Hate by K.A Knight
Iwait and wait some more. I keep feeling the thread between Dawn and me stretching farther and farther until suddenly, it stops. She stops. Then comes pain and anger. It flows through her to me and I roar with it, gnashing my teeth as I beat the cell door.
It feels like it lasts an eternity, but when it’s over I’m gulping in air as I wait for her. But she doesn’t come. I feel her drawing closer. Where is she? I try to rip the door from the cement, but it’s too strong, magically bound, so I can’t. Instead I pace my cell, counting the steps to stop myself from going mad. She is strong, she doesn’t need my protection, but I just found her. We don’t know each other very well yet, but she is already locked into my soul like the missing piece, so to lose her now?
No, I can’t think of that.
Just then the cell door opens, revealing my mate. A very large wolf stands behind her, its eyes narrowed on me as he pushes past her and enters first, sniffing me before circling. “New pet?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.
She smells of blood and sex, and I have to rearrange my hard cock in my trousers and ignore the urge to throw her against the nearest wall and have her. “Something like that.” She shrugs and then her eyes darken. “It’s time.”
“What happened?” I demand, closing the distance and ignoring the wolf that snaps at me to grab her and bring her into my arms. Feeling her solidly against me settles all that panic and worry.
“They tried to kill me. It seems I’ve outlived my purpose. They are having a meeting tomorrow, everyone will be there. We are going to crash it.” She grins, and it’s an evil smile that has me groaning.
“But first I need to shower and then we need to build my army.” She winks and turns away, but stops at the cell door to glance back at me. “Coming?”
“Always.” I incline my head. Army? What army?
* * *
I follow after my mate,the wolf at my side, as she wanders down the corridor before stopping at a scarred door and heading inside. She looks back at the wolf. “Guard the door, won’t you?” she asks in a sweet voice. He lowers his head in a strange nod before turning and sitting right in front of the door.
I step inside and shut it behind me, pondering over the strange animal. He acts like a person…is he a werewolf? No, he felt...raw, animalistic, and powerful. So what is he? But all my questions disappear as Dawn starts to undress.
Her eyes light up as she watches me, pulling up her dress and tossing it aside, leaving her bare before me. She grins naughtily like she knows my exact thoughts and turns, sauntering into a shower stall. A moment later, I hear the water flick on and close my eyes in pain.
I imagine the water tracing down her curves the way I wish my hands could. But she has been through a lot, and I don’t think she even realises that she doesn’t just need sexual intimacy, but comfort as well. I do not believe she knows how to ask for it, my poor little mate. It tells me a lot about her. She has been hurt before for asking, for needing. One pained soul recognises it in another. Shedding my own tattered clothes, I head into the stall. She turns with a triumphant smile on her face as her wet hands reach for me.
“Turn around,” I tell her softly.
She blinks but does as bid, her voice low and purring. “Want to play like that?” she teases, sticking her luscious arse out at me. I have to fist my hands and count backwards from thirty to stop myself from taking her up on her offer as she wiggles at me.
No, this is about her needs, not mine.
I can feel it pushing at me, she needs to feel cared for. Cherished, loved...wanted. Whatever they did shook her to her very core, left her reeling and unsure. We are heading into battle, into a war, and she needs to be her usual strong, confident self. But in here, with me, she can be weak. I will always look after her.
A warrior knows pain, a general feels it. I will take it inside myself and add it to my own.
Sliding my hands across her curves, I wrap my arms around her stomach and press my head to her shoulder. “Let it out.”
“What?” She laughs, pushing back with her arse to brush my hard cock. “You need help freeing it?”
“No, my little blood lover, you need to let it out. I don’t know what happened, I will not ask. You need to be strong, I know that. But to be strong, sometimes you need to be weak. So do it. Here and now, in my arms. Do what you need to, I will hold you through it and help put you back together again. No sex, Dawn, just the offer of someone to stand with you through it.”
She goes quiet, her body stiffening. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. And that’s okay, you don’t have to be this sexy, strong monster all the time, my love. You hate and rage so much because you care, because you feel so deeply, but that is a sword. It cuts both ways and right now you are bleeding from those wounds, let us seal them shut. Together.”
She turns in my arms and I let her. Her blonde hair is pushed back and slick. Water rolls down her face, clinging to her lashes, her eyes wet with unshed tears as she searches my gaze. “I’m scared,” she admits in a low voice.
“Of what?” I query softly, holding her closer.
“O-Of being weak. Of letting people back in…of not being enough.” She blinks then, swallowing hard. “Of becoming what they made me, not this...I can control myself if I want to. But they are saying my power will keep growing, how will I control it? What if it controls me and I hurt someone I love?”
“My love.” I sigh, dropping my forehead to hers and looking deep in her eyes. “Your mates will never let that happen, you know that, as do I. I see it in your head, they will be there. Anchoring you always.” I smack my hand across my chest. “I will be with you to the death. I would follow you over that cliff, into battle, or worse. We will support each other. You never have to worry, we will be there.”
“But how do you know?” she challenges, desperate.
