Page 82 of Pack: Posy 3

Hesitantly, he agreed. He went slowly and kept checking in with her verbally, and we all relaxed a bit as things went along with no problem. Then I felt her begin to freeze up and told her to tell him to stop, but she forced herself through it until he slid her panties down. With a scream, she pushed him away, threw herself off the bed, and sobbed in the corner again.

Eventually, Mason was able to convince her to let him get close enough to pick her up. Wrapping her in a blanket, he cradled her in his big arms and rocked her until she fell asleep. The other alphas huddled around them, disturbed and upset, and the devastated look in Ash's eyes broke my heart.

The next morning, the alphas invited Dr. York to the house. They took him into the home office and talked to him for about an hour, then their wolves talked to him for another hour, although one of them -cough, Quartz,cough- wouldn't interact with him at all.

Finally, it was Posy's turn.

It took a good while before Dr. York earned enough of her trust, but once she opened up, he skillfully mined every last nugget of her past without her even realizing how much she was revealing.

Then he sat back, steepled his fingers in front of his face, and stared at the ceiling for a full five minutes.

"Luna," he said at last, "do youwantto improve this situation with your mates, or are you content to continue your current platonic relationship?"

"What does platonic mean?" she asked. "I can make a guess, but I want to be sure."

"Friendly and loving, but no mating."

"I thought so. I want things to go back to the way they were. I—" She swallowed hard and her cheeks burned red. Keeping her eyes on her tangled fingers, she whispered, "I like being with them that way."

"Enjoying intimacy with your mates isn't anything to be embarrassed about or ashamed of," he told her gently. "It's normal and healthy. If youdidn'tenjoy it, this would be an entirely different conversation."

"I miss it," she admitted, still whispering, "and I'm afraid they're going to get impatient or think I'm punishing them or something. I don't want them to hate me."

"Oh, luna." Dr. York covered his mouth with his hand for a moment. "After meeting with your mates, I can tell you with absolute certainty that they love you. Even if you can never be intimate with them again, their feelings toward you will not change. Also, the marks you've given each other guarantee they will stay by your side forever just as you will theirs. Furthermore, they know you're not punishing them. They know you're dealing with something they can't understand."

Of course they not understand, I thought to myself with a huff.They never locked in a dark room day after day until months blend into years. They never beaten by someone who supposed to love and protect them. They never silenced and not allowed to talk or link with anyone. Their wolves never tortured or drugged into a coma—

"I don't understand why I'm panicking now, though," Posy's soft voice brought my attention back to the present.

"I have a theory, but it's just a theory." He shrugged. "The mind is a very fluid place where thoughts can be tricked and manipulated and opinions changed in a heartbeat. I could be wrong."

"I'd still like to hear your theory."

"When Alpha Cole said what he did while alphas Ash and Wyatt sat there without intervening, your mind connected that with Alpha Briggs and your brothers. Even though you knew they were two separate events, one in the past and one in the present, your mind melded them together and took you right back to that dark room you were kept in."

I nodded in agreement with Dr. York

Now we getting to the heart of it.The lid got knocked off the box where my girl keep all those bad memories. Now she no can—I stopped and remembered one of Garnet’s lessons with me.No, Garnet say use cannot. Now shecannotget it back on.

"Alphas Mason and Jayden said you are usually extremely good at seeing each of your mates as individuals and not as mates collectively, which is amazing, to tell you the truth. I've worked with lunas before who struggled to divide their attention between twin or triplet mates, and you have five!"

He paused to see if she had anything to add or ask, but she only nodded for him to continue.

"But now, your mind sees them as a unit that, unfortunately, resembles your step-father. They're large men, powerful and dominant, and alphas. Attributes that usually are seen as positives for shifters, but for you, are warning signs of danger. Abuse. Pain. Isolation."

"I don't hate them. I'm not scared of them." Posy's eyes stung with tears.

"I know you don't hate them, but are yousureyou're not scared of them?"

She opened her mouth, but only a whimper came out.

"Yeah." Dr. York nodded. "To be honest, with your history of such severe abuse, I'm surprised you were able to be intimate with thembeforethe parasite incident. I bet it took you a while to "let" them touch you, and even longer before youwantedthem to touch you, and even longer still beforeyouwanted to touchthem."

He didn't need her to respond. She and I both knew he was correct.

"As a runt, you are physically more fragile than most, and your mind is quite aware of how easy it would be for them to hurt you. They betrayed your trust once; how can you know they won't do that again? So, right now, a part of your mind sees mating as making yourself extremely vulnerable to five large, powerful, dominant alphas who could betray or hurt you at any moment."

"They didn't betray me," she mumbled. "I know what happened. I saw the witches take out the parasite, and I saw Maria's memory of how it infected Cole. And they wouldn't hurt me. Not ever."

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