Kill the Monster

CONNOR

The silence that followed her scream was the kind that shredded.

I didn’t move, couldn’t, under her gaze that said I’d carved her scars myself. And in a way, I had. Those green eyes, unnatural and searing, locked onto mine. She was haunted, wild, and alive when she shouldn’t be.

Because of me. Or in spite of me.

Her back arched against the restraints in a full-body convulsion of agony. She trembled so hard her bones looked ready to splinter again. Her mouth opened in a breathless sob before she choked out, “Oh, no! No! Why am I still alive?”

That was one question answered; she could speak.

“You should’ve let me die!” she continued, her voice wrecked, hoarse, frayed to the breaking point.

Doctor Ross reached out for her, but she recoiled, snarling through her teeth.

“~Don’t touch me!~” Her eyes snapped to each of us, her teeth bared. “Kill me! I’m a monster! Do it before I lose control, before I rip all your throats out! Please!”

I saw it: It wasn’t a threat or a promise. It was raw terror, unadulterated fear hiding behind a desperate warning.

Ben took half a step forward, but I stopped him with a raised hand without taking my eyes off her.

“No,” I said.

Pain was carving her in real time, dragging screams straight from her marrow. Still, she braced. Still, she fought it.

Doing what I’d always done, I shoved my personal feelings deep enough to drown them. My job right now wasn’t to be her mate; it was to be the alpha, to protect my pack. “Your name,” I said quietly but firmly. “Tell me your name.”

Her eyes flicked to me, glassy with pain and some kind of ancient grief. Then, something shifted. “What day is it?” she rasped. “How long…how long have I been here?” Her voice had gone thin, a fragile thing.

“Tell me your name,” I repeated.

Her brow furrowed, sweat beading along her temple, her skin taking on a waxy sheen. “Is the full moon near?” Her tone changed. It became tight, afraid now, not just pained. “Please, is it close?”

I felt it: fear. A ripple of it ran through my gut that she’d in fact gone rogue. That she’d lost her mind. That I’d be forced to kill her. Forced to kill my own mate.

~Enough of asking politely.~ I needed to know, and there was only one way to be certain. “Tell me your name,” I said again, my alpha command cracking through the air like thunder beneath my voice.

The magic of it left a weight in the room, something that pressed into the lungs and left no room for disobedience.

She gasped, seeming to fight it, but then she whimpered and whispered, “Willow.”

And there it was—there she was. Not a rogue, but Willow.

Her name somehow felt older than the girl lying in that bed. It was a name that didn’t belong to a weapon or a threat but something forgotten. Something broken.

My wolf paced in the back of my mind, his ears forward, agitated. “~Mate. Mate. Mate~,” he chanted, demanding that I go to her and claim her as mine.

~No. Not now.~ I shoved his desires aside and pressed on with my questioning. “Where are you from, Willow?”

“I…” She blinked. Her body shivered violently, her shoulders twitching against the pain. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I ~don’t know~!” she snapped, a burst of frustrated panic cracking her voice in half. “I never left the building until I escaped. I don’t know where that was.”

The entire infirmary went still—the kind of still that belonged to graveyards.

Before I could respond, she jerked, too sharp and too fast. She collapsed back onto the pillows, her body limp, life draining away again.

The heart monitor shrieked.

“Fuck!” The doctor was already moving, grabbing a syringe from a tray. “She’s crashing again! Dammit!” He stabbed the cocktail into her IV line and muttered curses under his breath, his face tight.

The monitor flatlined, suddenly jumped back to life, and settled into a steady rhythm.

Doctor Ross sighed his relief, and I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding.

~I didn’t lose her. Thank the gods.~ Unable to stop myself, I stepped up to her and grabbed the railing of her bed. ~Could she really be my mate? The one person I’ve been waiting for my whole life?~

“Alpha?” Ben asked, his voice quiet.

But I didn’t answer. I could only stare at her.

~Willow.~

Something about that name was wrong and right all at once. It didn’t match the girl, not with those scars, not with those eyes. But it felt inevitable, familiar in a way that made no sense.

“Connor,” Ben tried again, softer. “What is it?”

I blinked, shook my head once. “It’s nothing.”

Suddenly, the air in the room felt heavy, tainted.

Spinning to face Ben and Travis, I said, “Find out if the council knows anything about a missing wolf named Willow. Cross-check with as many packs as you can. Check rogue databases, black market names, lab records. I don’t care how deep you have to dig.”

They both nodded, and Ben said, “Yes, Alpha.”

I turned for the door, my wolf clawing to get out and adrenaline burning holes in my chest. “I need to go for a run.”