“Know that you won’t become a puppet of power? You are too strong, too stubborn. You wouldn’t let it, but when you feel weak. When you are scared or the power gets to be too much, pass it to us, Dawn. Look into your mind, look at those threads to your other mates, waiting there for anything you need. Let us aid you, let us help you absorb it. I think that’s why you have so many powerful mates, Dawn, because you will be the most powerful of us all, and that power will need an outlet. You’ve got more than one. You have us, feel it. Look at what love you have brought to the darkest of us. Lighting us up once again, dusting off the relics of this world and gathering them to your heart.”
She gasps, her eyes are closed, and I know she finally sees the tangle of threads of her mates connected to her.
“You are never alone, not in your life, not in your power. We are here. We are yours. Let us be that.”
I see the moment she fully accepts us, not trying to protect us or love us, but accepts our help. She cracks, breaking in my arms. Her legs give way, and I hold her up, stroking her hair and whispering words in my native tongue. She will tell me what happened when she is ready, but for now she needs my strength.
She can have it.
When she is done, soft and pliant, I turn her and help her wash, scrubbing at the blood and dirt caked onto her beautiful skin until she shines like the most beautiful jewel in the world. She looks up at me when I am done with a soft smile on her mouth.
“There, perfect once again,” I murmur.
“Thank you,” she whispers, as we put her back together again. When we leave the shower, she is back to her usual, monstrous self. “I have no clothes, it’s a good job I don’t seem to get cold.”
“I would offer you mine…” I lift my shirt up and she snorts. It’s basically rags, so I leave it with her shirt, but slip on my trousers after she assures me she doesn’t want them.
“I don’t mind being naked, it makes me feel stronger...better. Like I know they can’t touch me, it’s our most vulnerable state yet when I feel the strongest,” she tells me as she grabs my hand and twines it with mine. “Let’s get our army, Jair.”
I love the way she says the name she has given me. Like a pet name, it has a softness in it that the rest of the world doesn’t get to see. Our own private sweetness.
We head back out into the corridor and the wolf falls into step next to her other side as we pass cell after cell as we wind around the dungeons. “What are we looking for?”
She stops suddenly, head tilted. Frowning, I listen and then I hear it—crying. It’s soft and wispy, definitely feminine and far away. I look to Dawn to see that her eyes are black. They flick to me and I realise I am now holding hands with her monster, not her, so I hold on tight, my own fangs dropping. She turns away and leads me towards the cry. It gets louder and louder until we are outside a cell that looks like all the others.
“Blood,” I murmur, sniffing the air and scenting the copper tang. “Human.”
Letting go of my hand, she stabs her hand straight forward. I move to intercept, to protect her from hurting herself, but she throws me away with a thought. I hit the wall just as her hand plunges through the metal with a screech. She looks at me as I get to my feet, a look that tells me I need to trust her in this. So I nod and stand behind her, although it is hard. I am used to being the first person through the door, uncaring of my safety, but these protective instincts towards my mate are strong, a continual fight between defending her and letting her do what she needs to.
With a shriek she warps the metal and flings the easily four-hundred-pound door away like it is a feather. We both peer into the dark as the cries suddenly cut off, a small scream coming from a form huddled in the corner.
“No, no, not again, please,” comes the soft voice. It’s weak and afraid. The whole cell stinks of fear and blood.
My fangs descend farther, and the human woman whimpers, burying her head into her knees and rocking back and forth. We step inside and I glance around to see the bucket in the corner. Ignoring the stench of piss, I spot the rotting food on the tray next to the door. But then something else hits me.
“Two, two heartbeats,” I snarl, looking around for the other person as the wolf snarls behind me, drawn by my anger.
“She’s pregnant,” Dawn says softly, and I look over to see she is right. The woman’s belly is rounded, her face raised now, pink and dirty, her tears leaving white tracks down her plump face. Her eyes are a deep brown, her hair a mucky, greasy brunette. She is naked, I note in a clinical way, and her feet are also bare and covered in dirt.
Blood coats the soles of her feet as well as her thighs. “Dawn.”
She nods, crouching down before the woman as I block the wolf to try and help calm her. “Hello,” she begins, but the woman cries and jerks away. “I won’t hurt you, I’m not here to hurt you. Look at me, I’m not with them.”
The woman eventually lifts her eyes, eyeing Dawn with a frown before glancing at me and cringing away. Dawn glances over her shoulder, her eyes smouldering. “Wait outside?” she pleads, and I nod, throwing the woman one last look before standing at the doorway where she can’t see me, but I can still hear. I can hear the rustle of them shifting before Dawn’s sweet voice comes again. “I’m sorry for what they have done to you. What’s your name?”
“I, erm, I’m Kelly,” she whispers, voice a bit stronger now.
“Hi, Kelly, how long have you been here?” The woman doesn’t respond, and I hear Dawn sigh. “I swear they won’t hurt you again, I swear it, Kelly. Look at me, that’s it. I know what it feels like to be seen as nothing, to be a punching bag. To be scared of your own shadow. They make you hate your own body, make you feel like it’s no longer yours, but it gets better. I promise you, you heal. You don’t forget, but you heal and come out stronger. This? This is a blip in your life, you are so much stronger than you will ever know. Look at you, surviving in the midst of such destruction. And you have another to think of now.”
