Forbidden Fruit (The Wolfverse Dark Side, #1)

by Sam Hall

Sometimes you meet people when you’re too young and raw and stupid to do anything worthwhile with, but they leave their mark on you regardless, or perhaps it’s because you’re so young. You don’t have the defences, the boundaries to keep people out, and they just smash right into you like a meteorite, leaving emotional craters behind.

He was the scent of your family home when you returned after a long time away. The scent of the bracken ferns when the rain started. The feel of the wind in my hair, just before a storm.

Because abusive people are astute in their selection of victims. They’d never try this shit on with people that intimidated them, people they think are strong. They seek out vulnerability, perceiving it as weakness, and use it as a means to try and pretend that they aren’t the weak ones.

“Shut up, Candy,” she mimicked in a savage voice. “Damn girl, I heard that so often when I was growing up, I thought that was my entire name.”