Hi everyone:) here is just a short look into Ashley's life! Enjoy!
---
Ashley's POV:
"Yes I understand. I'm stupid aren't I? I used to fight back with him but no matter what I did he wouldn't stop. Eventually I just gave up and fell silent under him and let him do what he wanted. I mean I still tried to fight back with the others but nothing helped." Tears form in the brink of my eyes. Kari walks over to me and hugs me. I freezes at the contact at first but then I slowly relax.
"It's okay, and no you aren't stupid. It's not your fault your here. Don't worry. It will all be over soon. You can come back to my pack with me okay? Everyone is really nice. I'm sure you will warm up to some of our boys eventually." I give her a worried look.
"Wait Kari, what if I can never warm up to guys... What if I can't even warm up to my mate." Before Kari can speak I add "He probably won't want me anyway. I mean look at me..." Kari frowns at me. I don't know why she's frowning. I'm ugly, I have dirty hair, I look a mess, I'm way to skinny. Of course my mate won't love me, I mean look at all the things I've done...
"Ashley you're beautiful." I smile lightly, no ones ever called me beautiful before, "no matter who your mate is, he will love you."
"If you say so." I say shyly. Kari lets go of me and walks down the hallway.
"Well I need to go wonder around this place and figure out the land. I will see you tonight. Remember twelve o'clock." Kari says to me and continues to walk.
"Okay! Thanks Kari!" I yell at her as she goes. I stand there for a little while getting my thoughts together. We're doing it. We're going to escape tonight. I smile to myself. I never thought I would get out of this place.
I head back to my room. I think I'm going to shower real fast, try and sneak a quick snack from the kitchen and then pack. I grab a towel and head into my small bathroom. See my bathroom is a mess because Master won't let me use the cleaning supplies for my chamber, I have to clean everyone else's bathrooms but I can't clean my own. I stepped over the moldy crack on the ground and turn on my cold shower. I shiver as the freezing drops run down my body. My water was disconnected from the heater so all I get is cold water. I wash my hair and body as quickly as possible with the bar of soap I was given.
When I'm done I turn off the water and welcome the warmth of my towel. I dry my body off well and put on my nicest pair of underwear so that way I don't have to leave it behind. I put on a sweatshirt and gym shorts since I will need to dress comfortably. I don't bother putting a shirt on underneath since all my shirts are gross and old. I walk toward my door and head out to the kitchen.
I get to the kitchen door but before I enter I hear mumbling. I lean in and listen.
"Sir, I got insight from one of my men that your new prisoner is going to try to escape at midnight." A man says. My eyes open wide. Oh no.
"Is that so?" Master answers. I tremble in fear when I hear his voice. I want to run away but I stay and listen. "I guess we are going to have to take care of her then aren't we?" He says. I hear someone get up from their seat.
I jump away from the door and run off to my room.
I get there quickly. I sit down on my small bed and hug myself.
So I guess we won't be leaving after all. We got caught, well I mean Kari got caught. I don't want to leave without her. She's the only person I've ever really trusted in this place.
I know she is strong. She can probably take him... Deep down I know if he forces himself on her though, there is nothing she can do. I close my eyes and let the thoughts leave my mind and I fall into the darkness of sleep.
I hear a pounding on my door. I shoot up and look at the time, 11:46. It's probably Kari! She escaped and wants to leave. I run to the door and rip it open. What I see is not Kari at all. It's the man from earlier, the one who attacked me in the hall.
"Well someone sure looks glad to see me." He smiles evilly then struts toward me. I back up as he enters my room.
"Get out of here." I say sternly to him. He shuts the door behind him and locks it. My heart freezes for a moment as flash backs of all the other times this has happened pours into my head. They all start just like this.
No I will fight him. I won't let him take advantage of me. "Oh Ashley. Froam asked me to come take care of you." He smirks. "And I plan to do just that." My eyes widen and he walks up to me. "If you just let it happen things will go smoother for you." I frown at him and he laughs. He grabs my frail body and throws it onto the small bed.