“I—he—it,” Kelly stutters before lowering her face. “They-they raped me,” she cries out before getting a hold of herself. “It’s—this thing in me could be a monster.”
I stiffen at her admission. They forced their seed into this woman? I will spike them all!
“Look at me, Kelly. We both know human monsters can be so much worse. This baby in your belly, they might have made it, but you will raise it, it’s part of you, and trust me, sometimes the monsters are better than those who paint themselves as your saviours.”
“I’m tired,” Kelly admits. “So tired, I don’t think I can fight anymore. I thought when-when that thing came that I would die, but then I didn’t. But now I feel it, the baby, moving inside me, and now I don’t think I can do this.”
It goes quiet and I listen carefully, knowing this woman is on the precipice of giving up, I have seen it in soldiers often. Their will to go on gives out and they die.
“You will go on because you have to. It’s never easy to be a woman, Kelly,” Dawn starts, her voice strong and commanding, that of a true leader...a queen. “When men are born, they are told the world is theirs for the taking, to dream big and never give up. Us? We are told that the world isn’t fair, that our dreams might not come true and to be prepared for that. As I grew up, I was told to bite my tongue, because boys will be boys. I was told not to be too smart. Too loud. Too sexy. Too opinionated or rude. Well, fuck that.”
“I was told what I could be while men were told they could be anything. Even when I became an adult, I saw the injustice every day. The men I worked with, dated, they stood before me confused as I got angry, because they have never had to fight just to be heard in a room full of men. To be taken seriously. To have to walk home quickly, clutching your keys out of fear. To cry in the shower as blood runs from my body, because they made it their own. And it’s not mine anymore, and no matter how I dress or how I act I will never be good enough.
“I became an object, like you, since birth, raised to be perfect for men. But I never was, even when I was everything they dreamed of. They still hurt me, still pushed me around and treated me as lower than them. Just an object. Fuck that,” Dawn spits, her anger palpable.
“If you want to scream, do it. If you want to rage or run naked down the streets, do it. I will do it with you. If you want to get drunk and tell every man they are wrong and womansplain their asses, do it. If you want to murder the people that hurt you, want nothing more than to kill them. I’ll help. If you don’t want this baby, that’s fine. It’s your body, your choice. You are not just an object. You are a person. You are stronger than any man because you have faced battles they never could. We are women, and we are stronger than you will ever know.”
I suck in a breath, pride at my mate filling me.
“Kelly, it’s your life, I will set you free. But you need to be strong enough to take it, can you?” she finishes, and I hold my breath with her. Her speech makes me want to kill all men. Everyone who ever told her to be quiet, who hurt and used her. Who made her afraid.
Maybe this is why I am here.
To help her, because my mate is a fighter. A fighter for everyone who has ever been wronged. She will set it right. She sees the pain and the underdog and understands them, feels for them. Protects them.
Because she was one.
We are just along for the ride.
“I-I want to be free, I want to live,” Kelly whispers, then her voice gets stronger. “I want to live!” she yells and then laughs, it sounds choked though. “Even if this baby is a monster, it’s mine. But first, how do we get out?”
“Hold on.” Dawn goes quiet then sighs. “My friend is coming, he can get you out, okay? I need you to trust me, he is a man, a bit surly, but I promise you he will never hurt you. He won’t even touch you, Kelly. Can you do that? You are your own hero here.”
“I can, I can do this,” she repeats, and then I hear them shuffling. Dawn appears in the door and I just stare at her.
I am beyond lost for words. I do not know how I got so lucky as to be a mate to such an amazing, strong, confident, and smart woman, but I will pray that I am enough to stay by her side. Because I want to be, I want to see where this world takes her, because for someone so strong, so fate touched, things are going to happen.
She must hear my thoughts, a side effect of her understanding the bonds she has weaved I would guess, because a smile covers her face. “You will always be by my side. Griffin is coming, but then he has to get back to work. We better go before he arrives and tries to kill you. I need to get to my minotaur.”
“He could try.” I shrug and she grins.
“You’re hot when you’re cocky.” She looks at the wolf then. “Stay and protect her? You can find me again, right?”
The wolf whines but nods and sits, looking at the woman whose hand is on her curved belly as she watches the wolf in confusion. Dawn turns to her and takes her hand. “Good luck. If you need anything, find a woman called Victoria, or Victor.” She reels off an address and the woman mumbles it back before tears fill her eyes.
“Stupid hormones, thank you,” she tells Dawn and takes her hand. “Thank you so much.”
“Give them hell.” Dawn winks and then takes my hand and leads us away. I glance back to see the woman staring after Dawn with a wondrous look in her eyes. Glancing down at my mate, I smile. She has that effect on people, she drives them to want to be more, to never give up even in the darkest of times. Because she is right there with you.
As are we. The monsters gathered behind her in the dark—horns, fangs, and wings hers to command. We will raze this world and rebuild it in her image. She doesn’t even realise it as she walks along next to me, but she is starting something here. Something that will change the world, that will change the fate of our people.
All because of one skinwalker.
