The Good Daughter

Chapter One - Mutt

17 Years Later

She moaned as her breath raced, excitement and foreboding both rising in the young woman's chest. Human men were so different, so much more forbidden to her. They were gentler to a shifter male. She loved it. She loved how his hands gently glided up and over her naked sides, like she was the only girl he had ever been with – she probably was the only girl he had ever been with.

Human boys were the only males she had ever touched, or been with. She was no virgin – there was no shifter female as low as she was. Even her packs Omega, Lucina, had a higher ranking then she. Behind her father's back she was the outcast, the traitor, the dog.

A mutt among wolves.

Her mother, she was a natural born leader. There was no other spirit quite like she. Her mother...

"Are you okay?"

Suddenly, a switch had flickered on in her mind as – oh, for the life of her, she couldn't remember his name – as... as Daniel, maybe? Danny... who was he again...?

"Rowynn, are you okay? Babe? Hey, come on..."

He was getting worried now - she could smell it. He gently tapped her face, but all she could do was blink like the she had no control over her own body.

He never let her have any fun.

The door to the dingy motel couldn't keep a human child out, let alone three fully-grown shifters. The way the boy on top of her flew off the bed and into the corner told her that her senses were correct, and that her father had finally come knocking. It didn't surprise her – he found her no matter where she ran.

'It's time to go, pup.'

Her father never spoke to her when he was angry. All his emotions – his words – they were all made clear through their mind link. Everything the pack said, felt, and heard was transferred through to all of them via her father - the Alpha. It was hard to hide anything from him.

Her older brothers Liam and Raine stayed back behind her father. They looked so much more terrifying in their wolf forms, both towering over her father in his human form. He was a tall, dark man who looked just as horrid in both his wolf and human form.

Rowynn smiled when she started to feel her body relax and come back to life. "Joy kill..."

She hated sounding so broken. Maybe she was broken. Maybe there was something wrong with her. Rowynn didn't behave like a female shifter should; she didn't think like one. She didn't want the same things for herself like her father did.

She barely made it from the bed and to the door without falling over. It seemed her father's entire wrath was directed solely towards his rebellious daughter, which made all wolves under his leadership considerably weak. It was a setback she hated.

The boy she had come here with was still shaking and cowering in the corner of the room. He reeked of spinelessness. However, she couldn't blame the poor fellow. Two animals that resembled a couple of hellhounds and a man close to the devil himself had just kicked down the door, after all.

She let out a dark little laugh as her father grabbed her upper arm, ready to drag her out of there.

"Thanks for protecting me. Have fun in that corner."

His eyes were wide and horror struck as he watched her father shove the girl outside. Her brothers soon followed, but ran ahead of them towards the brush of trees. Just behind those trees was her home, a place she hated and yearned for all at once. It was a complicated relationship between her wolf and herself, because everything she hated and loathed with a passion was basically everything she had flowing through her veins.

"You have no respect for yourself, do you pup." It wasn't a question.

Her bruised lips remained sealed shut. All Jack could do was growl, a warning to either speak up or face the consequences. His daughter, as always, chose the latter option.

His hard grunt came as no surprise to Rowynn. That was the noise he made when he felt as if all hope had been lost in her salvation. It was a noise she had come to recognize as disappointment. Her father was disappointed a lot these days...

"We'll talk when we get home," his tone was low, bored, as if he were giving up and wiping his hands of all her problems.

Perhaps her problems were beyond the point of repair.

*******

"A human, again? Really?"

Rowynn sighed heavily as she lay sprawled out across her bed. "Go away Tatum."

Her younger sister was just as stubborn as their father, so it came as no surprise when the hot-tempered redhead didn't just back down and leave. No, that was asking for far too much.

"It's judgment day Rowynn. Today, you're gettin' what's coming to ya'."

Rowynn squeezed her eyes shut, wondering just how deep in the waters she had gotten herself into with this one. She was literally up shit-creek without a paddle, and her father wasn't going to come to her rescue. Not anymore.

The last time she was summoned to 'Judgment day' was the day the elders decided her promiscuous ways were getting to out of hand. They even went so far as to go against a wolf's calling for their life-mate and make her the proverbial sacrifice to her father's Beta, Lyon. She was not interested in a mate, let alone someone she detested.

They told her if Mia had already found her mate, then Rowynn was ultimately the last child of Alpha Jack Marsden without a partner of their own. Seventeen – Mia was only seventeen years old and was leashed forever to a shifter Rowynn couldn't even stand the smell of, and expecting her first pup sometime in August. Tatum was a little older when she found Eric, and yet, now nineteen years old, she still acts like some sort of lovesick puppy dog.

"If you don't find a mate by this year's new moon festival Rowynn, they'll make you and Lyon do it." Tatum seemed to glow in the light of this new information.

The new moon festival was where all the shifters gather to meet and talk – it was the one night of the year where the moon was full and they were at their strongest. However, she wouldn't know... she'd never been to one.

Tatum didn't seem to take the hint when her older sister rolled over and faced the wall beside her.

"If Mother were here, I wonder if you'd be different Rowynn. Daddy thinks you're just like Kaia, and that you're going to ruin everything just like she-" Tatum suddenly stopped mid-sentence when Rowynn flung herself over the bed to face her. She had had enough of this conversation.

The dark she-wolf's words were cold as she spat, "You can mention Mother. You can tell me I'm a disappoint, a human worshipper, say anything you like just like the rest of those leashed mutts out there, but don't bring Kaia into this."

Tatum's face twisted into an almost livid expression. "At least I know you still feel her too..." She smiled.

Rowynn looked away, a soft frown gracing her face as she thought about what Tatum had just said. "Someone has to remember."

Tatum laughed, as if this conversation had just twisted into a little inside joke. It was all they could do to tune out the awful rumours roaming around throughout everyone's thoughts. The sisters couldn't hear what they had to say, but they could feel the malicious emotions that they had towards Kaia.

Rowynn suddenly stood up from her bed and waltzed over towards the bedroom window. It was a steep drop down to freedom, but she had jumped from much higher.

Tatum's hazel eyes widened. "Where are you going?" she asked, almost panicked.

Rowynn grinned as she pushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear and propped one leg out of the window.

"Away from this hell," was all she said before jumping out.