I whimper from the slight pain, because my bed has little to no padding on it, and from the contact with him. He jumps over me and tries to take off my clothes. I knee him in his sweet spot and push him off of me. My heart beats fast, my body tries to get me to hide instead of fight back. I don't give in to my body's wishes and I run for the door.
I'm about to reach the handle when he grabs my hips and pulls me back. "Those little tricks won't work too well on me." He whispers in my ear. His closeness makes me feel sick. He starts to drag me back to the bed.
"No let go of me!" I cry out. But he doesn't listen. I tug really hard and manage to slip out of his grip again. I start to run but before I get far the guy kicks me real hard and I hit the ground and slide. I slam against the wall with a loud thud. I try to get up but my body can't take much more.
"If you want to play this way, I will just beat the shit out of you first. How about that?" I frown and look at him angrily. "Take that look off of your face right now before you regret it." He pulls out a knife from his pocket.
I look at him wide eyed but he just smirks. Then I get my courage back. "Do whatever you have to but I will never willingly do anything you say." He laughs and looks at me.
"You're going to regret that." He holds the knife up high and I shut my eyes. The next thing happens so fast. I scream and blood pours down my body. I hear the clattering of the knife hit the ground. And suddenly his body is off of me.
That's when I realize I feel no pain. Wow I died really fast huh... No, that's not right either.
Just then, the sounds from around me kicks in and I hear dragging. I slowly open my eyes and look at myself.
I'm covered in blood. I look for a wound yet I have none. When I find the knife on the ground I see that it has no blood on it either. I look up expecting to see the man standing there but instead I see a beautiful blond wolf. His mouth has blood all over it and he's standing in front of a path of blood that leads to my closet. My eyes widen. He just killed that man.
The wolf inches forward and I try to back away from him but the wall is behind me. He sees my movement and gives me a confused look. After a few moments he runs out of the room. I sit there and think about what happened.
That man who was attacking me earlier was just killed. But who was the wolf that killed him and why did he kill him? No ones ever been punished for treating me like that and no one in our pack has a golden coat or normal colored eyes when in wolf form.
After thinking for a couple of minutes I look down and see my hands are still trembling along with the rest of my body. That hit to the wall seriously tired out my whole body. I sigh. Why am I so weak? Kari would be disappointed in me.
Just then I see a person walk through the door. He's wearing only a pair of jeans that seem to be a little too big on him. His golden hair is shaggy but in a really cute way. Did I just say a guy was cute?
He looks at me and I shoot my head down. Crap he saw me staring at him. He goes to take a step toward me. I cringe and pull my legs closer to myself. "Please don't come near me." I beg to him.
He stops in his place.
Well that's a first, did he just listen to me? "I'm not going to hurt you, please I just want to help you." He says in a sweet voice. I feel something stir in me but I don't know what it is. I look up at him with shy eyes.
"Who are you and why are you here?" I ask weakly. He runs a had through his hair.
"I'm here to save my Alpha's mate. She's also a close friend of mine." He says gently then sits down on the floor near me. I scoot away from him a little and I see sadness cross over his features.
"I mean why did you come in here and kill that man?" I ask. He looks at me confused.
"I heard you screaming and it was pure instinct from there. My wolf kind of took over..." He admits sheepishly.
"Wait a second." I think back to his earlier statement. "You know Kari?" I ask him. He smiles.
"Yeah she's a close friend of mine." A tinge of something flows through my body. I don't like the feeling but I'm not sure what it is exactly. I look down.
"Oh, she's very nice." I say. Why do I feel sad right now.
"I think we should get out of here though. As much as I want to stay here and talk to you all night, I think it's best if we get out." I look at him sadly.
"I have no where to go..." I say. He stands up.
"That's nonsense. You can come back with me, to my pack. You will see Kari there." He says. Suddenly a crash sounds from a room near here. He looks at me frantically. "We need to go now." I try to move but my body is so shaky I can't get up. I look at him scared. Footstep come toward the room.
"I can't get up." I whispered to him. He walks up to me an scoops me up into his arms. I cringe at the contact. I don't want anyone touching me. He goes toward the door and hears the footsteps coming closer. He turns suddenly and runs out the window in my room. He lands on the ground with grace and brings me to the woods. He places me down on the ground, so that I'm sitting once again. Then he gives me an apologetic look.
