Beneath crimsons vows

The Scars She Hid From The World

REGINA MCBRIDE

The heavy iron gates of the Wilderness Correction Camp groaned as they released me after three years of state-sponsored hell. I stood on the dirt road, clutching a plastic bag that held my entire life, waiting for the family that claimed they sent me there for "rehab." My brother, Brady, picked me up in a luxury SUV only to throw me out onto a deserted highway in the middle of a brewing storm. He told me I was a "public relations nightmare" and that the rain might finally wash the "stink" of the camp off me. He drove away, leaving me to limp miles through the mud on a snapped ankle. When I finally dragged myself to our family estate, my mother didn't offer a hug; she gasped in horror because my muddy clothes were ruining her Italian marble. They didn't give me my old room back. Instead, they banished me to a moldy gardener’s shack and hired a "babysitter" to make sure I didn't embarrass them further. My sister, Kaleigh, stood there in white cashmere, pretending to cry while clinging to her fiancé, Ambrose—the man who had once been mine. They all treated me like a volatile junkie, refusing to acknowledge that Kaleigh was the one who planted the drugs in my bag three years ago. They wanted to believe I was broken so they wouldn't have to feel guilty about the "wellness retreat" that was actually a torture chamber. I sat in the dark of that shed, feeling the cooling gel on the cigarette burns that covered my arms, and realized they had made a fatal mistake. They thought they had erased me, but I had returned with a roadmap of scars and a hidden satellite phone. At dinner, I didn't beg for their love. I simply rolled up my sleeves and showed them the price of their silence. As the wine spilled and the lies crumbled, I sent a single text to the only person I trusted: "I'm in. Let them simmer." The hunt was finally on.

Modern Revenge Scheming

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“What is my offense that you must treat me like this, Andrew?” Cecilia’s voice trembled with frustration, her eyes blazing with pain and anger as she confronted him.

Andrew Blackwood, the man she’d once admired from afar, stood before her with his arms crossed, his expression unmoved. Those deep, golden-brown eyes she’d dreamed about as a girl now looked right through her, cold and detached.

“You have no right to question me, Cecilia,” he replied, his voice smooth and calm, as if her accusations meant nothing to him.

The words struck her harder than she expected, yet she remained standing, swallowing down the ache in her chest. Their marriage was little more than a shadow, an arrangement that had drained her heart dry over the past two years. She had thought it might bring her some measure of peace or connection, but it had only shown her the depths of her loneliness.

A bitter pang of longing twisted inside her as she looked at him. She was trapped in a marriage that felt like a cage, and yet, inexplicably, she still cared for him, still yearned for a connection that would never come.

“Andrew,” she said quietly, desperation bleeding into her tone, “is there truly nothing between us? Not even a shred of respect?”

He glanced at her, a fleeting look of annoyance flashing across his face. “I gave you my answer, Cecilia. I don’t owe you any explanation.”

Her heart twisted painfully at his words.

The previous evening, Cecilia listened to Andrew whispering while sleeping, saying the name of a different woman, Vivian. She attempted to suppress it from her thoughts, convincing herself it was merely a dream. However, Andrew brushed off Cecilia’s inquiries with icy apathy when she approached him, cautioning her never to inquire about his personal affairs.

Now, Cecilia found herself standing there, trying to maintain composure despite his cold-hearted cruelty.

—--------

The following day, Cecilia left for her appointment with the doctor, feeling the heavy burden of her reality weighing on her. Leaving the clean hospital room, her thoughts were consumed by her diagnosis. Her illness was progressing, and with every appointment, there was no improvement in her ailment. Time was slipping away, and each day in this empty marriage only seemed to highlight her isolation.

The hallway is busy with nurses and rolling carts, but Cecilia hardly notices any of it. Then she smells something familiar and her heart stops. Since birth, they all develop a specific scent that strengthens when they mate as a way to locate each other. Cecilia has been told that her smell is lavender. Andrew always smells like wood and vanilla in bourbon, her favorite perfume.

So why is she smelling him there? She cock her head to get a better scent. Yes- he is in the hospital, and close by.

Not just him, but a different scent too, familiar and horrifying all at once. Cecilia’s heart drops into her stomach. She feels her skin prickle and a low growl erupts at the base of her heart.

And then, she saw them.

Andrew stood by the entrance, his hand entwined with another woman. She quickly brings her hand to her mouth, stifling for air. Is that Vivian? Is she back in the pack?

But that’s not what caught her attention. Cecilia stared open mouth at how Andrew's touch on Vivian’s hand was gentle, his fingers trailing over her skin in a way that spoke of an intimacy Cecilia had never known with him. They stood close, his face softened as he whispered something to Vivian that made her laugh, her eyes lighting up with a warmth that was painfully absent from Cecilia’s life.

Cecilia’s breath caught in her throat, her heart constricting as she watched them together. She knew of Vivian, knew that she and Andrew had a past, but seeing them like this, out in the open, was a blow she hadn’t prepared for.

All the nurses stop to stare at them, and it is no wonder. Together like this, they look like a couple in a magazine, so deeply in love that everything else is simply an outward display around them. Cecilia dodged behind a plant and casually took out her phone to look too busy. It’s not a good sign when a flock of medical professionals gather around something.

“So lucky to have Alpha Andrew as her husband,” One of the nurses said, pupping gum into her mouth. The rest of the nurses murmur in agreement and Cecilia waits to smell Andrew refute their statements, but when the silence continues her jaw drops in shock.

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