Madeleine
Fear
Pure, unadulterated fear
That was all I could feel as I lay on the cold floor of the basement of the house I had been in for a week. My hands went to my stomach as I felt something wet and warm below my flimsy shirt. I touched my stomach and winced as my fingers were streaked red.
I was bleeding and I was alone. From upstairs, I could hear the angry voices of people, bickering about something.
They say you get used to fearing and to living with it after some time. But how did you define ‘some’ time?
It had been a week since I was forcing myself to accept this new reality. But having been sheltered by my loving parents all my life, I was finding it difficult to come to terms with the fact that they were no more.
My previous pack had lost all its members in a fight against the Black Forest pack last week and I, a wolfless girl, had been left alone.
Since I hadn’t awakened my wolf yet, nobody wanted me. I was beneath them all.
Steve, the Black Forest pack’s omega was asked to use me as a slave and he did that dutifully. Thankfully, as I had no wolf he despised me so he never even looked at me save for scowling or hitting me.
Relieved that nobody thought of forcing themselves on me, I was thankful to the Moon Goddess for providing me with a temporary shelter. However, more often than not, I would find myself hurt and crying, but at least, I used to be on a makeshift bed.
Tonight, however, he decided to throw me into the basement. It was dark and cold. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed lying on the cold floor until I finally mustered the energy to get up.
A part of me just wanted to give up and wait for death to finally greet me, but I could hear my mother’s voice playing in my head, “wolf or not, you are my brave girl and I hope you will always be that.”
Those words stirred something within me. Placing both my hands on the floor, I tried to exert as much energy as I could and forced myself into a sitting position. Struggling and panting, I finally managed to lean on one of the several wooden poles that held the house together.
A tear or two trickled down my eyes but I wasn’t even aware of the fact that I was crying.
Tearing the corner of my shirt, I tried to dab at the wound, praying that I would somehow get out of this hellhole. But then I realized that prayers weren’t going to work. I had to act on my own, but first I had to escape.
As I sat wondering about what to do next and kept thinking of how to stitch myself up, I heard footsteps above. My heart began to thud erratically as my hands began to shake.
The sound of footsteps echoed through the basement like a loud blaring horn against the pin-drop silence of my surroundings and I tried to make myself invisible. Obviously, I failed.
It was still dark and the only light coming in was the rays peeking in through the small rectangular slits on the top. There was a light bulb somewhere but I recalled Steve breaking it the last time. He had tried to hit me with a baseball bat and had hit the bulb instead.
Thud. Thud.
The basement roof creaked as the door slowly opened. I tried to hide behind an abandoned chair and prayed that he would forget I was here.
“Madeleine, where are you?” Steve’s drunken voice floated towards me. He took a swig from the bottle he was holding in his hand and I was sure that was not the first bottle he had had for the day.
‘How long has he been drinking?’ I wondered. The wristwatch on my hand showed that it was hardly 9 pm.
I put my hand on my mouth to not let a single sound escape my lips and willed myself to stay quiet and not tremble.
“Oh, I see… playing hide and seek, are we?” Steve spoke in a drawled voice and I crouched further into the broken furniture.
He strolled around the basement and began upending the furniture and other things he had stored inside. The sound of things breaking, rods clamoring echoed through the place and I quickly put my hands on my ears to drown the noise.
‘Be quiet, be quiet.’ I kept repeating in my head but I felt myself being pulled forward when something forcefully yanked me out of my hiding spot. Steve found me hiding behind the chair and dragged me out, holding my hand.
“Please, I didn’t do anything!” I begged as fresh tears trickled down my face.
“You did, I saw you talking to Clare in the morning. And then she comes to me saying I should give you time to mourn your dead family and let you rest. You think you can gossip about me and get away with it?”
My eyes went wide at the words, and I knew that he wouldn’t think twice of hurting me again. Now, there was no one to save me but myself.
As such, I mustered the courage to answer him, “I…I only told her the…truth.” My voice barely came out as a whisper, but I was surprised that I could speak.
“What?”
