The Good Daughter

Chapter Five - Father

She didn't think she had ever run so fast in her life. It was like she was fuelled on pure ecstasy. Trees flashed by her like a big blur, and all the while she kept communicating with Raine. He wasn't happy – that much was clear. Kato wasn't speaking, just limping after Raine and grunting every now and then.

Rowynn was grateful Raine was helping her. She owed him an explanation, all she needed was time to figure one out.

Rowynn caught her break once she made it back to the reserve. Mrs. Peterson was the first house she stumbled by when she made it out of the woods. Unlike other packs, they didn't have giant walls confining them to their homes. They were free to come and go as they pleased, however, there were scouters out and about to make sure no threats could get close – close enough to kill them, anyway.

She sighed as she grabbed a large blue scarf from the clothes hanger just outside Mrs. Peterson's window. The last thing she needed was her father asking questions about where her bruises had come from. She also needed to mix her scent and try to get Kato off her skin.

If there was anything her father hated more than Sullivan's, it was humans. Her father saw all human's as murderous, disgusting creatures. He always told Lincoln – one of his best scouters – to kill on sight if he saw one. It made Rowynn so angry that her father was so prejudice.

"Rowynn Elsbeth Marsden!"

Rowynn closed her eyes and winced as that horrible voice screeched at her.

"Miss... Mrs. Peterson, how are you?" she stuttered.

She turned around to see the older shifter hunched over at her garden, the woman's brows furrowed and the lines on her forehead were deeper than usual. "What are you up to now, girl?" she snapped.

Rowynn bit her lower lip and tried to inch herself away. "I'm not up to anything..."

The woman looked Rowynn over, studying her anxious body langue before her eyes rested on the scarf Rowynn had just stolen. "What are you doing with my clothes?"

Again, Rowynn tried to get away. "I was cold..."

That wasn't a lie. It was fall and winter wasn't far away. Shifter's didn't usually get cold, but Rowynn was no regular shifter. She had the strength and abilities a shifter was born with, but she couldn't turn into a wolf and probably never would.

"You steal my cookies, you steal my flowers, now you're stealing my clothes? What has gotten into your brain lately, pup?"

Rowynn laughed nervously. Truthfully, she stole the woman's raisin cookies because they were her father's favourite and it was amusing when she would take a tray of them to him, only to find half of them to be mysteriously missing – and it wasn't even Rowynn who stole her flowers. Eric stole them for Tatum, and Rowynn just happened to be in the area. It was all a misunderstanding, but of course everyone was quick to point the finger. She gulped back any remarks she had, however.

"Your father's going crazy. You better go and calm him down before I whip your butt myself."

Mrs. Peterson believed in 'tough love,' and it took all of Rowynn's self-control not to tell her that was why her son, Lyon, was a complete nut job. However, she nodded obediently and scattered towards the alpha's house.

"And you give me back my scarf!" Rowynn heard her holler from behind. She bit her lip as she walked away, half running for her life.

Rowynn had known the woman since the day she was born, and not a day went by that Rowynn wasn't thankful Mrs. Peterson wasn't her mother.

She sucked in a sharp breath. There it was. That little pain she had in her chest whenever she thought about her mother. She wondered if that pain would ever go away. Things had been lonely after her mother died. As she looked up at the giant wooden home of Alpha Jack Marsden, she briefly remembered that she wasn't the only one who was lonely.