The smell of a pine enveloped my scents as the soft crackle and popping of wood sounded in my ears. My eyebrows furrowed as I tried to pull myself awake. I had a massive headache that pounded against my skull endlessly. Willing myself to open my eyes, I had to blink a few times to clear out the blurriness that appeared.

I was laying down in a dim room, the only light came from the warm flames of the fire burning in the fireplace. As my confusion grew, I examined the mantel above the fireplace noticing a well-thought-out display of stone that ran up to the ceiling. It looked eerily familiar, but I couldn't but my finger on where I had seen it before.

"This place is pretty nice, right?"

My blood turned icy cold; I could have sworn my heart stopped for a moment. God, how I wish it had stopped, I wouldn't have to endure what was to come.

I shut my eyes cursing myself for opening them in the first place. At least when I was asleep, he didn't seem to bother with me, awake, however, nothing was off the table.

"Uh-uh-uh, can't go back to sleep already." His voice chimed as his footsteps creaked the wooden floorboards.

My heart sped up with every footstep he took and once he was standing over me, I felt my hard skip a beat. It wasn't the type of skip that made your stomach flutter with butterflies, no it was the kind that twisted your stomach into a knot.

His hungry stare along with his menacing smirk had me pressing my body into the sofa, wishing that it would swallow me whole. Anywhere but here would be a dream come true, but as I gazed up at him all I saw was a nightmare.

"Where is Jozy?" I croaked, crawling to the other end of the sofa. My neck was tight, and my back was sore. I wasn't sure what had happened after I saw Nani get shot but whatever had happened caused my body to ache.

Roy scoffed finding my worries less then interesting. "We left her, just like the other two murderous beasts."

I wanted to be mad. I wanted to throw endless punches at his smug face but I knew I couldn't, no, not that I couldn't cause I very well could, but rather I shouldn't. I shouldn't because I knew that Jozy was at least left behind; she wasn't here to endure Roy's wrath. She was at least far from here, wherever here was.

My eye once again scanned the room searching for any detail of where I was at the moment. The stone of the fireplace looked oddly familiar earlier and as I looked at it longer my eyebrows furrowed searching for an answer to my sudden lack of memory.

I tore my eyes from the fireplace and instead looked around the room. There were beautiful carved embellishments in the wood framing and decor. As I followed the intricate detailing it soon led my eyes to a large and open kitchen, and just across from the kitchen was a staircase. The staircase went up a couple steps and turned and continued on.

I would have looked around more to get a better understand of where I was but as I looked at the staircase my jaw had dropped. There, on the first level of the stairs embedded in the wall were four deep gashes. Gashes, that I vividly remember running my fingers over.

The Cabin.

I swiveled my head around to face Roy my nightmare growing tenfold at the realization that my two worst enemies were undoubtable working together.

"You're working with Nora?" My meek voice only came out like a whisper.

Roy laughed as he rounded the sofa to stand behind it astounded. "Wow, I'm impressed how quickly you put the pieces together. Much quicker than your lousy excuse of a mate."

He lightly skimmed his rough fingertips over my exposed arm. His leisure attitude left him trail his fingers up until they rested on my shoulder. His left hand came around and fell on my left shoulder. I gulped as his grip tightened, it wasn't to the point that it hurt, but it was enough to tell me I was no match.

"You know you really pissed me off running off from campus the other day." I swallowed hard as he rolled his thumbs into my shoulders as if he was giving me a massage. "Since you've been gone, I've had time to think about all the ways I'm going to correct your behavior." His lips just skimmed the edge of my earlobe as my heart hammered in my chest. My body began to shake, fearing for my life.

His large hand swept over my neck and a trail of repulsion following close behind. "Starting with that ugly mark of yours."

I didn't have time to think or move or even breath as his grip cemented itself around my neck. A choke just barely fell from my lips as it changed in an instant to a piercing scream.

My neck felt like it was on fire, like someone had taken a bucket of lava and pressed it hard against my mark. No amount of wiggling or pulling or thrashing could get me free from his grasp. I was locked against the back of the sofa as Roy pressed red hot iron rod to my neck.

His voice was threatening with a hint of amusement. "Feel that my Eve, this is a reminder of who you really belong to. You belong to me, not him, I had you first."

I gasped and cried out against the burning iron that was melting my skin. My chest suddenly grew tight as I frantically gasp for air. It wasn't my struggle to breath or my tight chest that was the most alarming to me, it was the overwhelming feeling that I was literally being ripped apart.

My brain felt like it was being severed in two. I screamed in agony as I slowly fell apart, my fingernails digging deeper into his forearms, but it was no use as it only caused him to push the rod deeper.

"I think it's honorable that the alpha took up my sloppy seconds, but I want them back. And what better way to prove it," He pulled away taking the rod with him.

Tears were streaking down my face as I ran across the room as far away as I could to him. My fingers just grazed the tender skin when I had to yank them back, whimpering when the burn throbbed like a beating drum.

"-than to give you a mark of my own."

Full of himself he dropped into the sofa resting his arms on the top of the sofa comfortably. I watched terrified in the corner with my arms wrapped around myself as he swirled the hot iron rode in front of me.

At first, I had thought it only to be an iron poke for the fireplace but on closer examination I soon realized that it was a branding iron with the initials RV.

That is RV for Roy Valencia.

My voice trembled but I was still able to speak. "Y- you branded me."

"You don't look happy." He grunted rolling his eyes.

Shocked by his words I failed to keep my voice low and submissive. I was too distraught to think of anything else but call out his arrogance.

"Why the hell would I be happy? Don't you get it? I don't want you!" I screamed. I had too much built up angry that I was willingly sabotaging myself. I had set myself up for his wrath, and from the look that was on his face I think I had succeeded.

He stood up, storming over to me with the fury of thousand acer wildfire, ready and willing to destroy anything that it could touch, and for him that meant me.

Roy grabbed a fistful of my curls before I could move out of his reach, throwing my body into the coffee table as if my body were as light as a feather. The glass center of the coffee table shattered littering my skin with shards of glass and streams of blood.

"Did I ask you if you wanted me? No!" He shouted hoisting me up by my neck. My dainty hands circled around his wrist trying in desperation to break free, it only left smears of blood instead on his skin. "Because it doesn't matter what you want. It's what I want, and what I want-" He brought me closer to his face until I could feel his spoiled breath fanning my face. "I get, am I understood?"

I stared with hatred in my eyes, and I did the only thing I thought suited for this moment and I spitted.

It was more like a loggie when I looked closer at it, and I was honestly satisfied when I saw it plastered against his mouth and nose. The smile that formed on my face was hard to hide, how could I when he was literally wearing my spit. I couldn't indulge for long though as Roy backed me up until I fell into the sofa, his body following with me.

He used his weight to pin me to the sofa, straddling me quickly to control me kicking legs. Getting the upper hand, he pulled my hands one my one of his wrists tucking them under his knees.

I grunted and yelled trying endlessly to break free, but it was hopeless he had me completely at his mercy and I had no way to defend myself. Knowing this he leaned forward applying all his weight on my neck, successfully depriving me completely of oxygen.

It didn't matter that I clawed with all my might because with every slash I created on his skin my world grew darker, and darker, until all that was left was his voice before I faded away.

"How funny do you think you are now, Eve?"

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