Sebastian

"Bruce didn't hurt me physically," Samantha said, poking the food in her plate with a chopstick. "His specialty was emotional abuse."

I chocked back a growl. I had to remind myself that what she was describing was in the past. No amount of growling could fix what had already traumatized her. Taking her in my arms for a comforting hug would not give her peace at the moment. So I had to suppress my protective instincts for now and keep listening.

** Trigger warning: description of a psychologically abusive relationship; skip to End of Trigger Warning if this upsets you**

"Things were great at first. He was dominant, as is to be expected from the second in the pack hierarchy, but my tigress loved his strength, confidence and aggressiveness. I initially saw nothing wrong in his possessiveness since I was used to seeing such behavior in my birth pride. I did feel unwelcome in the pack, where the males looked down on me for being a cat shifter and the females hated me for taking the Beta off the menu, their ticket to the top of the hierarchy. But Bruce was worth it." She stabbed a sashimi. "Or so I thought at the beginning."

I wanted to stab something myself. Preferably with my claws.

"As time passed, Bruce's behavior got worse. Or, as I realized later, he simply stopped pretending being a nice guy as much. He forced me to quit my job because that way I spent too much time away from him. Soon I wasn't allowed to go out without him, because I had to always be protected and he didn't want me in the company of other males, even the ones with fated mates. He got access to my phone, my laptop, my email and social network accounts. My savings were under his control so I was entirely dependent on him financially... I felt suffocated. When I told him that during a particularly bad argument, he locked me up in the bedroom for two days."

Samantha let out a wobbly breath. "I left him the first chance I got after that. Went to a motel with the meager sum I had in my purse. He found me, of course. Begged me for forgiveness. Made promises to rein in his possessiveness. To change."

"And you believed him." I could hear it in her tone, see it in her eyes. She felt ashamed of herself, of putting up with such treatment. "I get it, darlin'. You had feelings for him and you thought he deserved a second chance. You didn't want to believe he was a piece of wolf shit."

Samantha shook her head, a bitter smile on her face. "It wasn't just that, Sebastian. It was easier to give our relationship another try than to say goodbye to his face. I didn't have the guts to face the consequences of telling him no. Just like I was too weak to end things with Collin."

"Everyone has weak moments, Samantha," I said firmly. "It's what we do afterwards that defines us. The fact that you are here today, independent and persevering, shows you're the opposite of weak. You went back to that fucker but didn't stay, did you?"

She shook her head again. "My weak moment lasted years, Sebastian. I stayed with Bruce for years, both before and after that attempt to leave."

I grunted. "It's hard to end an abusive relationship. Especially when shifter groups like the ones we've grown up in normalize certain behaviors of males to the point where you don't realize until much later that they are abusive. And if you think I'm spouting nonsense, ask Dean. He's the one with the degree in psychology."

Samantha sighed and went back to poking her sushi.

"Go on, darlin'. I want to hear how you ditched his moon-howling ass."

She met my gaze, doubt written on her face.

Fuck. Was the worst yet to come in her story?

"Things were bearable for some time," she told me in a moment, "until the alpha got killed in a fight over territory with another shifter group. Bruce took over and... he had lots of ideas how to make the pack stronger. We needed to grow our numbers, you see, to 'refresh the decaying pack'. To be ready for a possible war with humans, now that they knew of our existence." Samantha put her chopsticks down since her hands had started shaking. "All the females had to start popping out pups. Me included, willing or not."

I couldn't stifle my growl this time. "He forced you to have a kid?"

"He didn't care that the chance of me giving him a pup instead of a cub was 50/50. I had to choose between trying for a child and watching him bed other females from the pack who were more than willing to give him pups." Samantha covered her face with her hands. "When I didn't get pregnant within a year, he began mating with others anyway. I was confined to the guest bedroom at those times, but I could clearly hear everyt–"

*** End of trigger warning***

The sound of breaking porcelain startled both of us. She uncovered her face and looked at the table.

"Hell, you're bleeding!"

I followed the direction of her gaze.

Sure enough, my hand on the table was leaking blood. There were shards of porcelain stuck in my palm. I didn't feel anything; I didn't even remember taking hold of the empty tea cup. All I felt was rage at what Samantha had been subjected to. My tiger wanted to rip her ex to shreds.

"Sebastian, what are you waiting for? Get the shards out so the cuts can close!"

"Forget about the shards. Tell me if Bruce still lives. Because if he does..."

She rolled her eyes and got up. "I'm not telling you all this because I want you to avenge me or something." She came to stand beside, napkin in hand. "Show me your hand."

"Darlin'–"

"I won't tell you anything unless you let me take care of you."

I huffed – did she have any idea what wounds I had endured over the years? I was not going to bleed to death from a pinprick, and Kim's tablecloth was already ruined. But since Samantha phrased her demand like that, I let her take the shards out and carefully wrap my palm in the napkin.

Her gentle touch helped ease the rage, reminding my tiger his fated mate was safe and protected right now, no longer in the paws of an abuser.

I missed her closeness when she went back to her chair, but it was better this way. Otherwise I would be tempted to pull her in my lap and hug her until she was back to her usual self. The tigress spitting fire at me and challenging me at every turn.

"Tell me, Samantha."

"Bruce is dead." She wrapped her arms around herself. "I wasn't there when it happened, just read about it in the newspaper around a year and a half after I had managed to run away from the pack. I had found the will to escape once Bruce had started sticking his dick in every female in the pack." She smiled bitterly. "That was when my tigress finally decided the wolf was yet another male unworthy to be a mate."

"Did he try to chase you down?"

"I don't know. I planned my escape well and made sure to not leave a trail as I stayed on the move. But I believe he tried to find me. He was too obsessed with his property, and he also wouldn't have left such a stain on his male reputation unpunished. Had he not gotten killed in a 'shifter turf war', as the newspaper article called it, he would have found me eventually, I'm sure of it."

"I'm glad he is dead, then." Getting my claws in him would have been very satisfying, but still. "That way you can stop running." Rory's check on Samantha had revealed she never stayed in one place for long, constantly moving from one settlement to another.

"I haven't been running from Bruce in over two years, Sebastian. It's shifters that I'm staying clear of. As you've said yourself, it's not safe for a lone female out there these days."

"That's why you need a shifter group. Us."

"And that's what I have been trying to make you understand with my overly long story. I don't want to join a shifter group. Not a pride, not a pack, nothing. Being on my own is the best option, as I have learned from experience." She met my gaze head-on before she added, "There can be no us, Sebastian."