🦋ALTHEA
The room tilted violently, the walls spinning, the floor rushing up to meet me as I was left gasping for air that wouldn't come.
No.
No, that wasn't—
It couldn't—
"No," I choked out, the word barely a whisper. "No, you're lying."
But even as I said it, I knew.
I knew.
Every weakness.
Every moment I'd failed to shift when the others did.
Every time I'd been called worthless, broken, cursed.
Every beating I'd endured because I couldn't heal like they could.
It wasn't because I was born wrong.
It was because she made me wrong.
I shook my head, my brain trying to wrap itself around what he had just said.Â
Cold fingers pinching my chin yanked me back to earth. He was closer now, touching me but I was too frozen to even get away from the creature who held me captive. "You have been promised as my wife."Â
I shook my head, my frozen muscles thawing. I could back away from him, but my knees buckled, the floor pulling back.Â
