CHAPTER 5: What you did!

Blossom.

I closed my eyes for a brief moment and drew in a slow, steady breath, trying to calm the storm raging inside me. The words they had thrown at me still echoed in my head, sharp and cruel, digging into wounds that had never truly healed.

But I refused to let them consume me.

I had already suffered enough.

I needed to focus on getting better. I needed to focus on my recovery and nothing else.

Slowly, I pushed those hurtful words to the back of my mind, forcing myself to let them go. Yet, as I sat there in silence, another thought surfaced.

The stranger.

The man who had spoken to me earlier.

A slight frown settled on my face.

Without wasting another second, I reached for the card he had given me. My fingers tightened around it as I turned it over and looked at the name printed boldly across its surface.

The moment my eyes landed on it, my entire body went rigid.

Ryder Stormborn.

For several seconds, I simply stared.

The name alone was enough to make my blood run cold.

My pack's greatest rival.

A bitter scoff escaped my lips.

Now it all made sense, it's no wonder he had known my name, no wonder he had approached me so confidently.

There was no way a man like Ryder Stormborn would seek me out without a reason.

Politics.

It had to be politics.

What other explanation could there possibly be?

My jaw clenched.

How dare he?

How dare he think he could simply walk into my life and offer me help?

Did he think I was desperate?

Did he think I would willingly accept assistance from someone connected to the very people my pack considered enemies?

Never.

"To hell with him," I muttered bitterly, as my grip on the card tightened. "To hell with everyone."

I would never ask him for help.

I was still drowning in my thoughts when the door suddenly swung open.

The sound snapped me out of my anger.

I lifted my head immediately and there he was.

Millien.

Standing right before me.

His eyes locked onto mine, and a cruel smile slowly spread across his face.

"This is just the beginning, Blossom," Millien said the moment he stepped inside.

I let out a light scoff and folded my arms across my chest.

"Millien," I said, raising an eyebrow at him, "why don't you just reject me and free me from all this?"

The smile on his face vanished instantly.

"No way, Blossom!" he yelled without hesitation, his voice echoing through the room. "You still haven't paid for what you did two years ago.”

I looked at him in complete confusion, my brows knitting together as I searched his face for answers.

What exactly was he talking about?

His words made no sense to me.

What had I supposedly done two years ago?

I racked my brain, trying to remember something—anything—that could explain the hatred burning in his eyes, but nothing came to mind.

Absolutely nothing.

My heart pounded uneasily against my chest.

"Oh! Don't give me that look, Blossom!" he suddenly yelled.

Before I could react, his hand shot forward and gripped my chin roughly.

I winced immediately.

His fingers dug painfully into my skin as he forced me to look directly at him.

"Don't act like you don't know!" he snapped.

Fear and confusion swirled inside me.

I truly didn't know.

I had no idea what he was accusing me of.

"Millien, what—"

I tried to speak, as I wanted answers.

But before I could finish, he released my chin only for his palm to come crashing across my face.

The force of the slap snapped my head to the side. A sharp sting exploded through my cheek.

For a moment, I could only sit there in stunned silence.

"Listen to me, Blossom," he said coldly.

Slowly, I turned my head back toward him.

His expression was hard and merciless. There wasn't even the slightest trace of kindness in his eyes.

"I will make you pay for what you did for the rest of your life," he continued firmly, every word falling like a sentence being passed. "I will make you suffer."

A chill ran through me.

I simply stared at the monster standing before me.

This wasn't the man I once thought I knew.

The person standing in front of me now was filled with nothing but anger, hatred, and the desire to hurt me.

Yet I still couldn't understand why.

What had I done?

What terrible crime was he punishing me for?

Without another word, Millien turned around and he walked toward the door. A second later, he stepped out and left the room.

The door closed behind him and silence immediately filled the space.

I remained frozen where I sat, staring blankly ahead.

What had I done?

And more importantly...

What was I supposed to do now?

CHAPTER 6: The Only Thing I Had Left

Blossom.

