CHAPTER 108: BREAKING

Josie

I could feel my head pounding like someone was drumming against my skull. The noise of my own thoughts was too loud, too sharp, too chaotic. Everything lately felt like a never-ending storm, and I was standing right in the middle of it with no umbrella, no shelter—nothing but the rain pounding down on me until I could barely breathe.

Liam opened his mouth to say something—probably one of his annoying, smug comments—but I lifted my hand sharply. "Don’t," I muttered, my voice coming out low but edged with steel. "You’re here to tutor me, Liam. Not make my life harder. If you can’t manage that, then keep your mouth shut."

His eyebrow twitched, and then he gave me that look—that insufferable, mocking look that made me want to claw it right off his face. "Josie," he drawled, rolling his eyes with slow exaggeration, "I’m not your friend. So don’t expect me to talk to you nicely, or coddle you, or ’smooth talk’ anything. There’s a lot you need to learn, and I’m not here to stroke your ego while you fail."

I folded my arms, glaring at him. "And there’s a lot you need to learn about not talking down to people."

He ignored me entirely, like my words were just background noise. He pushed the plate with the skinned rabbit toward me again. "Take it."

I stared at it like it was a venomous snake. "You’re insane."

"Take. It." His tone was flat, final. "You want to learn how far you can go? You start here."

My skin crawled. My stomach churned. The sight of it—pink flesh, a faint metallic smell of blood—made my throat close. "No," I said firmly.

Liam leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. "The problem with you," he said lazily, "is that you don’t know how far you’re supposed to go. You stop too early, you hesitate too much, and you think you can pick and choose what to face. That’s why you’re going to keep losing. And you can’t afford to lose."

I clenched my jaw. "This isn’t losing. It’s called having standards."

"It’s called being weak." His voice cut sharp, deliberate. "And weakness will kill you faster than anything else. So, are you going to keep pretending? Or are you going to prove you’re worth the trouble everyone’s going through to keep you alive?"

My hands itched to slap the smug off his face, but deep down, I knew there was no way out of this without making it worse for myself. He’d keep pushing, keep taunting, keep prodding until I broke. So I stepped forward. Slowly.

The closer I got, the worse it felt. My hands hovered over the rabbit, and my vision blurred—not from tears, but from how wrong it felt. My fingers trembled as I tried to lift it, but it wasn’t working. My body resisted like I was trying to pick up fire with my bare hands. The rabbit’s form seemed to shift under my touch, like the texture was changing, distorting, threatening to turn into something far worse than it already was. For one horrifying second, it felt like it was turning back into its original form in my hands, and I almost gagged.

I was seconds away from dropping it when a voice cut in. "Josie!"

I turned, relief hitting me like air after drowning. The guard stood at the doorway, looking tense. "The Alphas are looking for you. You need to come at once."

Thank the Moon. "I’ll be there," I said quickly, already stepping away from the table.

Liam smirked, leaning back even more. "Running away already?" he teased, his voice dripping with mockery. "You’re getting good at that."

I shot him a glare sharp enough to cut steel. "Enjoy your rabbit," I spat, before walking out without another word.

The walk back to the pack house was longer than I remembered, and every step seemed to press the tension deeper into my shoulders. When I finally stepped inside, they were waiting for me—Kiel, Varen, Thorne—lined up like they’d been there for hours.

"Where have you been?" Kiel’s voice was calm but sharp, his eyes locked on me like he could peel the truth right off my skin. "We were worried."

I shrugged, forcing nonchalance into my voice. "Practicing with Liam."

They spoke at once. "Why?"

I stared at them, deadpan. "Because I can do whatever I want. No one gets to tell me what to do. Not even you."

That’s when Thorne moved.

He crossed the space between us in two long strides and grabbed me, pulling me hard against him so I had to tilt my head up to meet his eyes. His grip wasn’t gentle; it was a warning. "When we give you an order," he said, his voice low but fierce, "you take it with your mouth shut. You don’t twist it into a choice. You don’t get to pretend there’s an option where there isn’t one."

His tone lit a fuse in me. The heat rose fast, and before I could think, the words were spilling out, sharp and unfiltered. "You don’t get to manhandle me and act like I’m your problem to control."

We were face to face now, breaths short, the air crackling between us. His eyes narrowed, mine burned right back, and I knew—knew—we were about to blow this into something neither of us could take back.

The argument exploded from there. Words were weapons, and we were throwing them like knives. I didn’t care if it was reckless; I wasn’t going to let him treat me like I was some disobedient pet. My voice rose, his rose louder, and the rest of the world faded until it was just me and him, locked in this ugly, heated clash.

"Enough!" Kiel’s voice broke through like a crack of thunder. He stepped between us, his hand on my shoulder, pushing me back.

Varen’s voice followed, sharp with irritation. "This is exactly why nothing ever gets done—because you, Thorne, can’t keep your temper long enough to actually solve anything. You make it worse every single time."

Thorne’s head snapped toward him. "Putting Josie in line is me fixing things, not making them worse."

Varen scoffed. "Putting her in line? You sound like a damn control freak. She’s not your soldier."

"She’s part of this pack," Thorne shot back, his voice rising again. "And if she can’t handle following orders, then she’s a liability. So yeah, I’ll put her in line."

The words made something in me snap clean in half.

I stepped forward, my voice cutting through the room. "Who exactly are you putting in line?"

Thorne turned on me without hesitation, his voice a roar. "You!"

My hand moved before I even realized it.

The crack of my palm against his face echoed through the room, sharp and final.