Chapter 1: Toy

She felt her body pull against the sand and surf as an unknown source plucked her from the tide. Gently, her shoulders were put to rest on warmer sand and there her eyes began to open. The sun stung until a shadowed face came into view. She could barley make out who the person was. It was a man no doubt, extremely handsome even with the dark facial hair needing a trimming. His chiseled jaw and dark brow gave a commanding look about him.

"Speak," the unfamiliar voice demanded.

Her parched lips opened and a feminine gasp escaped her lips, "Who are you?" they asked. The man's face couldn't look more concerned, as if to say his eyes were not deceiving him. This was a woman, flesh and blood.

The girl felt faint and her eyes slipped closed once again. Kane knew leaving her here would mean her demise. She would be the next plaything, passed around amongst the men. The last girl to be offered on shore since the Great Fall was found unresponsive a morning after a night of liquor and bonfire. The men had had their way with her and she had bled out in the night. The pact was getting more reckless, Kane knew. If he were to save this new woman's life she would need to be kept secret.

Kane drew up the woman's small frame into his dark muscular arms and crept along the beach, careful to not be seen by any pact mates. He kept a home in an old oak, carved out and added onto with some clay he molded by hand. Usually his mates left him to himself until they sought his strength out. Kane was one of the older and more muscular males of the island. His sour personality kept anyone from trying to pry into his head, and he liked it and kept it that way.

As Kane lowered the short girl down on his soft bed of pelts, she again stirred. She opened her eyes again and saw the now more familiar face. Kane offered her dry lips some water in a clay cup. She took a sip and then cleared her voice.

"Hello," she tested his gaze.

"So you speak English? That's relieving. The last girl didn't know a word of English and ended up a toy."

"Toy?" she asked.

"The men on this island will have their way with you. You'll be a slave or worse if they find that you're a woman."

"How did I get here?" she asked, worry now filling her head.

"You got here the same as we all got here. Titan has provided. Titan is a company, is the most we know. They leave supplies and sometimes people like you on the shores of the island. No one has ever left and lived. We survive here as best we can. As will you."

Kane grabbed a pair of rusty silver scissors out of a wood crate. Before the girl could react, Kane grabbed a lock of her chestnut hair and cut it off. The girl threw herself back on the bed and held up an arm.

"What are you doing," she asked exasperatedly.

Kane forced her arm down and held the scissors close to her face.

"Your name is now Rhen. You were born a boy. You will speak like a man and you will act like a man. If you do not, then there is no hope for you, and I cannot help you."

A tear streaked down Rhen's face as she shivered in fear. She sobbed softly and brought her knees to her chest as she let Kane cut off all of her hair. When he finished, she looked to him for sympathy but found none. She felt like a burden and afraid for her life. She couldn't anger him further if she wanted to survive on this island. She remembered nothing of what was before. Who was she? Why was she selected to be here?

Could she even pass as a man?