"The first few years of my life, I didn't even know who my true father was." I kept my voice monotonous, staring blankly at the wall in front of me. The bed below me shifted as Orion changed his position behind me, hit attention fully on me. He suggested we'd move up here, though I didn't know the reason and I didn't ask why.
"My mother died giving birth to me. Instead of taking care of me, the Alpha, my father, gave me to the Beta family. He claimed that he was grieving and needed time, that he couldn't handle taking care of a child at the moment."
I paused for a moment before letting out a small, humorless laugh. "I ended up stay with them for the first four years of my life, thinking that they were my parents. They told me I wasn't their child, that they weren't my parents, and that confused me. But, I was a child, so I couldn't even be bothered to ask what they were talking about. When I was around four, they got pregnant and needed the space I was taking up for their child. So, I moved back into my true household, with the Alpha." I picked at the dirt beneath my nails.
"At first, I only had to do the cleaning, and as I grew older, I had to cook as well. I went to school, got good grades and did whatever he wanted, just so he would be pleased with me. He wasn't violent at all, only yelling at me when I did something wrong, like all parents do. Then-," I paused and took a deep breath to calm myself. "then one day, everything changed."
"He hit me for the first time, when I asked about my mother. Started beating me and screaming that it was my fault she was gone." I made sure to let no emotion come through my voice, not wanting to sound weak, pathetic. "He apologized the next day, but it only grew worse after that. He hit me more often, apologizing but eventually, he stopped saying that it was an accident, that he was sorry." A tear escaped my eye and I hastily wiped it away before it had a chance to slip down my cheek.
"He started bringing random women home, smelling like beer and other things that I couldn't identify at the time. Eventually, he just started to hit me when he wanted to, when he felt like he needed a release. He always smelt like alcohol after that, a new women being brought home every night." Putting my head down in shame, I blocked my face with my hair.
"Then, during the sixth grade, people started noticing my strange behavior, the bruising that I brought to school everyday. Teachers started asking me what was wrong and I had to lie to them. Knowing that he would get caught, he withdrew me from school, keeping me locked away."
"With each passing day, he got worse and worse. Beer bottles everywhere and random drugs were in bags with needles and burnt spoons. That is when I learned to hunt and survive on my own. I wasn't allow to eat the food I made so I had to get my own food. The pack started falling apart, rouges and humans roamed our lands and money was running out."This time, when a tear threatened to make itself known, I let it.
"A year later, a man showed up, claiming he was there to collect his possession. He threw a ziplock bag full of pills at Alpha, grabbed me by the hair and shoved me into the back of his van. Kept me in there for days. I was shaking and I was scared, they kept beating on the sides and shouting at me. I ended up prematurely shifting." My shoulder shook as I let out a sadistic laugh.
"I was small, and ugly. They told me that I looked like a rat with no hair, barely having tuffs of thin, blonde hair."
"Blonde?" He interrupted me for the first time. His voice was hoarse, like he had been crying but I didn't turn around.
"I was once blonde, like my mother's wolf, but overtime, it turned white from fear and stress." I answered his question. "That became a sign of weakness for me and they targeted me from then on." Needing to distract myself from crying, I picked at the comforter on the bed.
"After I had shifted, they opened the doors and I attacked. I managed to kill one of my captors but they easily outnumbered me and I was too weak to fight them off. They pinned me down and locked a silver collar around my neck and tied me to a tree. As Master, Gordon, explained to me what was happening, I scratched him in the face, giving him that scar. After I attacked him, he merciless beat me until I passed out." Feeling the collar construct me once more, I pulled on the collar of my shirt to loosen it.
"After that, I became his toy. He ran a sort of dog fighting ring. He forced us to fight for food and water, loser dies. If we didn't fight, he'd kill us but if we fought, we had to kill the other person or they would kill you." The tears kept pouring down my face but I ignored them.
"I felt horrible, I was disgusted with myself. I still am. Everyday, I see their faces, the lifeless look they would give me just before their bodies slacked in my jaw. Kai was the once who got me through it. She would sneak me extra food and water, as she was the one who gave us those. Kai was to young to shift at the time and I felt very protective of her, seeing how young and innocent she was. I took her under my wing and protected her when she needed help, took the beating she was supposed to bare." Running my fingers over a scar that ran down my arm, reliving one of those memories.
"One night, they randomly started lighting us on fire, killing us off in bulk. I managed to escape. The tree I was bound to was rotted out and the chain I had was very weak from rust and years of being outside in the elements. After that, I became a rouge for a few years and managed to survive on my own." It was silent for the longest time, just the sound of our breathing and my heart thumping in my chest. A sudden sob broke out from behind me, making me glance from over my shoulder.
His face was red and splotchy, cheeks stained from tears running down his skin. More drops of water fell from his eyes and he didn't even bother to wipe them away, let alone try and conceal the sobs that were now being let lose from his mouth. It was when his eyes met mine that my heart constricted painfully in my chest, unnerving me in a way that I didn't know was possible.
"Orion." I sighed, my voice finally show expression, no longer holding the monotonous voice. "I'm so sorry." His beautiful green eyes were now bloodshot red from his crying, portraying a sadness that I had never seen from him.Whimpering, he shook his head and held his arms out to me, making me crawl over to him. His head fell into my lap, arms wound tightly around my waste.
"How could somebody do this to you." His voice hoarse and weak. "I'm so sorry."
"I told you. I'm a monster."
"N-No." He croaked. "Stop saying that. The fact that you feel remorse over what you did proves that. You had to do that to survive, not because you wanted to, you had to. The fact that you lived through all of this just makes you even stronger in my eyes."
"Your pack hates me. They know what I did." I brushed off his comments, my cheeks now adorning a light pink.
"Our pack." He corrected me. "And they weren't mad at you. My mother overheard what Rebecca had said to you and decided to take it into her own hands and call her out on it. The pack was angry with her for attacking you, not the other way around. She told me while I was waiting for you in the infirmary."
His cries still racked his body, even as he was speaking. In an attempt to comfort him, like all the times he had done the same for me, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer. Running my fingers through his hair, scraping his scalp, I curled my body around him. Extreme enmity coursed in my veins at the state he was in, a state that I had caused. I detested seeing him this way, only hearing his sadness in the open room we were in. His cries eventually slowed but he never moved away, only closer.
"You're so beautiful." He randomly muttered, my fingers pausing from running through his hair. "So, so beautiful." Warmth radiated from within my, starting with my heart and them spreading outwards.
"No, I'm not." I protested, my hands going limp, resting on his head.
"You are so beautiful." He repeated again. "You're so kind, always a putting other people's needs before your own. You've been through so much and you still managed to get close to me, let me hold you in my arms the way I had craved. You've come so far and I admire you so much for that. You are so strong and it pains me to hear you call yourself such awful names because they called you them. So please, listen to me. "You are so beautiful, the color of your hair, your eyes, your nose, your lips, your wolf, your scars, your everything, just you."
His arms slowly shifted upwards from my waist to around my shoulders. Is head lifted from my stomach to lean his forehead against mine, his nose nuzzling my own. His green eyes stared into my with adoration, still rimmed red and his face still blotchy and stained with his tears.
"I love you." Without hesitating to much, I responded, giving him all I could at the moment.
"I trust you." I whispered back, placing my lips on his in a chaste kiss.