Chapter 59: What Do You Mean Broken?
Agnes met his eyes directly.
"And emotionally," she said quietly, "she’s broken. Not in a way that will permanently damage her, I don’t think. But right now, in this moment, she’s shattered."
The words landed like a physical blow.
Sebastian turned from the window.
"What do you mean broken?" he asked. His voice was rough. Demanding.
"She woke up this morning," Agnes continued, "and she couldn’t remember what happened yesterday. She has a blank space in her memory from the moment she was with Alpha Lucian until she woke up. She doesn’t know what occurred. She doesn’t know why her body hurts so badly. And she’s terrified."
Lucian’s hands clenched into fists.
"Of what?" he demanded. "Of us? Is she afraid of us?"
From what i read from her expression when i asked if she could remember what happened, "She is afraid of everything," Agnes said. "She’s afraid of what you’ll do if you discover she can’t remember. She’s afraid of punishment. She’s afraid of what she might have done to make you angry. She’s spinning in her own panic, and there’s no one to pull her out of it."
Nicholas felt something twist in his chest.
He stood from his chair and turned away, unable to look at his brothers while they processed what Agnes was telling them. Because he could feel it too, the weight of knowing they’d hurt her so badly that her mind had simply... disconnected. Had fled to somewhere safer and left her body behind.
"There’s more," Agnes said.
Nicholas turned back to face her.
Agnes took a breath.
"She’s in a state of dissociation," the housekeeper continued. "Not fully. But partially. She moves slowly. She speaks quietly. When I asked her questions, she answered, but there was a lag, like her brain was processing things differently. Like she’s not fully present in her own body."
Sebastian made a sound....something between a curse and a groan.
"How long will that last?" he asked.
"I don’t know," Agnes said honestly. "A day or two, perhaps. Or longer. Trauma affects people differently. Some recover quickly. Some take longer. Some never fully recover."
The words hung in the air like poison.
Lucian started pacing again, but this time his movements were more agitated. More frantic.
"This is my fault," he said. His voice was rough. Raw. "I was the last one with her. I was the one who...."
"We all share responsibility," Nicholas cut him off coldly. "This isn’t about blame right now. This is about understanding what we’ve done and figuring out what we do next."
Agnes cleared her throat softly.
"If I may," she said, and there was something in her tone that made all three brothers pay attention. "What she needs is reassurance. She needs someone to tell her that she’s safe. She needs to know that what happened wasn’t punishment. She needs...."
"She needs us to keep our distance," Nicholas interrupted. His voice was controlled, but there was an edge underneath it. "We’ve already decided that. She’s off-limits. Until she recovers, we don’t touch her."
Agnes’s expression shifted. Something flickered across her weathered face...disappointment, perhaps. Or judgment.
"Alpha," she said quietly, "I’m not sure that’s what she needs right now. In fact, I think the isolation might be making things worse. She’s in her room alone with her own thoughts, and those thoughts are terrifying her."
Sebastian turned to face Agnes fully.
"Are you suggesting we go to her?" he asked. There was something dangerous in his tone, something that suggested he wanted permission more than he wanted reassurance that it was the right choice.
"I’m suggesting," Agnes said carefully, "that abandoning her when she’s this fragile might cause more damage than the physical trauma already has."
The words landed in the office like a grenade.
Nicholas felt Kael surge forward, demanding, hungry, desperate to go to her. Desperate to hold her. Desperate to tell her that everything would be okay, even though he didn’t know if that was true.
"You’re dismissed, Agnes," Nicholas said quietly.
The housekeeper hesitated. He could see her wanting to say something else. Wanting to push back against his decision. But after forty-two years of service, she understood the limits of her authority.
She bowed slightly and left the office, closing the door quietly behind her.
The moment the door clicked shut, Lucian exploded.
"She’s right," he said. His voice was sharp. Feral. "Agnes is right. We’re making this worse. We send her away to recover alone, and all we’re doing is giving her time to spiral deeper into panic and trauma."
"We made a decision," Nicholas said. His voice was calm, but there was steel underneath it. "The decision was to keep our distance. To let her recover without our interference."
"That decision was made when we thought she was physically destroyed," Sebastian said. He turned from the window, and his expression was torn. Conflicted. "But if Agnes is right, if the real damage is emotional, psychological, then our presence might actually help, not hurt."
"Our presence is what caused this," Nicholas shot back. He moved around his desk, needing to move, needing to do something with the tension building in his body. "Our wolves. Our need. Our inability to control ourselves. We’re the problem, not the solution."
Lucian’s golden eyes flashed with anger.
"So we just leave her alone?" he demanded. "We break her, and then we abandon her so she can sit in her room and convince herself that we’re going to punish her further? That seems like the right choice to you?"
"It seems like the only choice," Nicholas said coldly. "Because if any of us go to that room, if any of us see her in that state, the ’off-limits’ rule becomes meaningless. Our wolves won’t care about agreements. Our bodies won’t listen to reason. We’ll want to comfort her, and comfort will become something else entirely."
Sebastian moved toward the center of the office.
"Maybe that’s okay," he said quietly.
Both Nicholas and Lucian turned to stare at him.
"What the fuck does that mean?" Lucian demanded.
