BROKEN

Chapter One

I had always heard the stories, but I always brushed them off because fairy tales didn't really come true and in my opinion, love was just another fairy tale. I don't believe in telling stories just to get someone's hopes up so they can later get slapped by the cold hard reality. Love never existed in my eyes. That is, until I laid eyes on him.

I can't tell you about Silas until I tell you about myself, and I'm warning you now, it's not the happiest story I've ever had to tell. I was born as Cecilia Jasmine Calahan. My mother always called me C.J. when I was little, but most others called me C.C.. I was raised in a large house with my parents and several other people, adults and kids alike. We lived in a small town in Montana, and we had more enemies than friends. I was always sassy and slightly out of control, that is until I got to be too much for anyone to deal with and I started being punished.

I was 10 years old the first time I got locked in the dark, cold basement. I ended up spending a lot of time down there; sometimes for a day and sometimes for five, depending on why I was sent there in the first place. Whenever I was sent down to the “dungeon” I had to go without food and was only allowed one glass of water for the entire stay.

After a while, I wasn't just put in the basement to think about my actions, someone started coming down there with a leather strap to “tan my hide” as they always said. I had gotten used to that life and tried my hardest to behave so that I didn't have to be punished, but I always messed up. The only time I really saw my parents was if they were taking a turn at cracking me with the strap. When I was no longer phased by the beatings, they began taking me out into the forest in the middle of the night and leaving me to find my way back.

My life changed in those woods. I was 15 years old and had just gone through puberty (I was a late bloomer) when my father said that I had to be punished for being so emotional because “Calahan's don't cry”. I was dragged out of the house by my hair and shoved into the back seat of an old pickup truck. The driver (whom I can't remember all that well) drove around for over an hour before pulling me over the seat by my neck and throwing me out of the moving truck onto the forest floor. I don't know how long I laid there because everything went black. When I woke up, the sun was beating down on me. I didn't want to find my way back to that house, but if I didn't try, I'd die in the desolate surroundings I was stuck in. I began my journey back when I was overcome by a heart wrenching pain.

My body went into involuntary convulsions and my bones snapped loudly. It felt as if every bone in my body was breaking in several places. I knew instantly what was happening, and I tried not to panic. I should have known my change was coming. I would just have to wait out the pain until my wolf emerged. I had often wished that I was from a loving human family, as I was starting to think all werewolves were abusive and mean.

It took hours before my change completed, and I was unsteady the first time I stood on all fours. I took a while to test my new legs and began my journey home using my heightened sense of smell. I found the house in no time at all, but realized that I had no clothes to put on once I figured out how to change back, and I knew that if I walked into the house naked, I'd once again get beaten. I saw a few members of our pack standing out in the yard and contemplated trotting up to them when I spotted Mrs. Larson in the garden.

Mrs. Larson was one of the elders of our pack and was the sweetest lady I'd ever met. Her husband used to be Beta when my grandfather was Alpha. Her husband was killed in battle before I was even born, but she stayed with our pack and often watched the children and helped them with their school work. A few times when I was locked in the basement for several days, she snuck into the basement and gave me some food, but she couldn't help me very often because she feared that she'd be hurt or that my father would order her to leave and she had nowhere else to go.