"I'm sorry, we just had to get out of there." He says. I look down and bring my legs up to my body and hug them tightly. I hear wolves barking and the howls of pain. I cringe even more.
He must have noticed and he says, "You should really allow me to take you back to my pack. I can bring you back and get you in the care of our pack doctor. She's really nice." He says gently. He bends down next to me and I look up at him. "I'm Jamie by the way. And you are?"
Something goes off inside my chest and for the first time in a while I feel a stir from my wolf, but after that she goes quiet.
"I'm Ashley." I say quietly. He smiles brightly.
"I'm glad we could meet Ashley. Now I really am not trying to be pushy, but we really can't stay here." He says.
I think to myself for a moment. There's no way I ever want to go back there, but if I go to the new pack I'm going to have to face Kari again. What if something terrible happened to her... But I really want to see her again. Plus for some reason I feel safe around this guy. I mean he did just save my life...
I glance at him. "Alright, I will go with you..." I whisper. I see him smile then he stands up.
"I'm going to change into my wolf. Do you want to change too?" He asks me. I look down and shake my head. "You don't want to change?" I shake my head. I mean, it's not that I don't want to change it's just that my wolf hates me. Sine
Very she hasn't shown herself to me, I can't shift. "It's fine you can ride on my back okay?" He asks gently.
I sigh. I guess I'm going to have to. "Okay." I tell him quietly.
He walks behind a tree and a few seconds later the large golden wolf comes walking toward me. When I look at him now he's really cute in wolf form, almost like a golden husky, except really large and more wolf like... I try to stand but my legs wobble. I manage to get half way up but my body gives out. I fall forward.
Jamie's large head sticks out and catches me just in time. He allows me to use his head for balance and he brings down the rest of his body. I straddle his back and lie the front of my body against it. I grab on tight and he takes off. The wind wraps around me viciously and I dig my face into his fur so that I can breath. I take in a breath and the most magnificent smell fills my nose. I smile and clutch on tighter to the golden wolf.
After a while I feel his movements slow down. I lift myself up lightly and see that we are at a beautiful huge house. He walks over to a tree and lets me off of him. Surprisingly I don't want to get off. I feel really comfortable when he's in wolf form.
I get off of him anyway and he trots behind a tree. When he comes back he is in a T-shirt and gym shorts. He walks up to me. "Are you ready to meet the pack doctor or do you want to see her tomorrow?" He asks me. I look down. I am really sleepy.
"Can I just see her tomorrow... I'm a little tired." I say quietly. He's probably not going to listen to me anyway. Master Froam always makes me do what he wants.
"Sure you can see her tomorrow." He says in a friendly voice. I look up at him with shocked eyes. He's listening to me? He gives me a curious look then adds, "Do you want to stay in my room tonight? You probably want to shower." Oh he wants me in his room... That's what I'm here for.
"Umm..." I really don't want to be touched like that anymore... He catches the look on my face.
"No, no!" He shouts I jump up and look at him with shocked eyes. I back up a little. He pauses then lowers his voice, "I don't mean anything by you staying in my room. I will sleep on the couch down stairs. I just want you to have somewhere nice to sleep." He says gently.
"Oh." I say. That's really the first time anyone's ever thought about me...
"So do you want to come in and wash up? We can go through the back so that you don't have to see people if you don't want to." He asks me nicely. I nod at him.
He starts to walk toward the house and I follow behind him. We go in through the back and like he said, there is no one in sight. He leads me up a set of stairs and we eventually stopped at one of the doors in the hallway. He slowly turns the door knob and walks into his room and turns the lights on. I follow behind him from a distance.
"Well this is my room, everything is pretty easy to find." He turns and looks at me for a moment. "You can borrow some of my clothes and I can have one of the girls wash yours for you. You can just wear mine until yours are clean." He says generously.
I don't usually get my clothes washed too often. I glance down at my sweatshirt and see the bloody mess of it. It's dirty and revolting. The blood rushes from my face and I begin to feel sick from remembering the events of earlier. Jamie takes a step toward me. "Ashley are you okay? Do you want to lie down?" He asks me.
