He could hear people talking. He knew they were talking about him. He just didn't care. He didn't care about anything. If he died tomorrow, he wouldn't even protest.

What was to protest?

Richard Dickerson's world had ended a month ago. At least, the naive innocent place he'd grown up in had ended. Now, he knew he truth. The world sucked, and it didn't seem to matter if it was the human world or the shifter world. They both sucked. Humans were monsters and shifters weren't too far behind them.

So, what was the point?

He only got out of bed each day because they made him. They made him bathe and eat and walk around the vast Harrington Estate. They tried talking to him, but he had nothing to say, not to anyone. Not to his best friends Tom and Harry. Not to Tom's mate Rogan Behr. Not even to Mannford, the Harrington manservant and butler.

He especially didn't have anything to say to Dakota Hawke, the man who'd walked out on him because he wasn't a woman. The man who was supposed to be his fated mate, but had rejected him because he wasn't a woman. The man who had stolen his heart in one night of passion then dismissed him as if he didn't matter because he wasn't a woman. The man who didn't want him because he wasn't a woman.

Well, fuck him.

Dick didn't need him. He didn't need anyone. He was just going to sit there and stare out the window until his body caught up with what his heart and his head already knew and realized he was already dead. He might be still breathing, but there was no life left in him. He'd started to die when Hawke had rejected him. He'd truly died when he was kidnapped and assaulted.

Dick glanced down at the scars on his wrists. The zip-ties the guards had used to tie him down with had cut into his skin when he struggled to get away. They had healed, but had left behind faint white scars around each wrist. He'd probably always have them. A reminder of the hell some sick freak had put him through.

He had no idea why they had singled him out. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, and now, it was a moot point. They were dead. That was the one good thing Hawke had done before shifting and flying away, leaving Dick to live through his nightmares alone.

Knowing the men who'd hurt him were dead didn't help the nightmares. Nothing did. Dick suspected nothing would. He resigned himself to having nightmares until he took his very last breath. Nothing could make the horror of that night go away. Nothing.

He had thought, for a brief moment when he'd seen Hawke running toward him, that he'd have someone to hold him and protect him, to keep him safe from the evils of the world. That there might be someone to keep him safe from the nightmare his life had become. He couldn't believe how wrong he had been.

Epically wrong.

For all their talk about fated mates, it seemed that not every shifter believed in them. Hawke certainly didn't. Dick probably wouldn't even had known they were mates if the bite mark Hawke had left on his neck hadn't scared over instead of healing and fading away.

Hawke certainly hadn't said anything.

Well, he had. He had made it clear that they had no future together, but only after giving Dick a night of passion he'd never forget. For a moment, he had dreamed that he'd finally found someone to call his own.

He'd been epically wrong about that, too.

He couldn't remember ever feeling this alone. It felt as if he had a huge, gaping hole in the middle of his chest. It hurt when he was alone with his chaotic thoughts. It hurt when someone touched him. Sometimes, it even hurt to breathe.

Dick jumped when his door banged open. He gasped as stark, cold fear flooded him when he saw the large form that filled the doorway. Horrific memories of the last time he'd seen someone fill a doorway slammed into him, stealing the last breath in his body.

He pressed a hand to his aching chest as he started to tremble.

Nausea built up in his throat.

Spots formed in his eyes.

"Dick! You've got to see this."

Dick blinked until the spots faded away, then frowned. "Tom?"

He could breathe again.

"Come on." Tom ran across the room and grabbed his arm, pulling him to his feet. The man was practically vibrating with excitement. "You have so got to see this."

"See what?" Dick asked as Tom dragged him toward the door. He really didn't want to leave his room. He was safe in here. He wasn't safe out there. "Tom, where are you taking me?"

"Camelot."