gaze going to the floor before them. She might night have any pride, but she had bucket loads of shame and smarts. She could be smart enough to know how to deal with an angry alpha werewolf.

  “I won’t hurt you.” Luke gently reached up and unwrapped her arms from her chest, dropping them to her sides. He could sense her shame like it was part of the steam in the bathroom. “Doll, you have no reason to feel ashamed.” He said putting a hand under chin and lifting her face so she looked at him. What he saw in her eyes made his chest hurt. She was trying so hard to be brave, her eyes threatened to spill tears and yet she stood there, stiffly trying to keep herself together.

  “Please tell me who did this to you.” He said softly. “I need to know.”

  “You can’t help.” Doll replied in a low voice as a tear seeped out of her.

  “I don’t want to help Doll.”

  “Oh.”

  “I want to kill the whoever did this to you.” Luke replied his anger evident but controlled as his thumb wiped at the tear running down her face. Her eyes looked into his and she saw the conviction in them. It was a nice thought, even if he only meant it in passing. Why would a stranger want to do something so dramatic as killing in her name when he didn’t even know her? For someone like her, she was nothing, Luke was everything. He was an alpha from the leading werewolf pack in his district.

  “It wasn’t just me, they did things to Jeremy too.” Doll’s voice cracked as she looked u away again. His finger lifted her chin to look at him again. His chest ached for her, and he wanted to help her in anyway he could.

  “Who Doll?”

  “The Alpha Pack.” She whispered as if saying the very name of her tormentors might bring them back to her.

  7

  It was hard for Luke to leave Doll to shower and dress alone. He had a tonne of questions he wanted to ask her, he had an urgent need to touch her, to let her know she was safe with him. He found himself wanting to take her pain away and bring back that hidden smile he’d only seen the one time. He asked her to meet him in the kitchen for breakfast where he had implied they would talk. Meaning, she would tell him everything about The Alpha Pack, wether she wanted to or not. As much as Doll didn’t want to or even like the idea, the fact was that four hundred dollars was at stake and she needed that money. So she would talk.

  Jeremy slept on and Doll was grateful for that. She didn’t think she could talk if Jeremy were there too. It was already hard enough looking at Luke, knowing he’d seen her wrecked body. Seen what they’d done to her. How they’d marked her as theirs through the torment of torture. Jeremy deserved to sleep. It was rare they got to have a solid night’s sleep without fear, or nightmares intruding in on them.

  Luke stood in the kitchen, coffee cup in hand as Doll sat at the table, a bowl of cereal, untouched before her. Waiting, patiently for Doll to tell him about The Alpha Pack and the scars on her body. “Why don’t you start with, who they are?” Luke said over the top of his coffee cup.

  Doll pushed the spoon around her bowl of cereal. “I don’t know. They never said their names around us. There were about ten of them at any given time.” She said pushing the spoon around absently. “And they were all alpha werewolves, but I don’t think they were from the same pack.”

  Luke sipped his coffee and remained in the corner of the kitchen. If he moved it would be to pace the room and that would just stir up his werewolf into a frenzy that wanted to go hunt those that hurt Doll down and do some serious damage on them and he didn’t even know who he would be going up against. Not a smart move by werewolf standards.

  “They would come and go, you know. Jeremy and I were kept locked up in a basement. They had silver chains that they kept us in almost permanently.”

  “How long did the abuse happen for?” Luke asked gruffly. Not liking that he had to ask the words out loud to her.

  “A year.” Doll said softly stopping the spoon from moving through the mushy cereal. Luke put his coffe
e down immediately.

  Fuck. A year of abuse at the hands of a pack of alpha werewolves, it was impressive that Doll and Jeremy had survived to live to tell the tale. It was no wonder Doll trusted no one, especially werewolves. And why she had trust issues with him being an alpha werewolf.

  “How? How did it happen?” Luke pushed on. He had to know what had happened to her, because he was determined to do something about it for her. He’d been raised as an alpha to help protect those weaker than him. Not dominate them and use his alpha abilities to abuse them.

