Maddie was a really nice girl, she smiled and laughed all the time, was fun to work with and a comfort to live with for Ana. She had even managed to get out of Ana the tale of what had happened to her, so she could understand why she’d left.
The woman had shaken her head a little on the sad side and then muttered “Bloody Alphas, all of them assholes I see.” Ana didn’t know which Alpha she’d been referring to, Roman or Slade, and didn’t ask either. But Maddie had hugged her for a long moment and then looked right at her.
“Well, Ana. You have got me now. I’m your sister and from now on we’re family.” It had been a really nice thing to hear, and she actually knew Maddie had meant it as well.
She’d been given that spare necklace. Maddie had bottle of scent masking oil with human pheromones infused into it, and she was now just like a human, looked and smelled like one to everyone around them. It actually made her feel safe, truly safe, being a rogue out here. One never really got to have that feeling, she supposed.
As long as China didn’t push forward and be on the surface, no one would be the wiser, not the humans, and not other worldly creatures. Definitely not male rogues, which she knew was actually the biggest issue for female rogues.
Maddie had taken her for a walk about the area over the past few days, and shown her the places where she shifted and let Tawny out. She was a darkly brindled black and brown timber wolf, her colouring kind of matched her name. Tawny also liked to be out padding around in the forest, she chased small animals and generally enjoyed being out in wolfen form of a night.
Something China couldn’t do right this minute, but would also do after their daughter was born, Maddie had told her, I’ll watch my niece while China plays about and one day in the future our wolves will be able to run together when she’s in day care or at school. That would be nice.
She’d heard Maddie’s own story now, it was not so nice either, a larger, more aggressive pack had come in and taken over hers when she was like four or five. She didn’t really recall her age at the time, but did recall that the Alpha coming in, had killed off most of the male population and mated his own males to the female population, cuffed a lot of them with. silver all the time to keep them under control and compliant.
Her mother, Maddison, had been in their technology department, and was actually where she herself got her own brilliance from. She barely recalled her own father, but her mother was one of the females that were given to another. She’d gotten a step-father that had not cared for her.
That bastard was cruel even to his new mate. He used silver on her mother to take what he wanted from her, when she wouldn’t give it willingly, as most did. The new Alpha was a brute of a man, that didn’t really care, only came in and took over to absorb the technology that the pack was known for.
She had watched her mother wither away over the years and then, that last year, even more so, she’d become sickly looking and Maddie had thought she was dying, not that it deterred her stepfather at all. Then one day, when she was just 12, her mother had taken her hand and just sat looking at her, had this very sad expression on her face, and then after a moment had just hugged her right into her chest so very tightly.
She had apologised to her for the life she’d led, for the life she was about to have, and Maddie had heard the emotion and felt the tears, she’d not really understood the words that she’d never forgotten come from her mother “I can’t protect you anymore.” She’d tilted her face up and really looked at her “Be strong my beautiful girl, don’t let them break you.”
Then the next day she’d been taken away from her mother, hauled off by her step-father while her own mother had sobbed inside their house, she’d been sold to the Alpha himself. Her step-father had the paper work all signed by her mother and she knew he’d made her sign them, forced her hand on it. To have legal documents if anyone complained, had seen her own mother’s shaky signature and a bloody fingerprint seal as well.
Giving over her parental rights to the Alpha of their pack. She’d known, even at 12 it was all a lie, but what could she do about it? She was only 12, didn’t have a wolf to fight back, then she’d felt her own mother sever from her that very day, about an hour later.
She had no idea if her mother had killed herself, died from being too sickly, or if that Alpha or her step-father had killed her to make sure she could never refute the claim, that she’d willingly given her up to him at some point in time. Though she’d been told she was sick and had died; why she’d been placed in the Alpha’s care.
Apparently, her own mother had organised it so that her step-father wouldn’t hurt her, as she got older. She didn’t believe it, no one was allowed to touch her, she was too brilliant a mind in the Alpha’s eyes.