***

The shift always came ablaze.

It started low in my gut, a heat curling out and up through my chest, setting nerves alight and stretching through my spine until it ached to burst.

My bones popped first, rearranging. The skin followed, splitting and reshaping. Muscle folded over itself like molten steel hammered into a new form.

And the pain. Gods, the pain never dulled. But beneath it, within it, there was something beautiful, something ancient.

The moment the wolf took over, the world expanded~.~ All of my senses sharpened.

I heard the snaps of a beetle moving under frostbitten leaves a dozen yards away. The wind carried messages written in scent: deer, bark, rot, rain. And underneath it all, ~her.~ That sterile, acrid sweetness that still lingered in my lungs.

Willow.

With a thud, my paws hit the forest floor. Dirt kicked up behind me, rich and damp. I ran, hard. Branches clawed at me, and I let them. I welcomed the sting, needed it. I needed to remember that I was still in control, even if everything inside me screamed otherwise.

My lungs burned. My legs ached. It wasn’t enough.

The air carried something familiar: a scent, sharp and warm, sunlight on cedar.

Lisa, my sister.

My wolf lifted his head, his ears flicking. A low, eager rumble hummed in my chest, and I veered toward her trail.

Lisa and I had grown up running these woods, back when things had been simpler. Before the human world had demanded my time and devoured my soul. Before I’d known what it meant to carry a pack on my shoulders.

Before I’d known what it meant to be alpha.

She’d heard me before she saw me, naturally. Her wolf emerged from the shadows, her eyes bright and posture relaxed at the sight of her sibling. She dipped her head once, a greeting, an invitation.

And we ran. Just for the damn freedom of it. No words or thoughts needed.

By the time we found the clothes cache near the creek bed, our lungs were heaving, and my thoughts were clearer.

Still chaotic, still cracked and boiling, but clearer.

I shifted first, pulling on jeans and a hoodie, while Lisa morphed beside me, smoothing back her braid as she fished leggings and a flannel shirt from the stash.

“You good?” she asked, leaning against the tree all casual but staring as if she could see right through me.

There was no doubt she’d already been informed about all that had happened. As head warrior trainer, Lisa was part of the inner circle of trust. Sometimes she knew more about what was going on in the pack than I did.

But she didn’t know this.

I looked at her, my jaw tight. “She’s my mate.”

Lisa blinked, then grinned. “Well, shit.”

“It doesn’t feel real,” I confessed. “Do you think it could be…I don’t know…a trick? Somehow?”

She scoffed. “You think someone’s faking a Goddess bond? That’s impossible, Connor. You ~know~ that.”

“Yeah.” I raked a hand through my hair. “Still.”

“I heard you woke her up.” She crossed her arms and cocked her head.

Lisa had always had a knack for knowing when I needed to talk. Like now. So when she next asked what I’d found out about the girl—a question she didn’t need answered—I played along.

“Her name. Willow. But then she said…” I shook away the image of Willow’s panicked eyes. “She called herself a monster. Begged us to kill her.”

“Fuck.” Lisa’s expression sobered. “Yeah, Ben said as much. So you think she was kept by humans?”

“That’s the running theory.”

“For her ~whole life~?”

“Most likely. She’s young, but some scars are old.” I sighed and kicked the dirt. “Everything about her points to long-term captivity. Experiments. Medical tampering. Psychological trauma. Her pain tolerance is off the charts.”

“You know what?” she said, going still and staring into space. “I bet she doesn’t even know what she is. That she’s a werewolf. That werewolves are a real thing.”

That stopped me cold.

Lisa narrowed her eyes, thoughtful. “If all she’s ever known is humans locking her away, treating her like she’s dangerous, and telling her she’s a monster, then of course she thinks she is one.”

It clicked, puzzle pieces snapping into place. More was beginning to make sense.

But there was still the question of the email, the warning.

The sender knew of our pack, so they knew werewolves existed. Safe bet they knew Willow was a werewolf too. But did they know she was my mate? Did they somehow brainwash her or program her to destroy us from within?

Was that even possible?

All the doubts and unanswered questions hurt my head. “I don’t know,” I muttered, sitting on a log. “There’s something wrong with all this. Things still don’t add up. It all feels off, you know?”

Lisa sat beside me, brushing invisible dirt from her knees. “So what now?”

“About the bond?”

She nodded.

I stared at the tree line. “Nothing. For now.”

“And about Willow?”

Exhaling slowly, I watched my breath fog in the air. “I don’t know. I can’t shake the feeling there’s more going on. Something deeper. Something bigger. And I’m gonna find out what.”