Steve’s voice came out, angry and annoyed. It was as if he had heard me but he was giving me the chance to take my words back.
Surprisingly enough, I wasn’t feeling scared anymore. Emboldened by my courage, I decided to speak again with a firm voice, “I said, I told her the truth…of what a filthy person you are.”
My low voice turned into a scream as I yelled at him by the time the last few words left my mouth. Steve only looked at me in confusion for a minute, too stunned to see that I had suddenly found the courage to talk back.
However, his features quickly turned into that of fury as he raised his hand to throw that bottle at me. My eyes flicked to the basement door and I saw my opportunity to escape.
I ducked and pushed him aside with all my efforts before rushing upstairs through the small flight of stairs and running out into the backyard.
My feet carried me outside but the injury to my abdomen was making it difficult for me to keep running. I stumbled against a small rock and lost my footing, falling to the ground again.
I could hear Steve’s voice drawing nearer as he walked out of the house into the backyard. Trying to look for a way out of the situation, I raised my eyes to turn around and something caught my eye.
A pair of brown eyes were staring at me through the dense grass of the forest behind our backyard. Those eyes were eerily calm and were fixated on me. Startled at the sudden appearance, I stifled a scream.
Could that be true? Or was I hallucinating?
I blinked and those eyes were gone.
Steve had almost reached me and was yelling at me, ready to hit me when I heard a distinct growl that made him stiffen on the spot.
Shocked by the sudden noise, he looked around but couldn’t see anyone. Thinking that the sound he had heard was a trick of his mind, Steve raised his hand and that’s when the wolf came out of the bush.
My eyes went wide as the glorious wolf revealed himself.
A huge, golden-furred wolf was standing in front of me, his teeth bared and eyes filled with anger. However, what surprised me was that he wasn’t even looking at me.
Something overcame me as, despite his big brown eyes, I felt that the wolf in front of me was far better than the one behind me.
“Help me…please.”
Those words slipped out of my mouth in a whisper before I could take them back. And as if on cue what I didn’t expect to happen, happened.
In a swift move, the wolf jumped up from the ground, completely ignoring me as he almost glided over my head aiming straight for Steve.
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Hayden It had been a long night since I had been running around the forest. I was restless and annoyed and my pack members had just added fuel to the fire. I needed a break from it so I decided to go for a run. I let my wolf, Luke, take over for the time being and take me far from our territory. I was lost in thought and didn’t even realize that he was taking me close to the other pack’s territory and none other than our rival pack, the Black Forest pack. “Why are you taking me there?” I growled at him when I realized I was close to their borders. “Why not?” came Luke’s snark reply. I shook my head and was about to tell him off when I heard noises of someone shouting. I didn’t want to walk into any trouble since I had enough going on in my pack already, but somehow my feet carried me towards the backyard of a house. It was there that I saw a girl who was lying on the ground, possibly bleeding from some wound. Her fa
Madeline I sat on a chair with my arms crossed across my chest, trying to show that I was not shaken and appear confident. Meanwhile, Clare, the elderly she-wolf whom everybody respected took out a first aid box from a cabinet. She had dragged me away from the fight and away from my savior. I had never seen him before but then I had never really met anyone, not outside my pack at least. My pack…strange that I thought of these people as my pack. But then, I didn’t really have anywhere to go. While I was deep in thoughts, Clare outstretched her hands in front of me, asking me to give mine in hers. “The sooner you listen to me, the sooner I will be able to heal you.” Knowing that she was speaking the truth, I extended my pale hands in front of her. She made a disapproving sound before pulling out the antiseptic and cotton. “Tsk tsk…when are you going to stand up to Steve?” I swallowed back tears as I thought of an answer,
Hayden I returned to my territory late in the afternoon hoping that nobody would notice me. I didn’t feel the need to sleep but I knew I had a lot of thinking to do. But before that, I had to change my clothes. Steve or whatever his name was, was smelly and Luke was growling at me to get rid of the stink. As such, I went inside my home and threw the clothes in the bin before stepping inside the shower. The hot water rejuvenated my senses and I felt instantly refreshed. However, the face of Madeleine kept swimming in front of my eyes. A small part of me was worried that Steve would hit her again because I had been impatient and bit a large part of his ear off though Luke tried to assure me that I had just grazed his ear. Even he was getting restless that I was t
