His Broken Mate

Chapter 1

Elaina's POV

I'm running through a dark hallway with a door at the end, but the faster I run towards it, the farther away it becomes. I push myself to move faster, because I'm running from something that has haunted me for years. My past. My memories. My secrets. I want to get away from them. I want to be left alone. But I will never get away from them. These horrifying secrets are a ball and chain, dragging me down.

A black fog appears behind me and starts multiplying in size and thickness, billowing out towards me. It wraps strands of itself around my limbs, holding me in place. Slowly, part of the fog that isn't binding me takes the forms of the people that hurt me. One at a time, I see my father sneering at me, my mother glaring at me, my brother smirking evilly at me, and members of my pack, all glaring daggers at me. Then it slowly forms into my father again.

"You were a mistake," it whispers. "You never should have been born."

The smoky image of my father raises a whip. "And now you have to pay for it."

He raises the whip, and it comes down in slow motion. The whip is merciless, unforgiving. It comes closer and closer to me before-

I bolt up from my nightmare, crying and shaking. This isn't the first time I've had this dream. Sometimes it's a different person hurting me, or a different method of hurting me, but it always ends with me being tortured in some way.

I stand up, slowly and sorely picking myself up off the floor. I don't have a bed, so I just sleep on the cold floor of this cell. Yup, you heard me right. Technically, my 'bedroom' is a cell in the basement of the pack house with next to nothing in it, except a small cardboard box with some clothes in it, a few bloodstains from some of my beatings, and a broken, dirty mirror.

My dad, the alpha, put it in here and told me it's so I can see how disgusting and ugly I am every day. I don't even have any privacy. There are a few other cells down here, for the least dangerous prisoners, like teenage rogues and a runaway beta's daughter that's running away from her mate. They've all been here long enough to know how badly I'm treated, and they're the closest things to friends I have. I don't want any friends, but they're nice to me, which I guess is okay.

One of them, an eighteen year old rogue named Justin looks over at me pityingly from his bed in his cell. Yup, the other cells have beds. I don't even remember what a bed feels like. I sigh, stretch, and switch my current shirt for a baggy Rolling Stones shirt that someone didn't want. I exchange my white pajama shorts from one of the nicer girls for a pair of black leggings that someone grew out of.

I run my comb, which I snuck out of the large supply closet, through my long, dark brown hair and tug on my socks and a pair of battered converse, my only pair of shoes.

Just as I finish doing up the laces, the door to the basement slams open, and I hear heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. When I see who it is, I flinch and walk backwards, running into the dirty mirror, cutting my leg on the jagged edge. I don't even care about my leg right now. Why is my brother here?

His name's Marc, and he's a total ass. Of course, I'd never tell him- he'd beat the absolute crap out of me; he doesn't take criticism very well because of how spoiled he's become. Dad started making it a point to over-indulge him while depriving me of basic needs. He's tall, and towers over my petite frame. He has blonde shaggy hair, and he's really muscular; all the pack sluts love drooling all over him, which makes his already overly-inflated ego swell even more.

He walks over to my cell, unlocks the door, and growls, "Get out, bitch! You need to make the pack breakfast!"

"Yes, future alpha," I say hoarsely; I speak very little. I mean, I'm not really allowed to- my father says I can only speak when spoken to. Even then, I keep responses minimal; I don't like conversing with people who would and have beat me up for simply looking at them.