Mated to Her Alpha Instructor Chapter 116

Eileen

"Nina!" I hurried to her side and crouched down, trying to take her hand. "Nina, it's me—Eileen. Are you having a nightmare? Wake up!"

My touch seemed to jolt her awake. Nina's head snapped up, terror flashing in her eyes. She looked at me as if she didn't recognize me, her body instinctively shrinking back.

"Nina, it's me." I softened my voice, trying to appear non-threatening. "You're safe. This is the dormitory. What happened? Do you need help?"

She stared at me for several seconds, then her gaze gradually focused. I watched her expression shift from terror to shame to something almost like defensive anger.

"Get out," she said suddenly, her voice hoarse.

"What?"

"I said get out!" Her volume rose, though it sounded more like forced bravado. "Leave my room!"

"Nina, I just wanted to—"

"I don't need your concern!" she cut me off, tears welling in her eyes. "I don't need anyone! Get out! Now!"

I froze, unsure what to say. I wanted to ask what had happened, to tell her that if she was willing to talk, I would listen. But the finality in her expression made it clear that any words would be futile right now.

"...All right." I finally stood. "But if you need help, you can always come to me. My room is right next door."

Nina didn't respond, just turned her face away, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs.

I backed out of the room and closed the door gently. Standing in the hallway, I could hear the muffled crying from behind the door. The sound was so restrained it broke my heart, as if she was using every ounce of strength to keep her pain hidden.

I thought of the day Regis first stood up for me at the council meeting, remembered how I too had once locked myself in my room to cry, too afraid to ask anyone for help. I knew that feeling of isolation, that sense of not deserving assistance.

But Nina wasn't like me. At least now I had Regis, had Mira, had people willing to believe in me and protect me. Nina... she seemed to shut everyone out.

I returned to my room. Mira was still fast asleep. Her room had good soundproofing; she clearly hadn't heard anything unusual. I lay back down but couldn't sleep.

What had Nina been through? Why would she spiral into such a terrifying state in the middle of the night? Those words—"please" and "don't do that"—sounded like some kind of traumatic flashback.

I felt I should help her. I tried hard to remember what had happened today. Nina had worked alongside us as usual, assisting Dr. Hawthorne with patients. Then she'd been informed that Silas was coming again to check on my internship progress, so she'd taken some recent reports to his temporary office. After that I hadn't seen Nina again—I'd only heard her return to her room quite late. Something must have happened in between. Had she gone to see someone?

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Nina

The nightmare always began the same way.

Iron bars. Rust-brown and cold. My small hands gripped them until the metal bit into my palms, but I couldn't let go because if I let go I'd have to see—

*Don't look. Don't look.*

But I always did.

Mother was on the stone floor. Her silver hair—so beautiful, I used to think, like moonlight—was matted with blood and dirt. Her wrists were chained above her head. The men circled her like lions around wounded prey, except they were worse than lions because lions killed clean.

These men didn't want to kill. They wanted to *break*.

"Filthy bitch," one of them growled, and his voice—*that voice*—cut through the years like a blade. Even in sleep, even knowing it was a dream, I knew that voice. Silas Crowe. "Should've burned you at the stake. But this... this is better."

Mother's screams pierced the air. I clamped my hands over my ears but it didn't help. Nothing helped. The sounds were inside me now, burrowed into my bones.

"What about the whelp?" Another voice. Rougher. He was looking at my cage now, and his eyes... God, his eyes. "Think she'll be as pretty as her mama when she grows up?"

Laughter. Coarse and cruel.

"Give her a few more years," Silas said, and in the dream his face loomed close to the bars. Too close. I could smell the alcohol on his breath, the violence in his sweat. "Her blood runs hot. She'll be *perfect* for breaking in."

*No. No no no—*

"Nina!"

The bars dissolved. The voices scattered like smoke. I was falling, or maybe rising, and then—

I lurched upright, gasping. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought they might crack. For a moment I didn't know where I was. The walls were wrong. The ceiling was too high. There was no iron, no stone floor slick with—

"Nina, it's me—Eileen. Are you having a nightmare? Wake up!"

Eileen.

The medical station. The border. I was... I wasn't there anymore.

But her hand was on my shoulder and I *flinched*, scrambling backward until my spine hit the wall. She was staring at me with those wide, worried eyes, and I hated it—hated that she saw me like this, hated that I was weak enough to need waking, hated that for one terrible second I almost believed someone might actually *help*.

"Nina, it's me." Her voice was so gentle it made my chest ache. "You're safe. This is the dormitory. What happened? Do you need help?"

Safe. What a joke.

I forced myself to focus. Eileen was crouched beside my bed, her brown hair loose around her shoulders, her expression open and concerned in that naive way of hers. She actually thought she could fix this. She actually thought *anyone* could fix this.

"Get out," I rasped. My throat was raw—had I been screaming?

She blinked. "What?"