They discharged me two days later, not because I had healed, but because my father refused to keep paying for a bed I didn't deserve, according to Lurgard.

The ride home was silent. I sat in the back of the pack car, my forehead pressed against the cold window, watching the trees blur past. Every bump in the road sent a jolt of pain through my ribs, but I bit down on my lip and said nothing. Complaining had never gotten me anything except more reasons to be punished.

When we arrived at the Ashford estate, I expected rest. I should have known better.

"Blossom." My father's voice met me before I had even stepped through the door. "The kitchen floor hasn't been scrubbed since you left. Get to it."

I didn't argue. I never did anymore. Arguing only added fuel to a fire that was already impossible to put out.

I changed out of my hospital clothes and got to work, my knees pressing into the cold tile, my hands raw within the hour. It was mindless labour, the kind that let my thoughts wander, and they always wandered to the same place.

Two years ago.

Whatever I had supposedly done, it had completely rewritten the way Millien looked at me. I used to be someone he brought flowers to, someone he laughed with under the old oak tree behind the pack house. Now I was someone he wanted to break.

I finished the kitchen floor just as the sun began to set, and that was when I heard her.

"Blossom!" Vanessa's voice rang out from the garden, bright and cheerful in the way that always meant trouble. "Come look what I found!"

Something cold settled in my stomach. I wiped my hands on my apron and walked toward the garden, dread building with every step.

And then I saw her.

Vanessa stood near the rose bushes, cradling something small and limp in her arms. My heart stopped the moment I recognised the grey fur and the little white patch near the tail.

Luna.

"No," I whispered, the word barely escaping my throat.

Luna had been a gift from Millien, back when he still smiled at me as if I mattered. She was the only creature in this house who had never once looked at me with disgust. I used to sneak her scraps of meat and let her sleep curled against my side on the nights the loneliness became unbearable.

"She wouldn't stop scratching at my door," Vanessa said, her voice syrupy sweet, utterly untouched by what she was holding. "I told her to behave, but you know how disobedient your things always are."

My legs carried me forward before my mind caught up, and I dropped to my knees in front of her, reaching out with trembling hands.

"Give her to me," I said, my voice cracking.

Vanessa tilted her head, studying my face like she was cataloguing every flicker of pain crossing it. Then, slowly, deliberately, she let Luna's body fall to the grass in front of me.

"There," she said. "She's yours again."

I gathered Luna into my arms, and the moment I felt how cold she already was, something inside me finally gave out. I didn't cry loudly. I had learned a long time ago that loud crying only invited more punishment. Instead, silent tears slid down my face, dropping onto Luna's fur, and I rocked back and forth, holding the only thing in this house that had ever chosen me.

"Don't be so dramatic," Vanessa said, already turning to leave. "It's just a cat."

I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to tell her exactly what kind of monster she was, but the words lodged in my throat, useless and unspoken, just like everything else I had ever tried to say in this family.

I buried Luna beneath the old oak tree that night, digging the hole myself with my bare hands because no one offered me a shovel. By the time I finished, my fingers were bleeding, and the moon had climbed high above the treeline.

I sat there for a long time afterwards, staring at the small mound of disturbed earth, and something inside me shifted. It wasn't sadness anymore. It had curdled into something harder, something that felt dangerously close to resolve.

I couldn't keep living like this.

I thought about the card sitting untouched in the drawer of my nightstand, the one I had sworn I would never use. Ryder Stormborn's name printed in that clean, deliberate font.

Politics, I had told myself. It had to be politics.

But sitting there in the dark with dirt under my fingernails and grief carved into my chest, I realised something. Even if it was politics, even if Ryder Stormborn wanted nothing from me but leverage against my pack, at least with him I would be more than a punching bag.

At least I would be useful for something other than pain.

I rose to my feet, brushed the dirt from my knees, and walked back toward the house with a decision forming in my mind, one I never thought I would actually consider.

I was going to call him.

I just didn't know yet how much that single choice would change everything.