Chapter 366: A Painful Nightmare (II)
Evaline:
I wasn’t waking up.
The nightmare pulled me deeper into the memories of my past. Reminding me that night was just the beginning.
-
I turned sixteen.
The moon hung heavy in the sky, but for me, it may as well have been pitch black.
Because that was the night of my Awakening. The night every wolf comes of age, the night the wolf spirit rises for the first time and bonds with its human half.
Except... mine never came.
I stood there under the moonlight, surrounded by whispers, eyes darting toward me with pity, disgust, superiority.
"Wolfless."
"She’s useless."
"Trash."
And then there was my father’s gaze. His reaction was the one I could never forget. The way his shoulders stiffened, the shame etched across his features as though my existence had spat on the family name, on his very existence.
I wanted him to say something, anything. To tell them I was still his daughter, their Alpha’s daughter, still worthy.
But instead, he turned away and left me there to be ridiculed by the entire pack.
And just like that, I was alone.
That was the night the last hope in me - to ever have a family, to one day succeed in earning back my father’s love and care - shattered completely.
-
The dream twisted, dragging me into the weeks after.
Damian’s smirking face came into view. He was always there. Always watching.
"You thought you were better than me once." His voice hissed in my ear. "Now look at you. Trash. Nothing. And you’ll do whatever I say, won’t you?"
At first, his cruelty was words, pushes, slaps.
But then...
The first whip cracked across my back, and the sound tore through my nightmare so sharply that I screamed.
My body jolted, but I wasn’t waking up. I was still there, pressed against the cold floor of my room, my palms raw from bracing myself, the taste of blood in my mouth where I had bitten down to stop myself from crying too loudly.
He liked it when I cried.
Don’t give him what he wants.
But I was sixteen. Just a girl. And I couldn’t always be strong.
-
The next scene slammed into me like a tidal wave.
The flicker of candlelight. Wax dripping. The first hot sting against my skin that made me jerk, made me choke on a sob.
"Beautiful," Damian whispered, tilting his head as though admiring art. "Red on pale. You should thank me for making you worth looking at."
I remember my voice breaking when I begged him to stop. I remember clawing at the floor, searching for escape.
And I remember him laughing.
The laugh of someone who had found the perfect toy.
What made it worse, what made it unbearable, was the twisted care he showed afterward.
The way he would kneel with a bowl of herbal paste, his fingers almost gentle as he applied salve to the welts he had carved into my skin.
"Can’t have my canvas ruined," he would murmur, his voice dripping with false affection. "Heal fast, little sister, so I can paint you again."
It was sick. Twisted. And it broke something in me.
Because a part of me would cling to that false gentleness, desperate for even scraps of kindness, even if it came from my tormentor.
I hated myself for it.
-
The nightmare continued as it shoved me through every failed attempt at salvation.
The day I tried to tell Father.
His office smelled of ink and wolf musk, heavy with his authority. I had stood there trembling, my voice cracking as I told him what Damian was doing.
His eyes had been cold.
"You think I’ll believe that?" he asked, his tone sharp enough to slice me in half. "Damian is my son. My heir. And you-" His lip curled. "You are nothing but a wolfless stain on this family."
That was the day I learned silence was safer than truth.
But that didn’t mean I gave in. Next time, I tried to run.
I was barefoot, my lungs burning, the forest floor biting into my skin as I ran deeper, faster, desperate to get away.
Freedom. Just freedom. Even death would be better than this.
Branches tore at my arms, the wind howled in my ears, but none of it mattered. For one heartbeat, I thought I might make it.
Then he was there.
Damian.
He stepped from the shadows as though he had been waiting all along, his smirk already spreading across his face.
"Run, little sister," he drawled. "Run as much as you want. You’ll never leave me. Not unless I allow it."
His hand wrapped around my throat, slamming me against a tree. The bark dug into my back, the air left my lungs, and I clawed at him, desperate to breathe.
His eyes glowed with something dark, inhuman.
"You belong to me," he whispered. "Say it."
I shook my head. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
The next thing I knew, I was back in my room and the whip cracked, this time across my thighs, and I sobbed the words he wanted to hear.
Anything to make it stop.
-
The nightmare strung all of it together, one after another, a montage of every horror he had ever forced on me.
The way he would corner me when no one was around. The way he would mock me in public, knowing no one would defend me. The way his hands would bruise, burn, own.
And always, always, the words...
"You can’t run."
"You can’t hide."
"You are mine."
-
I was choking. Drowning. My chest heaved, my throat raw from screams I couldn’t stop.
I clawed at the air, at my own skin, desperate to wake up.
But Damian’s shadow loomed larger and larger, until it was all I could see.
Until his voice filled every corner of my mind.
And then-
"Eva!"
A voice. Real. Urgent.
Strong arms wrapped around me, hauling me out of the darkness.
I gasped, my eyes flying open, my body trembling violently. Sweat drenched my skin, my breath came in broken sobs.
The nightmare lingered like smoke, choking me, refusing to let me go.
But those arms, the warmth of them, anchored me.
And for the first time in what felt like hours, I remembered:
Damian wasn’t here.
This wasn’t then.
I wasn’t that helpless girl anymore.