Skinned

Valerie

“You’re awfully quiet tonight, Killian,” I looked at him over my shoulder with a smile, and found myself immediately consumed by his right blue eye that glared through the darkened forest.

“I’ve ran out of questions,” Killian said nonchalantly while still maintaining his scorching gaze on my back, which was most specifically focused on my legs.

I knew something was going on in his mind. He had something in his head that he was refusing to tell me, and he chose to deal with it on his own instead.

His posture was tall and unyielding as he followed close behind me. He didn’t need my help to keep him steady anymore, carrying himself with stability as his body began to return to its healthier shape.

I had stopped giving him sedatives.

We were heading over to the northern border where the lake was located. After Alpha Eli’s pack took their departure at the end of the Exchange, Heath had made sure that it was cleared by the pass of midnight, and I was hoping that it could help Killian retrace his memories.

I was on my last straw with Killian; no analysis, no research, and no test could lead me to an adequate answer to what he was.

I was running out of time, and I was starting to lose options and ideas in putting light to his past.

As soon as we reached the side of the lake, Killian came to a halt and frowned as he took in the scenery before him.

“Are you okay?” I asked him, and he looked down at me in confusion.

Killian’s jaw locked tight, fingers curling into his palm as he let his thoughts consume him for a moment.

“I’m fine,” he told me. “Why are we here?”

We stopped at the edge of the dock, sitting down and looking at him over my shoulder, I urged him to sit next to me by landing a soft pat on the empty space beside me.

While he looked like he was inwardly debating with himself, he slowly took his place beside me.

“Do you know this place?” I asked Killian, and searched his features to find some sort of reaction.

“It hurts to try and remember, but it’s familiar,” he said, but I wasn’t really sure what he meant by hurt.

“Go ahead,” I smiled at him while he kept his attention down at the water.

He raised his head to look at me questioningly, and I let out a soft laugh as I watched his sharp features regard me with an innocent curiosity. “You can swim, if you want. I asked Heath for some extra clothes anyway.”

“Just don’t go too far, Killian,” I said.

A smile reached its way onto his lips, and the sight alone drew me closer to an attachment I didn’t want to acknowledge.

Killian dropped down into the water, submerging himself deep until I could only make out the outline of his large physique.

He swam until he reached the middle of the lake and stopped with his back facing me.

For a moment, the trees had stopped moving, and everything was silent except the sound of the rippling water.

Even nature took its time to admire him.

He looked hauntingly beautiful, a creature that deserved more than the hard marks of pain and hatred. How anyone could think that he was a monster was beyond me.

Killian looked up to regard the moon, and I nearly lost my breath when he turned his attention to me.

His eyes were consuming me. As the distance began to decrease between us, the pull of him wrapped itself tightly around me; drawing me, beckoning me to surrender myself to the strength of his allure.

My lips parted as he neared his deliberate approach. As if on my own body’s accord, my legs moved apart to accomodate him as he reached me while I sat at the edge of the dock. His hands came up to settle them on either sides of me before looking up to meet my gaze.

He was so close that I could witness how his eyes dilated at the sight of me, his breath shallow as he pushed himself a little higher to bring himself even closer to me.

“What are you doing?” I asked him weakly and placed my hand flat on his wet shoulder.

The action alone was meant to stop him from going any further, but he leaned into my touch with a sigh escaping his lips.

Why was it so hard to breathe?

My thumb brushed against his clavicle, and I frowned when I felt the small rough patches decorating his skin. I let my eyes travel down to the particular spot on his collarbone while Killian was lost in his own temporary daze.

1 0 6 5

Engraved on his skin, were four consecutive little numbers that had my breath caught within my throat.

He was branded.

“Killian,” I mumbled and looked at him, his eyes dropped to my thumb brushing against the numbers branded on his skin; they were almost unnoticeabale.

An idea had crept its way into my mind, chilling me to the bone as it came crashing down on me; the truth to his emergence.

And I didn’t want to believe it yet.

I remembered a scar on the back of his head, and upon my realization, I quickly stood up and grabbed my bag before facing him completely.

“Get out of the water and get dressed.”

Killian was immediately broken away from his stupor, and a slight melancholy passed his features before giving me a hesitant nod in response.

“This won’t hurt,” I told Killian as I settled myself behind him, “Don’t move.”

I held the scalpel tight in my hand and placed my hand on the crook of his neck to calm him down.

I held my breath and started the incision to the back of his head, and while I did it, I made a small prayer that I wasn’t going to find anything that could strengthen my growing theory.

And the first thing that greeted me was a microchip implanted in his head.

At that moment, I felt all the blood drain out from my features as I looked at the tiny chip in my hand.

“You’re being tracked,” I said, and I couldn’t hide the tremble in my voice as I looked at the chip and back at Killian with an expression that carried all of my dread.

“You were meant to enter our pack, you were planned,” I breathed out.

He could be a weapon.

He could be the butcher of all werewolves.

He could be anything destructive.

Killian was a test subject. He wasn’t born, but he was made, and he was created for a purpose that I was too afraid to find out.

And all the blame was pinned on me for thinking that he was not a threat.

“Did you lie?” I bit out.

“I never lied to you, Valerie,” Killian told me with his expression bearing his own hurt, “I didn’t even know that I had that inside me.”

“You need to get out of my pack,” I cried out.

It was all my fault. I had persuaded everyone in my pack to welcome a pawn to an experiment’s success, and I had endangered many lives because of it.

I was stupid.

Killian took a step closer to me, and I immediately reacted by widening the distance between us by taking two steps back.

“Leave!” I hissed, and Killian’s features had lost its hope as he stopped to look at me in despair.

“Valerie, I can’t—”

A wrathful growl coming from behind me rendered me cold, the sound of it so powerful that it was enough for me to recognize who it was.

Alpha Azeil.

I turned around to meet the eyes of the wolf that bared his threat to me. His hackles were raised and the dripping purpose to his advance sent fear straight through my spine.

And I was there to stand in all my shame, only for the Alpha to punish.

The wolf snarled as I tried to fix my posture, daring me to make any more movements as he walked over to me. Every land of his paw forced my shoulders to curl inwardly, and I couldn’t help but kneel and plant my hands on my lap to beg for my throat of life.

Heath did this.

Amidst the betrayal that seated heavily on my shoulders, I flinched when the Alpha came close to snap his teeth right on the side of my cheek, pushing me to tremble in fear and submission.

I heard a body crashing onto the ground, and I looked behind me to see Beta Reed sinultaneously sticking two separate syringes on Killian’s neck.

He didn’t use the regular sedatives, but chose to go with the antiserum that I had long been injecting myself with.

“You fucked up, Valerie,” Beta Reed told me coldly and pushed the syringes deeper into Killian’s neck.

Killian didn’t fight against it, he kept his head down as he waited for the effects to kick in.

But I wasn’t sure if that was enough to influence him.

“You have to listen to me,” I told Alpha Azeil, but I was immediately stopped with another snap of his teeth.

He was refusing to put any more of his regard to the words leaving a traitor’s mouth.

No trust could be put on me now.

I was no longer a loyal pack member, but a mere enemy that traded an entire community of werewolves for a single laboratory experiment.

“Do what you will with me,” I muttered weakly, “I’ll accept every lash from my doing.”

I refused to cry out my defeat as I waited for my Alpha’s judgement.

At that moment, I had lost what was left of my purpose.