  Doll sighed and leant back in her chair, drawing her knees into her chest. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know exactly. Just, one day these group of alpha werewolves came into Cripple Creek and discovered my pack, we were only a handful and they proceeded to…” She gulped as a lump caught in her throat. “Seek each of us out and kill each werewolf they came across. There was no provocation for it, there was no reasoning behind it. Other than they just didn’t want other werewolves around them or something.”

  “Holy shit.” Luke muttered. “I know the type they take a lot of controlling. Alpha werewolves that can’t handle other strong personalities, in particular being around other alpha male werewolves, they find their inner urges are to fight them till the death.”

  Doll looked at him then through tear soaked lashes. “They killed my father first out of the males.” Luke fisted his hands by his side. Clenching his jaw tightly.

  “They made me watch. But not before they made sure my father watched them kill my mother.” Doll burst into tears, unable to stop herself. Dolton wiped at her face. “They just burst into our house and grabbed us before we could do anything. They did the same to the others, made us tell them who were werewolves, where they could be found. Then they rounded up Jeremy and me and decided to keep the two of us alive for their own purposes.”

  Luke’s fingers extended into claws that he dug into his own palms as he tried to remind himself to stay calm. Doll sniffed and smelt the blood and looked at Luke’s hands. He forced himself to retract his claws and to calm down. “I know this is hard, but please go on.” He’d been raised an alpha werewolf, but not like the ones that Doll was describing. Being a pack werewolf did bring a certain stability to it in your life. But even so, being an alpha werewolf was very different to being a beta werewolf.

  Doll wiped the back of her hand under her nose quickly. “They killed all the werewolf families, totally decimating them. Leaving Jeremy and me behind for them to use as they saw fit. For sex, torture, and amusement, whatever they wanted. We were locked in some sort of basement, kept naked the whole time. Sometimes we were fed, but there might be a week go by when they just appeared to leave us there, locked up and unfed. I always hoped that was the end of it and that I’d die. But then one of them would come back and say something like “my turn” and the horror would begin again. I tried to be strong, I tried to be defiant, but when I didn’t comply with them, they would hurt Jeremy in front of me. Once they figured out I cared about him they used him against me to get my submission.”

  Luke let out a haggard breath. Now that the wound had been opened, Doll found she couldn’t stop talking. He tried to tell himself this was a good thing, even though everything coming out of her mouth sounded incredibly bad.

  “We never knew if it was day or night, we were just locked in that room. We rarely slept; even if I was knocked unconscious they would find a way to bring me around, to make sure I was conscious of whatever they were doing to me. They got off on seeing my reaction, on seeing me struggle, panic. My fear fed their pleasure.” Doll swiped at the tears streaming down her face again.

  “They kept us shackled in silver, so we couldn’t escape, couldn’t shape shift. It kept us weak and in pain. That’s why I have the burns on me.” She said suddenly wrapping a hand around one wrist and rubbing it.

  “We shape shifted once a month. Not that they didn’t experiment with what would happen if we didn’t.” Luke’s anger simmered away. Denying a werewolf a shape shift was the worst thing that could happen to a wolf next to silver poisoning. Once a month when the moon was full the machinations of the werewolf kicked in regardless of control. Every werewolf had to shift.

  “Both Jeremy and I were tested as they called it.” Doll let out a heavy breath, disgusted at the memory. “They kept us shackled in silver during what they claim was full moon night. Of course, we never knew if it was or not. We couldn’t tell from where we were kept. They’d been starving us all week, but allowing us water. Neither Jeremy or me really knew what was going on. “ She paused and looked over at Luke who had gone uneasily still and dead quiet.

  Most werewolves shifted more than just once a month. Most felt compelled too, especially during lunar weeks. Doing one shift a month, would have barely been enough to keep both Doll and Jeremy alive. It was sadistic.

  “I don’t know what happened or didn’t happen. I think we both blacked out at some point. It’s hard to say, I mean we never felt good when we were shackled, we were always denied food and rest and it was hard to know what time of day it was or when. There was nothing down in that basement but us and the blackness of being in a void.”

