Chapter 22: Zoey
"Everything got so much worse when I turned ten. In Dark Moon most kids shifted by age eight. I still hadn't by age ten. The thought process was I was late shifting because of being malnourished. So, to keep from disgracing the pack, the Alpha was brought in. That didn't happen often. He used an Alpha command to force the shift… and nothing happened. He tried a few more times before I was deemed 'damaged.' My mother lost all standing in the pack since she was my only living relative. She was blamed for producing a broken wolf.
That night was the worst beating I'd ever received to that date. By the time she was done my nose was broken, both eyes had swelled shut and were black, some cracked ribs, and bruises everywhere."
Ash growled. "What the fuck! You were ten! And it's not as if you chose not having a wolf. How could someone be so cruel to a child?"
"Sadly, it was more common than you think in that pack. Maybe not to that extreme but being physical when disciplining a child is common but then they had shifter healing where I didn't. After my beating my mother kicked me out of the house completely. For the next two years I lived on the streets. I slept on the back porch sometimes when she was out all night. Other nights I slept in the forest which wasn't so bad most of the time. Wintertime was the worst though. Luckily for me, I found a hollow tree and spent the summer and fall filling it with grasses and leaves. I would burrow under them to try to stay warm. Any food I found was usually frozen or close to it. Sometimes I felt barely alive when spring came, and berries and mushrooms could be found again. I never really gained much weight.
When I was twelve my mother left the pack. She realized she'd never catch the Alpha's attention thanks to her broken wolf child, so she left for greener pastures, leaving me behind. The pack didn't take it too well that she saddled them with a useless shifter. But the pack motto was appearances must be kept. Now that my mother wasn't there to take the disgrace, my brokenness reflected badly on the whole pack. So, I was put with a foster family so that other packs wouldn't think they neglected the children of the pack. The parents were indifferent, but they at least fed me and gave me clothes. Nothing extravagant and just the bare minimum but it was still more than what I had before. They already had a daughter my age, Jessica. My foster mother couldn't have any more pups, so Jessica had been spoiled her whole life. She's a self-entitled bitch. And she made my life miserable.
At first it was just casual cruelty but as I finally started to gain weight from getting food regularly, it got worse. She started hitting me more often, insulting me, and she would do things to purposely damage the few clothes I had. Once she even cut my hair in such a way, I had to shave almost everything off. Which made me a target for all the other kids in the pack. None of the adults cared enough to stop anything but at least they didn't join in. When my figure really started to fill out and I got curvy, the Alpha decreed that any kind of sexual contact with me was strictly forbidden. He didn't want my defect to spread into any bastard pups I might carry.
For once I was grateful to have been broken. There were several guys that were getting together and had been talking about grabbing me one day and 'having some fun' with me. I was old enough to realize what that meant, and it terrified me since I wasn't strong enough to stop them. But after the Alpha's decree, all the talk about fucking me stopped since fucking me was a banishment offense and getting me pregnant was a death sentence. But the abuse didn't stop, it just got worse.
One of the guys in the group was the Alpha's son, Brad. In fact, he was the main one doing the talking and the others just joined in. I think that's why the Alpha made the decree, because he didn't want Brad to get me pregnant and have me 'pollute' his line. Since Brad couldn't fuck me like he wanted, he tortured me instead. Brad was very very fond of knives and causing pain. He got off on it."
I shuddered and Ash took my hand in his and held it tight. I took a long swallow of my whisky, emptying the glass. I blew out a breath and set my glass back on the floor. Jer refilled it and after setting the bottle back down grabbed my other hand. Deke tightened his grip on my waist. I appreciated their support, and it helped me get through the rest of my story.
"His new favorite past time was to get his friends to grab me after school and drag me behind the building. One usually covered my mouth so I couldn't scream while others held my hands and feet down. It didn't matter how much I fought I couldn't get away from them. Since they had their wolves, they were so much stronger than me. Ash was right about the scars. You see, Brad liked to use his knives on my legs. He said he liked the smell of my blood, my pain, and my terror. He would make cuts up and down my legs while he masturbated and he would come all over my clothes, sometimes on my face and in my hair if I had really pissed him off. If I had on pants, they stripped them off to give him better access to my legs. It would happen a few times a week and the cutting went on for years. Everyone knew but no one did anything to stop it. In fact, I would get in trouble for being late coming home and for getting blood and cum on my clothes.
The first time that anyone did anything to stop them was one night when I was sixteen. I was never sure what I'd done to set them off, but Jessica got a bunch of her friends together. They grabbed me and tied my hands together and attached the rope to the hitch of one of the boy's trucks. I was crying and begging them to let me go but Jessica just laughed and told the guy behind the wheel to floor it. They were all drinking and cheering as the truck took off, jerking me off my feet and dragging me down the road.
They dragged me almost a mile with me screaming before the Alpha stopped them. I was taken to the pack doctor for the first time in my life. By that time there wasn't any skin left on my back and basically, my muscles were shredded. The doctor was cold and clinical as she told me but didn't do anything to hurt me more than I already was. She bandaged my back and kept me there for two weeks while my back healed a little. Once she knew I would be safe from infection she had me leave the clinic and go back to my foster family.
Jessica and her friends had gotten away with only a lecture on keeping appearances to the neighboring packs. The pack didn't want it to get out that I was wolf-less or that I was mistreated. That was the worst thing they did to me until I turned eighteen when my true mate was revealed. It was the worst night of my life. I'd always held onto a secret dream. That my mate would love me and take me away from that pack, away from the pain and hate. Everyone, including me, was horrified to find out my mate was Brad. He immediately rejected me, severing the mate bond which tore my heart and soul to pieces. I absolutely hated that guy, but the bond breaking caused me pain even if I didn't want him any more than he wanted me.
To show his standing in the pack and his prowess, he shamed me before the pack, and he beat me. He was so angry I thought he was going to kill me Broken ribs, fractured cheek bone, dislocated jaw, dislocated shoulders, dislocated knee, and not one inch of my skin wasn't bruised. He then left me lying bleeding in the dirt, declared me a rogue, and claimed Jessica as his mate. He proceeded to fuck her in front of me and the pack. Each thrust was like pouring acid on a wound because of the broken bond that I didn't even want in the first fucking place.
But I got my own back for a minute. In the middle of their fucking, I started laughing. Brad had such a small dick it was a wonder he was able to even get inside her. I know she couldn't have felt a damn thing, but she was moaning like he was hung like a fucking porn star. With each of her moans, I laughed louder and louder until Brad was so mad, he jumped down from the stage and kicked me in the head, knocking me out."