Ss‘ POV


    C


    さ


    Finished


    I blinked, disoriented, as the haze of pain and memory slowly receded. The dark whirlpool in my mind, the screams I’d been drowning in, softened, reced by something warmer, sharper… alive.


    Freya was there, standing in the dim light, her presence cutting through the storm in my chest. Not a step back, not a flicker of disgust, not the faintest hesitation. She hadn’t run, hadn’t recoiled, hadn’t abandoned me.


    “You… you came.” My voice barely rose above a whisper, cracked and dry.


    “Yes, I came.” Her tone was firm,manding, and somehow gentle all at once. “Are you feeling a little more… clear–headed now? Do you know who I am? Where you are?”


    I swallowed, lips parched, tasting nothing but iron. “You’re… Freya. And this… this is a room in my vi.”


    The sight of the whips on the walls, their cruel silhouettes sharp in the low light, forced my memories to the surface. The room–I had sealed it away, yet here it was, still intact, the ce where my father had drilled his lessons of pain and Jobedience into me. My personal nightmare, preserved to remind me that weakness only invites control. I had told myself I


    would never let anyone touch me like that again. I had to grow stronger. Stronger than him. Stronger than anyone.


    And yet, here I was, trembling, fingers twitching involuntarily, reliving everysh, every curse, every humiliation.


    /Freya’s voice cut through my fog again. “How do you feel now? Should I take you to a hospital?”


    I shook my head, bitterly aware of the absurdity. “I don’t need a hospital.” My voice was hoarse, but steady enough. “Even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. Ordinary medicine… doesn’t work on this.”


    She said nothing further, but I noticed her hands still held mine, fingers entwined in that silent insistence, a tether to the world.


    “Rx your hand.” Her words broke my trance, and I let my left hand loosen its grip. One side released, but as she attempted to free the other, my hand moved instinctively–grasping her waist, pulling her into me.


    She went down hard, and for a heartbeat, I felt her weight against me.


    Her eyes met mine. Freya’s eyes–bold, unflinching, alive–pierced through the darkness I had wrapped around myself.


    “Even now,” I murmured, voice rough and dangerous, “with you pressed against me like this… you don’t want me?”


    Her gaze was steady, fierce, her wolf–fire evident beneath the calm. “If I were ever to want a man,” she said, voice unwavering, “it would only be because I loved him… and I would want him because of love.”


    Her words hit me with the force of a gale, and I felt my pulse slow, the coil in my chest unwinding slightly. She moved back, separating from me, and our other hands released from their binding.


    I stared at the empty space between our hands, a hollow ache settling in my chest. Loss, maybe, or the weight of connection I didn’t know I craved.


    “Let’s leave this room.” Her voice was firm but patient.


    I rose slowly, still haunted by the relics on the walls. “How… how did you get in here?”


    “I heard you. The sounds you made. I knocked, called your name, and there was no answer. I was worried you might hurt yourself, so I came in.” Her voice carried no shame, only concern, yet I felt the unspoken reprimand. She had entered my sacred chamber, my forbidden sanctuary.


    I wanted to say something, to remind her, to enforce the rules I had lived by for decades, but her next words froze me.


    “Besides all this… don’t you have anything else to say?” Her eyes, fierce and unwavering, searched mine. “This room, these whips, this darkness–it shouldn’t control you anymore.”


    1 stared at her, surprised. Not shocked, not angry, just… caught off guard. That someone could confront me with such audacity, such innocence wrapped in fire.


    Finished


    “And…” she paused, a hint of mischief slipping into her tone. “Next time I see your father… I think I want to punch him. Yourwyers… can they keep me out of trouble?”


    I blinked. Did I just hear that correctly?


    “You want… to strike my father?” My voice was low, incredulous, edged with disbelief.


    “Yes,” she said inly. “I want to punch him. So… can yourwyers cover me?”


    I stared at her, stunned. Silence stretched between us, the shadows of the whips flickering across the room like ghosts. For years, no one had dared speak of striking him, dared to defy the legacy of fear my father cast over all of us. I had only believed in my own power, in controlling the narrative of my life to keep his shadow at bay.


    And yet here she was. This woman, audacious, fearless, standing boldly in my presence and daring to confront him.


    The room felt smaller somehow, my chest tight. The fear, the rage, the memory–they were still here, coiled like a predator- but Freya’s audacity, her presence, challenged it. She was alive, fierce, unbroken. And in the depths of my chest, the wolf surred, sensing something unfamiliar yet undeniably right.


    The storm in me, the one I had lived with all my life, began to shift–not entirely dissipated, but for the first time, softened by something human, something tethered to life and care.


    I swallowed, voice still ragged but steadier “You… you actually want to fight him?”


    She nodded, a gleam of determination in her eyes that threatened to outshine the room’s shadows. “Yes. And I won’t apologize for it.”


    I let out a long, low breath, partly incredulous, partly… awed. No one had ever dared. Not anyone, not in all my years of control, terror, and survival. Yet here she was–challenging the Alpha, challenging my father.


    And somehow… it felt right.


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