I was terrified of what was going to happen to me as my dad dragged me out of my aunt’s house and towards our house, which I hated to be in.
“Did you really think you could get away forever?” he asked.
“How did you find us?”
“I told Henry everything, and his men tracked you down at your horrid little trailer,” laughed Alan. “I even saw pictures of the place. Your auntie couldn’t provide more, could she?”
“She provided me with a real family who loved and cared for me,” I shouted, holding back tears. The alphas walking around ignored our scuffle since they knew my father. It didn’t matter if he abused or killed me.
I was just a worthless beta in their eyes.
“Back to real life for you,” my dad cackled as he flung me into the house. I flew forward, grabbing the side of the couch to retain my balance.
“What do you want with me?”
“You’re going to do what you do best,” he said. “I need you to cook and clean this house.”
He grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me roughly towards the kitchen. I hated being in here with all my heart. And it was precisely the reason why I hated cooking. I would never get a kitchen that looked like this one.
Within minutes, I was scrubbing the floors on my knees.
“Where’s Mom?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said dismissively as he kicked the back of my legs, pain searing through them. “Keep asking questions, and I’ll permanently disfigure your legs.”
I kept my mouth shut as I continued to clean the dirty floor, wondering where my mom was. I didn’t care about her, but…
“Did you kill her?” I asked, looking up at him.
His face twisted into a smile as he let out a manic laugh.
“You really think so low of me, do you?”
“I do.”
He suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me to a standing position as my heart thundered in my chest. He always looked the same to me. Tall, bald, with lines for features on his face. He was the most evil person I knew.
“Why don’t you start cooking something before you join her in the grave?”
My heart sank, and I wanted to throw up instantly as my head swam. Thoughts of my little brother persisted in my head, but I was too scared to ask what had happened to him.
“Why?” I asked, holding onto the kitchen sink with one hand. Even if I hated my mother, I didn’t want her to die. It was too harsh a penalty for everything she’d gone through with Alan. “Why did you do it?”
A flicker crossed through his face, but then he regained his composure.
“Do you want to join her?” he asked in a dark voice, his hand now around my throat. The pressure of his voice tightened with every syllable of his sentence.
“No,” I said, trying to focus. He released me, and I dropped to the floor on my knees, unable to stand. My mom wasn’t here any longer.
She was gone.
Murdered by her own alpha.
He laughed one last time as he grabbed a beer and sat in the living room, watching me as he turned on the game.
“You are right where you belong,” he said in satisfaction as he took a swig.
As I looked down at the wet sponge in my hand, I couldn’t believe this was where I’d end up. It was like I had never left, and tears swam in my eyes thinking about my mother’s demise.
What happened to her? Was she terrified in the last moments of her life? And what happened to my little brother, who I had never met?
A lump formed in my throat at the awful feelings of it all because it felt like a straight-up nightmare. I closed my eyes tight and reopened them, seeing my dad’s face lit up by the screen and the kitchen smelling like fish. I wished I had told Zaff where I had went to.
Because now, I was truly alone.
Zaff
My pack was filled with dread when we finally arrived at the compound.
“We have to do this for Breanna,” I said, gritting my teeth as we landed away from the Alpha Compound. I didn’t want to get too close and raise the alarm. “All of us need to shift.”
“And then?” asked Chad.
“There are about fifty homes here,” I said, looking around at the meager lights that lit up the compound. “We will check every home for her and listen to anything suspicious.”
“Got it, boss,” said Oscar, and the mood of the pack lightened considerably as we all shifted into werewolf form outside of the helicopter.
We bounded down the road in our wolf form to avoid speedy detection by Henry’s men. Every home looked the same except for the bigger houses, which belonged to the elite alphas who served Henry. We decided to split up, communicating telepathically when a house had been cleared or if something felt off.
So far, there were no suspicious activity for a few minutes.
Get over here. I think I see Bree.
My heart pounding hard, I forced myself to move faster toward Oscar’s direction. He was a few houses ahead of me, putting his ear intently to the wall. The entire pack had gathered to listen to what he was listening to.
I swear I heard her voice.
