5
978 Words
It has been 365 days since the day Gaius rejected me.
My life has been nothing but hell.
The first few weeks were the loudest. Screams, slaps, boots connecting with ribs already cracked from the night I tried to run. Gaius liked to make examples. He would drag me by the hair into the pack dining hall at dinner time, force me to kneel beside his chair like a dog, and every time someone dropped food—intentionally or not—he made me eat it off the floor. No hands. Tongue only.
The warriors laughed. The omegas looked away. My father never came to those dinners anymore.
Beau was worse when no one important was watching.
He had a favorite game he called “Count the Bruises.” Late at night, after the pack house quieted, he would slip into the tiny broom closet they gave me as a room. He never said much—just pinned my wrists above my head with one hand and used the other to mark new places. Ribs. Thighs. The soft skin under my arms, which no one would see unless they stripped me. He liked to whisper, “One for every year you stole from this family,” even though I was only eighteen when it started. By day ninety, he’d run out of years and just started counting whatever number came to his head. Sometimes he laughed while he did it. Sometimes he didn’t. The silence was worse.
The servants and lower omegas were different. They didn’t hit as hard, but they never missed a chance to remind me I was less than dirt. They poured scalding water “by accident” on my hands when I tried to wash dishes. They “forgot” to leave scraps for me in the kitchen. Once, when I collapsed from hunger in the hallway, a group of them stepped over me like I was a puddle. One girl—Lila, who used to braid Zoe’s hair—spat on my cheek and hissed, “You helped her run. You deserve worse than this.”
I stopped trying to explain that I didn’t know where Zoe went. No one believed me anyway.
Gaius never touched me the way he once threatened to. Not fully. He said it would be “too good” for me. Instead, he kept me in a constant state of almost. He would shove me against walls in empty corridors, press his body to mine until I could feel every line of rage in him, then pull away at the last second and laugh at how badly I shook.
“You think I want you?” he will sneer. “I just want you to remember what you’ll never have.” Then he’d leave me there, panting, terrified, and aching in ways that had nothing to do with bruises.
The rejection wound never healed.
It sat under my breastbone like a live coal. Some days it burned so badly I couldn’t breathe. Other days it dulled to a constant throb, reminding me that my wolf—whatever was left of her—was still chained inside a body too broken to let her out. I hadn’t shifted. Not once. The elders called it a curse. Gaius called it proof I was defective. Beau called it hilarious.
There were nights I prayed for death. Quietly. Desperately. I would curl on the thin pallet in my closet-room, knees to chest, and beg whatever moon goddess still listened to take me. She never answered.
But she didn’t let me die either.
Around the eight-month mark, something changed.
The pack started whispering about a scent on the wind. Something foreign. Something dangerous. Border patrols doubled. Gaius grew more vicious, as if he could smell the threat and needed to prove he was still in control. He started keeping me closer—chaining me in the corner of his private training room while he sparred, shirtless and sweating, so I could watch what real power looked like. He never explained why. He didn’t have to. The message was clear: I was his property. His broken toy. His proof that even fate could be beaten into submission.
Yesterday was the worst.
He found me scrubbing blood off the dungeon stairs—someone else’s punishment, not mine. He didn’t say a word. Just grabbed my arm, twisted it behind my back until I heard the joint pop, and marched me to the pack square in the middle of the afternoon market. Everyone stopped. Everyone stared.
He forced me to my knees in the dirt.
Then he spoke, loud enough for the entire square to hear.
“Three hundred and sixty-five days ago, this thing thought she could be someone’s mate.” He kicked my side lightly, almost playfully. “Look at her now. Still breathing. Still useless. Still mine.”
The crowd laughed.
Beau laughed loudest.
I kept my eyes on the ground. I’d learned long ago that looking up only earned more pain.
But then—something happened.
A sharp, sudden heat bloomed behind my eyes. Not the familiar burn of tears. Not the dull ache of the rejection. This was different. Deeper. Like something buried under layers of scar tissue had finally clawed its way to the surface.
My vision flickered gold.
Just for a second.
I felt it—her. My wolf. Not whole. Not strong. But awake. Scraping at the walls inside me and whispering one word over and over.
Wait.
Gaius didn’t see it. He was too busy basking in the crowd’s approval.
He turned away, already dismissing me.
But I felt it.
She was coming.
And when she finally broke free…
I didn’t know what I would do.
But I knew one thing with perfect, terrifying clarity.
I was no longer waiting to die.
I was waiting to begin.
- Writer
