She Was You

**MAX**

After spending a solid two minutes reigning myself in, I finally move towards the bedroom door and flip the deadbolt in place.

“What are you doing, Max?” Blanca’s tired voice reaches my ears and the raw sadness I hear riding on the breath of her words stabs into my chest like a hot knife.

Turning around, I study her face. Her electric blue eyes shine with a heavier sparkle than usual, almost as if they’re hanging on to an ocean of tears. Her lips twitch ever so slightly, the edges of her mouth straining and relaxing proof that she’s constantly battling her frown.

My eyes drag over the heave of her breasts beneath the thin cotton nightdress she’s wearing and I realize I can see the dark outline of her nipples through the fabric *much* too easily and I'm suddenly curious where in the hell she got the goddessdamned thing.

I pop off the bedroom door like I’ve been burned, stalking toward her with clipped, purposeful steps. The closer I get to her, the more of her nipples I can see through that joke of a nightgown and the angrier I become.

“Were you wearing that at dinner?” I can’t help but snap. I know that should not be what’s important right now and I know that I sound like a bastard, but I don't care. 

“Wearing, what?” she replies, glancing down at herself. “This nightgown?”

“That is not a nightgown, Blanca. It’s practically made of tissue paper. Is that what you were wearing at dinner?”

Her eyes narrow and she glares at me. “No, Alpha. Doc Maize put this on for me. She said the lightweight fabric would be more comfortable with the bruising.”

I want to ask her how many people have seen her in it. For instance, has Jared, but the mention of her bruising stops me.

“Let me see,” I tell her, attempting to keep my face as impassive as possible.

“No!” she replies, yanking the blanket up to her chin and turning her head away from me. “I will be fine, Max. Please…leave.”

“I’m sorry,” I growl out, “did I just hear you tell me, no and then tell me to leave? Me? Your Alpha?”

“Well, look at that. You were right, Max,” she quips, still not looking at me. “Your hearing *is* just fine.”

“However, yours isn’t,” I hiss. Putting a good amount of raw power into my words, I say, “Let me see the bruises, Blanca. Right now.”

She clamps her eyes shut and I watch her hands tremble as she fights my command, but she doesn’t last long, releasing a pained whimper when she finally gives in and throws the blanket to the side.

My eyes go straight for her bare legs and the memory of their softness puts a brand new ache in my balls. One that has my dick spiking to ninety degrees and swelling so fucking swiftly, I’m lightheaded for a moment and am forced to inhale a deep shuddering breath. Swallowing a groan, I draw my gaze up toward the apex of her thighs and the tiny scrap of pink lace that is currently the only barrier between me and heaven. 

*Fuck. I really didn’t think this through did I?*

The tragically thin nightdress is already bunched up around her hips, so I rip my eyes away from her panties and toward her mid-section and then… it is as if I’ve been punched in the gut. All the air wooshes out of me and I drop to my knees next to the bed, completely unable to stop myself from reaching forward, I end up with my hands on either side of her hips as I work to accept what I’m looking at. 

Dark, veiny bruises stretch about her midsection, then wrap around her torso like a pair of snakes. They’re purple and red and *do not* fucking belong on my beautiful Blanca’s skin.They look treacherous… and painful. They look deadly.

“Good Goddess,” I breathe out and I hear her whimper, but I can’t take my eyes off the sight in front of me. “Fuck, Blanca. How bad does it hurt?”

She takes a sharp breath then says, “I can handle it. It’s nothing compared to the pain in my chest.”

“Your chest?” I ask, swallowing what feels like sand in my throat. “Let me see.”

She chuckles humorlessly then says, “It’s not that kind of pain. Now if you don’t mind…”

But I do mind and despite how I acted when Maize all but blamed me for Blanca’s injuries, I’m finding it hard to accept that *I* did this,

*I did this to her.*

*How am I supposed to choose someone else for my Luna now?*

*And risk something like this happening again?*

“Blanca… I…”

“It’s okay, Max. Really… it’s fine. I’m starting to understand. Some things are more important than mates,” she whispers, still refusing to look at me. Silent tears trek down her cheeks and her body quakes with the effort she is making to keep them mute. “But surely now you can see… you have to reject me.”

*No. I don’t want to.*

Drawing a hand down over one exquisitely soft thigh, I suppress a shiver and focus on her mottled flesh. “Relax for me, baby. Please.”

“Max! Just leave me-oh! Oh!” She gasps, her entire body erupting in a wash of gooseflesh when I place an open mouthed kiss over the top of one of her grisliest bruises, then drag my tongue down toward her hip before placing yet another soft wet kiss just above the hemline of her pink lace panties. My hand on her thigh slinks between her legs and I trace my thumb up and down her slit on the outside of the soft blush fabric. “Max!” Now she looks at me. “What are you doing?”

“I’m so sorry, baby. I should never have gone anywhere with her. If I had just stayed here and had someone else take her to the hotel then none of this would have happened.” 

"It would have happened eventually." Tears continue to fall from her eyes and she whispers, “Do you know what hurts the most? Not the bruises. It's the image of you kissing her and-”

“She drugged me, Blanca,” I say point blank and her mouth falls open in shock. “I was so goddessdamned high that I thought she was you. But her touch was all wrong, her voice was wrong and then... when I smelled her hair, that's when I knew for certain. I'd made a mistake. She admitted to it after I threw her off of me. So you see, I didn’t kiss her, baby. I kissed you.”