I shifted back so I could look through the window. Sure enough, I recognized Breanna immediately by her hair and face as she was preparing meat in the kitchen. A tug at my heart demanded I go in there and save her immediately.
But I had to use my head on how to get her out with no problems because I saw a bald man sitting not too far away, his eyes constantly darting towards her.
Was that her father? If it was, so help me, god. If I got too close to him, I would kill him.
“It’s her for sure,” I said. “But there’s a man in there, and I don’t want problems with Henry if we end up killing him. We’ll wait until he retires for the night, and we’ll get our girl.”
My pack nodded in unison, and I gave them a warning look not to howl at the moon right now. It was one of those situations where howling before the battle was necessary to unify us against a common enemy.
Breanna
I felt like I was moving through quicksand while I cooked for my dad. Every limb of my body felt heavy from travel, and the pain in my belly grew like a fire within me, so it hurt to stand. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I didn’t care anymore.
Everyone I loved was gone. Even the alphas I loved rejected me when I told them what I truly was. Why the fuck would anyone want me?
I pulled the pot roast out of the oven and set it on the kitchen counter with mittens. The smell of it made my mouth water. I was hungry from my long car ride trip here.
Without thinking, I grabbed a fork and peeled a strip of meat. I put it in my mouth, and the salty taste of it was satisfying, to say the least.
“What are you doing?” said Alan’s soft voice as he came up behind me.
I groaned internally but turned to face him.
“I thought it was for both of us,” I said, knowing full well that it wasn’t. He was a greedy motherfucker, and I was never allowed to partake in his food.
He pulled out a can of beans from the pantry.
“This is your food,” he said, his eyes flashing with anger. “Why do I have to keep reminding you not to touch my food?”
I didn’t realize I was cowering in the corner of the kitchen, holding my stomach. Memories of him force-feeding me the cake washed over me, and I was terrified he was going to do the same with the pot roast.
“I’m sorry, please,” I begged, breathing hard with panic.
He approached me and gave me my fork. “Why don’t you keep eating? Eat it, bitch.”
Tears were rolling down my face rapidly as I took the utensil from him automatically. I turned towards the pot roast, and anxiety swirled within me.
This wasn’t good. He was going to make me terrified to eat for the rest of my life.
Instead of panic and hopelessness, anger began to rise within my chest. Screaming, I suddenly spun around and stabbed him in the chest with the fork as hard as I could.
We both looked down at the fork as blood spurted from his chest. He wasn’t dropping.
He wasn’t dying.
I quickly ran from the kitchen as he chased me with the fork sticking out of his chest. Horror filled me as I ran up the stairs towards my old room. For some reason I heard the front door crashing down as I ran into my room and locked the door.
Heart racing, I realized my entire existence in this room had been cleaned out and replaced with blue paint. It had turned into a boy’s room entirely.
But I had no time to think about that.
Alan was trying to break into the locked door to kill me.
I dragged a huge dresser while in pain towards the door. It was heavy, but I couldn’t get to the door in time before it crashed open, and he stood there angrily.
Alan looked horrifying, with bags under his eyes and blood dripping all over his shirt and pants. There was blood on his face, too. I threw a soccer ball at his head- anything I could get my hands on.
But he grabbed my arm to stop me.
“That’s enough, daughter,” he said. “You’ve disgraced me ever since the day you were born. I will have to rectify my mistake of allowing you to live.”
Fuck. This would be the end of me.
Before he could wrap his hands around my throat again, three werewolves rushed into the room.
I screamed.
The werewolves piled on top of him, gnashing their teeth and barking. He removed his grip on my throat as he was taken down to the floor. Gasping, I rushed to the door and crashed into a hard chest.
Looking up, I saw Zaff standing there fully naked.
My heart tripled in size upon seeing him, regardless of my dad being ripped to pieces behind me and screaming.
“Hey,” I said as uncertainty washed over me.
“My pack will take care of him,” he said, gently taking my hand. “Let us go downstairs where you don’t have to see it.”
I swallowed as a sliver of guilt went through me, and I tried to turn around to stop everything, but Zaff held my arms so I wouldn’t. I didn’t try to fight him or anything. I was numb as I allowed him to lead me out of the room, the screaming a distant echo behind me.