Hayden I could do little to go against the word of Raine. Both Charlie and Ben knew that and they had used her to make me listen to their pleas. ‘‘Smart move,’’ Luke added with a chuckle and I grew annoyed. My wolf loved teasing me for some reason. However, I didn’t show my annoyance and instead shook my head. Raine smiled at my reaction and tried to add in a motherly voice, “Hayden, you know one day or other you have to find yourself a Luna. If not for yourself, you will have to find one for your pack.” She had a point but I wasn’t going to back down so easily. This Luna obsession was starting to get to me. These days all my pack members could think of was getting a Luna. And ever since the announcement of the ball had been made, they had become frantic. But, my mind was elsewhere. I only grunted at Raine in response and she got up from the chair she had been sitting in with a sigh. “Guess, I’ll just go home and cook y
Charlie I was at the training ground overseeing the training of our pack. Today it was Peter’s turn to be on patrol duty so I was responsible for training. Our pack was relatively small and our alpha, Hayden, had ensured that nobody missed training. He was a disciplined guy who wanted all of his warriors in the best shape and ever since he had taken up the post of alpha, our pack unanimously agreed on everything. Well, everything except one. I shook my head at that thought and instructed the pack members, correcting their stances and showing them what they were doing wrong. After two hours of solid training, I decided to end the session for the day. My mind was not in the training session anyway. Hayden hardly missed the training session and he would even join the pack members as a student to train with them. Seeing him join as a student who the beta or even the gamma would train, made the others know how important it was to ta
Madeleine A chill ran down my spine at those words. My heartbeat had grown so loud and erratic that everything that he said next got drowned in the noise that echoed in my ears. No, he couldn’t possibly mean that. My eyes went wide with terror and despite wanting to run away, I decided to let him talk as much as I could. Hayden had saved me once and I had been thinking of finding a way of returning the favor. If I could do it just by listening to Steve ramble about what he had exactly done or planned to do, it would really be helpful. I knew that the werewolves loathed me so he couldn’t possibly mean that he would take me to his bed. I was beneath them all. No wolf, not even the gamma would ever want to taint his reputation by accepting a wolfless girl, that I was pretty sure of. Hence, I mustered my courage and walked outside the door that was well hidden by the darkness. There was only a faint light enter
HaydenLuke was growling and it took me a great deal of effort to stop him from lunging at Garron. I didn’t want more trouble.Charlie threw me a look that said he was going to talk to me about whatever Garron had said. Well, I had known that I cannot really keep things away from them, but I hadn’t expected Garron to show up all of a sudden.He usually steered clear of my pack and my territory and as much as he loathed me, he wouldn't show up just to goad me.The look that had passed between him and Raine was also bothering me. Nevertheless, I could talk about that later.Right now, I walked into my office with Garron in tow. I ensured that all my pack members were well out of earshot. If Garron was going to be nasty to me, I didn’t want the others to hear it.I would deal with him my way.Leading him inside, I asked him to sit on the chair opposite my desk. I turned around and closed the door on Charlie’s face
Hayden I didn't even know when or how I had opened my arms and when she had slid into my embrace but it had felt the right thing to do. Madeleine was afraid and hurt and possibly someone had tried to take advantage of her. The thought of Steve forcing him upon her made me feel murderously angry. She was sobbing in my chest and I let her cry as my hands closed around her in a warm embrace. I could feel her heart beating wildly and I gave her a minute to help her calm herself. I had no idea how she had reached here or why but all I could be thankful for was that she was safe and in front of my eyes. Charlie was surprised to see me hug a stranger or how that girl knew me but he didn't comment. I only asked him to give us some space and he obeyed me by leaving us alone. When he had left, it was just me and her by the river. The only sound was of her quite sobbing and of the water gently flowing by. I tried to pat her hair and make her sit on a nea