Chapter 5

 

Avyaane's POV

"You're my mate?!" Chad's voice rang out, thick with surprise and an undercurrent of possession that sent a shiver down my spine.

I recoiled from him, my back pressing against the solid forms of his brothers as they crowded around me. Logan, Killian, and Blair - the very ones who had made my high school years a living hell through their relentless bullying and torment.

How could this be happening? How could the cruelest twist of fate bind me eternally to these monsters as their mate?

"That's right, little wolf," Logan purred, his hot breath fanning over my neck as his hands gripped my upper arms in a bruising hold. "You're ours now. No escaping."

A panicked whimper escaped my lips as I thrashed against his restraining grip. This couldn't be real. It had to be some sort of twisted nightmare from which I would soon awake.

But the harsh reality became impossible to deny as Killian stepped before me, his crimson eyes blazing with dark desire that made my stomach churn.

"I'm going to make you scream, mate," he hissed, trailing a finger along my jawline. "Over, and over, and over again until you beg for mercy."

Blair crowded in beside him, his twisted grin sending tendrils of dread snaking through me. "And when you think you can't take any more, I'll make sure to remind you exactly who you belong to."

Their words were like knives, each one slicing deeper into my psyche and fueling the growing sense of desperation that welled up inside me.

In one swift motion, Logan carried me back to the bed with one arm. I thrashed and thrashed but to no avail.

I would not be cowed by their threats, this time. I would not be their submissive plaything, fated to endure their sadistic desires for all eternity.

With a burst of strength born from sheer desperation, I wrenched myself free from Logan's grasp, my hand diving beneath the pillow to grasp the cold, reassuring steel of the pistol I had hidden there.

A last resort, a means to end the torment that had become my life, but now it offered the glimmer of a different path – one of defiance against this cruel joke of destiny.

The quadruplets froze as I whipped the gun out, leveling it at them with a trembling hand. For a brief moment, surprise flickered across their faces, quickly giving way to disbelief and outrage.

"You ungrateful little bitch!" Killian snarled, his eyes flashing with fury. "How dare you raise a weapon against your mates? Do you think we would've chosen you too?" He barked.

"We were going to treat you badly no doubt," Logan snarled, his eyes blazing with outrage. "But in the eyes of the world you'll be the luckiest girl alive,  mated and living with us. But now..."

His lips twisted into a cruel sneer. "Now, you're going to get what's coming for you, and the world's going to pity your pathetic life, little whore!"

The air seemed to thicken with tension as the quadruplets advanced on me, their movements slow and predatory. Killian cracked his knuckles menacingly.

"Continue pleasuring us, mate. I was going to go easy on you, but now?" He shook his head slowly. "Now, I'm going to make you beg for death before the end."

Despite the hammering of my heart and the tremors of fear wracking my body, I held my ground, angling the gun towards Blair. His eyes widened fractionally as the barrel swung towards him, but his cocky grin never faltered.

"You don't have the guts," he taunted, spreading his arms wide in a show of bravado. "You're weak against us, little wolf. Just like always."

My finger tightened on the trigger, and the world seemed to slow to a crawl. I could see the surprise blooming across Blair's features as the deafening boom of the gunshot echoed through the room.

Time snapped back into its normal flow as Blair's agonized howl rent the air, the force of the bullet punching through the flesh of his arm and sending a spray of crimson arcing across the room.

He crumpled to the floor, clutching the wound as his blood seeped between his fingers, staining the pale skin of his hand a deep, glistening crimson. Shock and pain were writ large across his features as he stared at me with eyes wide with disbelief.

"Fuck this bitch!" He cursed loudly. And the rest dared not approach me.

"Are you mad bitch!?" Chad asked eyes wife from the spot where he stopped.

Logan and Killian's roars of fury shook the very walls around us, the force of their outrage a palpable thing. But I ignored them, allowing myself a grim smile of satisfaction as I pivoted on my heel, swinging the gun towards Chad.

He had remained unnervingly silent throughout the entire confrontation, his expression unreadable as his piercing gaze bored into me.

But now, as the barrel of the gun leveled at him, I saw a flicker of emotion in those icy depths – a swirling vortex of hurt, anger, and something else I couldn't quite identify.

My finger trembled on the trigger as I met his stare. This was it – my one chance to sever the twisted bonds of our alleged mating and claim my freedom once and for all. All it would take was a single squeeze of that trigger, and I could be free.

But in that moment, the first searing pangs of my shift ripped through me, stealing my breath and sapping my strength.

"Ahh! What's happening to me?" A guttural cry of pain tore from my lips as I crumpled to the floor, the gun slipping from my grasp to clatter across the hardwood.

Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision, threatening to consume me entirely. Through the haze of agony, I saw Chad's eyes one final time – a tumultuous storm of emotions that I couldn't begin to unravel before oblivion claimed me.

As consciousness faded, a single thought echoed through my mind – I had struck the first blow against this cruel joke of fate.

Perhaps it would be enough to secure my freedom, or perhaps it had merely signed my death warrant at the hands of my enraged mates.

Either way, I had acted, defying the destiny that had been thrust upon me, and now I would have to face the consequences of that defiance, whatever they might be.