I step back a bit. Then I shake my head quickly. I can't answer him or else I will probably end up throwing up on his rug... I know he will get mad at me for it so I hold it down.
"Well you can get in the shower if you want. I will take out some clothes you can wear and leave them on the bed. I will be sitting right outside the door if you need me. Oh and I don't have any girl shampoo or any thing like that so I hope you can settle for using my shampoo and conditioner. And feel free to use whatever you want, like my tooth brush or towels and such." He says. He walks to his closet to grab the clothes and I walk into the bathroom and shut the door.
I feel my sickness rising so I turn on the shower to create noise then I run over to the toilet. I end up puking out whatever is left in my stomach, which is barely anything at all. It gets to a point where I just can't throw up anymore. I take my clothes off and hop into the shower.
As soon as I get in I jump away from the water. Wow, it's actually warm. The warmth of the water startled me. I stick my head under the running water and enjoy the sensation of the dripping warmth. This is the warmest shower I've taken in so long. I look around for a bar of soap but there is none. I see a bottle of shampoo and I take it and put some in my hair. The smell is ravishing, I never knew something for your hair could smell this good. After I washed out the immense amount of bubbles from my hair I put in the so called conditioner. After reading the back it said to apply to hair after the shampoo. I haven't used conditioner for so long so I wasn't sure if I was using it right.
Now I need to clean my body. I look around and see a bottle of body wash. I grab it and apply it on my whole body. I can't believe he is allowing me to clean myself this well. Once I finish that and rinse off, I get out of the shower and find a towel. I dry myself and wrap it around my body. I walk up to the mirror and sigh. I'm way too skinny. I ignore the gross creature in front of me and grab the tooth brush and tooth paste that was on the counter.
I'm surprised he's letting me use it. Tooth brushes were like novelty items for me. I rarely ever got them. But I got tooth paste much less frequently so I savored it whenever I could. I brush my teeth and smile at how clean I feel. I look down and see I'm still in my towel. Oh right he left me clothes on the bed.
I crack open the door and peek out into the room to make sure no one is in there. The coast is clear so I slowly approach the bed and grab the T-shirt and shorts that were left for me. I put them on and dry my hair one last time with the towel. Hmm, now what to do... I kind of miss Jamie's presence...
Didn't he say he would be waiting outside the door? I slowly approach his the door that leads to the hallway, I open it and peer out. At first I see nothing but then I notice that he fell asleep on the floor. I open the door wider and sit on the ground near him.
I watch his sleeping figure. His chest slowly rises and falls to a certain rhythm and I stare at his angelic face. After a few moment he stirs and turns his head so it's facing me. Slowly his eyes open and he looks at me with something in his eyes. I don't know what it means but I know it made me feel special for a moment. I blush and stand up quickly. "Um, I wasn't sure what to do with my towel..." I say to him.
He laughs and starts to get up, "Here I can take it if you're done with it." I look at him curiously then slowly hand him the towel. Is this a joke, guys never do laundry. "Do you have your dirty clothes?" He asks me.
I open my eyes wide. Oh no, I left them on the floor and they probably made the floor dirty. "Uh I..."
"Oh are they in the bathroom?" He asks and walks toward the bathroom. My heart starts beating fast. Oh no he is going to see the mess and hurt me for it. I should go clean it up now.
He's already opening the bathroom door when I run up to him. "Wait, um... Don't go in there I need to clean it!" I say quickly. He opens the door anyway and in a heap on the floor is a messy and bloody pile of clothes. I shoot my hands up to block my face. "I'm sorry I forgot, please don't hit me I will clean it." I shout.
I don't hear a reply and I slowly remove my hands to see a hurt looking Jamie. "Ashley I could never hurt you, why would you say that?" He's not going to hit me then? But I didn't clean up after myself. I don't answer him and he looks at the mess on the floor "Um, I can take care of this. Why don't you lie down and go to sleep and we can talk in the morning..." He says lightly.
