THE CLAIMING (The Chosen Series #1)

NOT THE MONSTER

"Ava," Isla's soft voice flits into the vision, "breathe Ava, just breathe, you need to remain calm, remember what you're seeing is in the past. Try to see, focus on the truth, not the pain, see the truth."

Struggling to focus, I remove my hand from his head and sob, the loss, the pain. The grief is crippling. Seeing Aisling slaughtered by that deranged woman has ripped a part of my soul. Griffin, my poor Griffin.

"Keep going, Ava," Isla pushes, "you need to see everything..."

I swallow deeply, my eyes closing as tears leak from beneath my lids. I move my hand back on his temple, his skin warm, and inhale through my nose, opening my mind again, and I brace for what's to come. Images flood me again, and I'm horrified. If Viktor was evil while Aisling was alive, what I see now shows his true malevolence. His behavior before her loss was mild in comparison to the psychopath he became.

Feeling my stomach churn, my dinner threatening to reappear, I remind myself that this is all in the past. Still, the abuse Viktor subjects the other women to is just too much to handle. Griffin, my poor Griffin, is made to participate repeatedly; his wolf, no, this version of Griffin's wolf, is not My Wolf. The thing I see is a beast, a mindless creature, forced to take over and... Oh, God...

I watch, horrified, when Griffin loses his virginity against his will. Drugged to feel but not to control. The act shattered what was left of his innocence. Watching what happened is gut-wrenching. No one should have to go through that. Being in his head, experiencing his emotions and the inner turmoil as he battles with the feeling of shame and disgust, only to be replaced with lust and pleasure, makes me want to vomit.

I also watch as they force Griffin, while drugged with some kind of stimulants, to fuck. This causes him to go into a rut and take the woman in beast form. I close my eyes when I see his knot grow inside women not designed to take him. Feeling his emotions, I know this act seems to shatter a part of him. Watching through his eyes, he sees the women beneath him split, their vaginas mutilated as he swells within them. This severs a part of his humanity; as Griffin comes to climax multiple times, the feeling he experiences is euphoric, but the aftermath is horrific.

The scenes keep shifting, my head spinning as I see sex, blood, torture, repeat, over and over again. On most occasions, Viktor joins Griffin, including just him and the poor broken women he is forced to couple with.

His beast is becoming more and more deranged, and Griffin's ability to control his animal side becoming harder to maintain. I hear the beast and Viktor's voice in his head.

The voices? Viktor's voice tells him to hurt his wives, and the beast's voice tells him to kill them and feast on their flesh because they have been 'BAD' and 'BAD girls get punished.'

"Keep going." Isla reiterates when I try to pull my hand away again, placing her small one on mine, holding it firm, unwilling to watch more but unable to let go. "You must see everything."

Scene shifting again. This time it focuses on one of the women Griffin knotted on more than one occasion. She's a short redhead with wild green eyes, her stomach swollen as Viktor proudly declares to his men that Griffin will soon be a father... Oh my God, it's too much. I sob, tears flowing, but Isla won't release me and let me stop.

Shifting again, I see the same woman die from excessive blood loss as she miscarries; her body was never designed to carry a wolf child.

Seeing her lifeless green eyes close, her lips blue, and then experiencing the grief Griffin feels, knowing he's the cause of it, causes me to stumble.

I squeeze my eyes tighter and force myself to continue. I witness similar events occur with multitudes of other women, Griffin's emotions changing each time as he becomes numb to the cruel actions Viktor subjects him to, turning more beast than man. The only time he seems to feel anything remotely human is when I see him with his sisters.