She’d found herself moved to the top floor of the packhouse, a place she’d never actually been, with the exception of the library where she’d studied. Into the room right across the hall from his own suite. She’d not understood the meaning of it at 12. And that room was large and plush, and fully kitted out like an amazing technology lab, all the things she could ever dream of owning herself. Wanted in a lab of her own.
Then, after her mother had died, he’d told her the real reason she was there, that she was going to be his Luna when she turned 18, that she would stay his Luna until he found his Goddess Gifted Mate, and then he would release her, had even lined up another for her to go to, after that happened so she could be assured she would be useful to her new owner, once sold to the pack she would go to.
His brother would love her just like he would, but then he’d laughed and stated she was going to earn him a pretty penny, not even his brother would get her for free. Then he’d promised not to touch her until she turned 18 as long as she continued to work and make money for the pack, create new inventions and apps, that he could claim, pattern and sell to create wealth for himself.
He had seen her potential, and given her all the tools and education she could possibly want, to inspire her, grown her knowledge and actually let her show her creativity and flare, encouraged it even, smiled at her, pat her on the head and called her a prodigy, she’d gotten an engineering and chemistry degree by the time she was 16.
She’d seen the way he’d looked at her, stared at her sometimes, and she’d always known she had to find a way out of that place, and before turning 18 at that, so she had set about doing so. In secret in her own lab. Had bided her time and did as she was told, smiled at him even though she’d not wanted to, created those things he wanted and given them to him.
Went so far as to be excited to tell him she had made something new and rushed off to show him, he thought he had the perfect Luna in the Making, that she liked him, was happy with the knowledge of what he wanted for her. The man was not so smart, just a brute really. Thought he’d groomed her perfectly for himself.
She understood she was actually in the Luna suite by the time she was 16, not really known that at 12, it had just been a nice suite with a lab attached to it. The door simply ready ‘Sabrina’s Lab.’ She’d not wanted for anything really. If she needed something, he sourced it and gave it to her. Wanted her to have what she needed to make him wealthy.
She had made her escape at 17. After she’d seen him getting ready to brutalizing a she-wolf, she’d been crying and sobbing, that she didn’t want to, as he’d pulled her into his Alpha suite, a young girl likely not much older than 18. He’d not seen her that day, but she had seen him and the silver cuff on that girl so she couldn’t fight him.
She had never seen that before, likely wasn’t supposed to see that one either, realised at that moment that was going to be her in a year, the minute she turned 18 he would drag her to his suite and claim her for his Luna whether she liked it or not. Unwilling meant nothing to him.
So she’d used her genius to get the hell out of there, had taken the opportunity to flee from the pack, when he left to go to the kingdom for the annual alpha meeting with the King. No one guarded her due to her always looking happy to be there waiting on becoming his Luna, the way she smiled at him and he, her. She’d had years to play her cards and build trust.
She’d also never once tried to run away, or cause any trouble. For all appearance, she had just accepted her position and was happy about it. He’d, nor anyone inside his pack had seen it coming. She’d stuck to the forests in wolfen form all the time, and made her way across the country, making sure to stay out of any human transportation hubs where she knew there would be cameras he could use to track her.
But she was not so dumb and had been setting up her life for a year before she’d left, prepping to run the hell away from a life of brutality. She had used that new scent masking spray of her own to hide and slip from the pack, she had used a few of her own hand-made tranquilizer darts, shot from a short blowpipe of her own making to knock out the border patrols and get away unseen.
It had taken her three months to cross the country and get here unseen, to Greenville, Maine. She had actually arrived two weeks ahead of her own schedule. And that was how she’d come to be here.
It seemed that no matter where you went in the wolfen world, violence and brutality were rife. No one was safe out there inside or outside of a pack, their world was cruel. Though out here. Maddie felt safe, and had been safe for three whole years now. She scented like a human and not one otherworldly creature had even batted an eyelid at her, when they came into her caf? for coffee, or she passed them on the streets out there.
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