He's going to clean it up? I nod my head and walk toward the bed. Why is he being so caring? Master never treated me like this. Maybe Kari was right and I will get along with the boys in her pack. I get to the bed and lie on top of it. A shiver runs through my body. I used to only get light sheets but when master had me in his bed he wouldn't let me under his covers so I decide not to get under Jamie's. I close my eyes.
After a few minutes I hear someone coming out of the bathroom. "Do you not want to sleep under the covers?" Jamie's deep voice says. For some reason I shiver, but I don't feel disgusted so I don't know why I shivered from his voice. I lean up and look at him.
"Well um... I'm not really allowed to sleep under covers when they aren't my own." I say. His face softens and he looks at me with sad eyes. He approaches the bed.
"Ashley I already said you can use whatever you want that's mine, now I don't know what you've been through but I want you to know a few things. One, I will never hurt you. Two, don't be afraid to talk to me or ask something of me. And three, I will always be here to protect you." He says sweetly. My heart beat races and I feel my cheeks turn red. Wow that's a first. He stares at my eyes for a moment then heads to the door. "I will be outside the door, you should try to sleep."
He turns the light off then exits the room and gently closes the door behind him. I look down at the covers beneath me. Slowly I crawl under them and savor the warmth flowing through me. I dig my head into one of his pillows and his scent flies around me. I smile and enjoy his smell.
It's weird but his smell gives me comfort and makes me feel safe. I think back to what he last said to me. He said he's going to protect me. I don't understand why he said that. Why would he want to protect a weakling like me. I'm not special and I have no worth. Maybe I'm over thinking it and he said that because I'm hopefully going to be part of the pack soon.
I close my eyes and try to allow sleep to take over me. As soon as I close my eyes, pictures of that guy attacking me pop up. I jump up an look around at the darkness. I can see nothing but I feel like someone's watching me. I hear small chattering coming from above me and I fly the the door and open it. Jamie looks up at me from the floor.
"Um... I heard something and I don't know what it is." I say nervously. He can see that I'm scared and he stands up and walks toward the room.
"Where did you hear the noise from?" He asks me and walks into the darkness.
"I heard it from above me." He nods and puts his pointer finger to his lips and tells me to be quiet. I don't move a muscle. After a few moments the noise returns and I jump. He laughs and I give him a strange look.
"Oh it's just mice in the ceiling." He says. He walks back to the door, "they might be annoying but they won't hurt you." He says with a cute smile. He goes to exit the room and I do something I never thought I would do. I reach out and grab his wrist. I feel slight tingling but hold on gently anyway. He turns his head toward me in shock.
I quickly release his wrist and look down "I'm sorry... It's just... I was wondering if you would stay with me in here... I don't really want to be alone with all the thoughts I'm having." I say shyly. Way to go, now I look like an idiot. He obviously won't want to stay with me.
"Sure that's fine,where would you like me to stay?" He asks. I look at him in shock he really will stay with me? I mean I really don't want to be in bed with a guy, but I don't want him on the floor...
"Well I don't want you on the floor... But um..."
Jamie cuts me off, "But you're uncomfortable with me in bed with you. Hmm. How about my wolf form?" He asks. I look at him confused.
"What do you mean?" I say back to him.
"Well would you mind if I slept in wolf form next to you. It's almost like sleeping with a dog." He says with a shrug. I think about it for a moment. I mean his wolf form is really cute.
I give him a shy smile and say, "That would be okay." He smiles.
"I will be right back then." He walks toward his closet and I shut the door to his room. At this point my eyes have already adjusted to the darkness and I can see some things.
I crawl into his bed and get in the covers. A few seconds later I feel the other side of the bed dip down, I look to see his wolf curling up on the other side of the bed. I smile, I'm glad he's with me. I close my eyes.
I can't seem to sleep though, a coldness is keeping my awake. I really want to get closer to the golden wolf but I don't want him to know because that's weird. I listen to his breathing.
Shallow rhythmic breaths come from the other side of the bed. Okay that means he is sleeping. I slowly inch toward him. My back touches his side and his heat immediately spreads to my body. I close my eyes for the last time and fall into a welcoming new warmth.