Liora tried to raise her arms to protect herself, to cover her face, to defend against the onslaught. But her body wasn't responding properly anymore. Everything hurt with an intensity that made it impossible to think clearly, to coordinate movement. Pain had become her entire world, consuming every thought, every sensation. The room tilted sickeningly, the walls and ceiling trading places in her distorted vision.
How can he do this? I'm his daughter. His daughter.
But she wasn't, was she? Not really. Not in any way that mattered to him.
She was the bastard child of a servant woman who had died under mysterious circumstances years ago, a woman whose death no one would speak of, whose life had been so invisible that even her passing barely registered in the household's memory. Liora had been five years old when her mother died, old enough to remember her face, the sound of her voice, the warmth of her rare embraces, but too young to understand what her death meant, too young to comprehend that she was now completely alone in a family that had never wanted her.
And now her daughter was paying the price for ever having been born.
Another blow landed on her already battered ribs, and the world went gray at the edges, reality narrowing to a distant pinpoint of consciousness barely clinging to awareness.
When her vision cleared slightly, swimming back into focus through waves of nauseating pain, she was being dragged across the floor. Her father had her by the arm, hauling her limp body through the sitting area like a sack of grain, like cargo that had to be delivered. She tried to make her legs work, tried to stand, tried to find some dignity in this nightmare. But they kept buckling beneath her, refusing to support her weight. Her feet scraped uselessly across the floorboards, leaving smears of blood from cuts she didn't remember receiving.
The wolf stepped forward as they approached, his expression shifting from detached observation to something resembling concern, though whether it was concern for her or for the quality of the merchandise being delivered was impossible to tell. He frowned, his eyes moving over Liora's battered face, cataloging the damage with professional assessment. The blood dripped steadily from her split lip onto her shirt. The swelling was already closing her left eye. The bruises blooming across her cheeks and jaw were in shades of purple and black.
"How is she supposed to defend herself in this condition?" he asked, genuine confusion coloring his voice, as if the answer mattered to him on some level. "The Hunt has always been about survival, about prey that can run, that can fight, that can think and adapt. What purpose does it serve to send someone who can't even stand?"
"She'll be fine by morning," her father said curtly, shoving Liora toward the wolf without ceremony, without a final word or gesture of farewell. "She heals quickly. Always has. It's one of her few useful traits. She'll be running by dawn, I guarantee it."
Heals quickly. Another curse disguised as a blessing. Another reason she'd been chosen instead of her siblings.
The wolf caught her before she could collapse completely onto the floor, his grip surprisingly gentle compared to her father's brutality, his hands steady and careful. Liora's head lolled against his chest, her vision still swimming in and out of focus, the edges of her awareness blurring. Through the haze of pain, she became aware of other sounds filtering in from outside, sounds that spoke of a larger operation, of this being just one stop among many. The low rumble of an idling engine. Muffled voices speaking in clipped tones. The shuffle of multiple feet on gravel.
This can't be real. This can't be happening. Father wouldn't... he couldn't...
But he had. He'd beaten her nearly unconscious and handed her over like livestock, like property, like something that had never held any value beyond its utility.
The wolf shifted his hold on her, producing a length of rough rope from somewhere inside his coat. Her wrists were pulled together in front of her body, and she felt the coarse fiber bite into her skin as he tied them with practiced efficiency, the knots tight but not cruel. She wanted to struggle, wanted to fight, wanted to summon some last reserve of defiance. But her body felt distant and disconnected, as if it belonged to someone else entirely, as if her consciousness had already begun separating from the flesh that had failed her so completely.
"Can you walk?" he asked her quietly, his voice surprisingly gentle, almost apologetic for a wolf. This was never their nature.
She didn't answer. Couldn't form the words needed for a response... Her tongue felt too heavy. Her mouth wouldn't work properly, her tongue thick and clumsy.