  Luke’s frowned, his face softening with concern as he looked back at her. He hated hearing her words.

  “They were killing us slowly. I think they only did that once. I can’t be sure though. It’s a bit messed up and foggy in my head. But most of the time, they would make us suffer during lunar weeks, and only unshackle the silver on full moon night. But they’d lock us up with other chains. We were so weak from all the torture and silver in our systems, that we couldn’t break the chains they put us in. But they wouldn’t let us stay in tribal form for the full duration of the shift. They didn’t want us to get better, to gain any sort of advantage that could help us escape from them. So they’d bring us out of our shifts. They never let us fully heal.”

  Luke swore softly out loud at what he was hearing. He wanted to smash something, he wanted to hit someone. He wanted to give in to the rage building inside him. He’d been raised to take know how to use his alpha abilities, he’d never been raised to bully those without them. To take advantage of others.

  “How did they get away with this? Surely people from your township must’ve noticed these family members missing?” Luke asked.

  Doll shrugged her shoulders. “I can only assume they were as scared of The Alpha Pack as we were. And so they just turned a blind eye to it all. Or they didn’t know Jeremy and I were being held captive there.”

  “Wait, where were you?”

  “One of the families’ houses I think. It was like a club house thing. Alpha’s only and we were they’re sick entertainment.” Doll sniffed and wiped at her face again, dragging her long sleeved top across her face.

  Jeremy walked in to the kitchen, took one look at Doll’s upset and growling, bared his teeth, charging straight at Luke.

  Luke put up his arms to push Jeremy off. “Ease up Jer,” Luke ground up pushing the other male back off him, forcefully fast. Jeremy was no match for Luke’s speed or strength. Even when fuelled by anger at the thought of anyone upsetting Doll. Luke had no intention of fighting Jeremy. Any other werewolf who tried that on him, would have been given a rude smack down in return for coming at him.

  “Jeremy!” Doll cried out, causing the other werewolf to stop from charging back at Luke. He looked at Doll and went to her side, squatting beside her. And again Luke saw the tenderness between them as Doll assured Jeremy that she was okay, she’d just been talking to him and telling him their story.

  In one swift motion, Jeremy stood up and stalked from the room again. Doll pushed out her chair and looked across at Luke meekly. “I better check on him.”

  Luke nodded his head in understanding. He waited ten minutes, and when Doll did not return to him, he walked back out to the bedroom area. He didn’t need to be a werewolf to hear the heated arguing going on in the bedroom.

  “I love you Doll but what
right do you have to tell that alpha werewolf out there about us?” Jeremy yelled at Doll. “He’s one of them!”

  “Jeremy I think we can trust Luke.” Doll replied calmly, watching as Jeremy put distance as much as possible between her and him. Luke silently willed her on to convince him, he didn’t want to ever be thought of in the same league as the bastard alpha werewolves Doll had been describing to him.

  “He’s an alpha werewolf! He’s no better than them. They only want one thing from us and one thing only! And you’re just playing into his hand.”

  “You’re wrong about Luke, Jeremy, I feel it.” Doll said watching him begin to pace. Luke smiled to himself upon hearing her endorsement of him.

  “At some point, we’re going to come across other werewolves, a pack and we need to be able know how to interact with them or we won’t survive. This is our chance to come back to what we used to know Jer, this our chance to get our lives back.”

  Jeremy kept pacing around and looking at the floor. “He wants you, I see it in his eyes. I see the way he acts around you. He’s only after you for sex.” Jeremy hissed at her angrily.

  “Jeremy, he hasn’t done anything wrong to me so far and..”

  “So far!” Jeremy yelled loudly looking over at her. “That’s exactly my point. You don’t know him! And yet you think it’s okay to just, to just,” She watched on saddened as Jeremy started to stutter “Just tell him these things about us so he can use that against us too.”

  “Jer, he’s not them. He’s had us in his house for over a week and all he’s done is feed us, cloth us, let us live comfortably here for free and given us money. He’s not one of them.”