The rogue princess

The brotherly saviour.

Freya POV

I don’t know how long I had been out for, when I woke to a cold, damp pressure on my cheek. My eyes opened slowly, squinting at the person looking down at me with a sympathetic look.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do anything. It’s just I fear if I did he would kill you to prove a point.” Alex dabbed at the dried blood on my cheek.

“Then he’d probably kill you afterward.” I said in a soft voice.

He pulled me into his chest, encasing my body with his arms and laying a small peck on my forehead.

“I don’t know why, but I just feel protective over you. I know we’ve not known each other very long, but I think of you as a little sister. I wouldn’t want to be around him if it wasn’t for you. I need to know every day that he hasn’t killed you.”

He let me go and I turned with a smile.

“I always wanted a big brother and now I have one.”

“When was the last time you ate?” He asked with concern as he pulled a banana out of one coat pocket and a bottle of water from the other.

“About three days.” I smiled at him as I began to unpeel the banana skin. “Thank you.”

He watched me intrigued, as if he’d never seen someone eat before, as I devoured the piece of fruit and finished the water. I smiled at him and I couldn’t help notice the glint in his bright green eye as he smiled back. I finally felt like someone actually cares about my wellbeing.

Alex POV

I watch as a blow to the stomach knocks the wind out of Freya, gasping coughs force their way through her lips. The next punch goes to her jaw, my fists clench at the side of me as he tosses her to the floor like a sack of rubbish, I glare at the clumps of light hair knotted around his stubby fingers, but I know I have to stay calm if I am going to help her once he passes out after drinking half the bar tonight. Once he starts booting her in the ribs and face with his steel capped boots, I know I have to intervene, before he does any lasting damage to the sweet girl.

“Come, leave her. We’ll get a drink.”

I pretend not to be phased by the sight of her passed out on the floor, bleeding with bruises beginning to surface on her sallow skin, but I can feel my blood boiling under my façade.

Of course, I know she’ll heal quicker than a normal human, but she still won’t heal as fast as if her wolf had appeared. The poor girl had been starved for years, living on scraps that Jeff had given her when he saw fit. The man was a brute and how he did this to his own child was beyond me, the years of neglect had left the twenty year old Freya looking more like an adolescent, rather than the pretty young woman I knew she could be.

I drove to the pub in silence as Jeff drivelled on about something I had no interest in, if it wasn’t for the protectiveness I felt for Freya, I would never have stuck around this arsehole for more than the first day I had met him.

The day I met him, he was so out of it, he had passed out, sprawled across the bar. I could sense that he was a fellow wolf by the scent that existed under his unwashed odour, so I wanted to see if this unknown rogue would be a friend or foe to me. When I got his address from the bar owner, I took him home and found, who I had first thought was a young girl home alone, not yet knowing she was my age. Finding out he had a daughter surprised me, I had never heard of rogue families, the lifestyle was far too dangerous to be bringing pups into it.

I had never intended on becoming a rogue myself, but when I was ten my parents, along with my two older sisters were slaughtered at the hands of a pack of rogues that attacked our pack. When the pack guards did their rounds to check on the casualties two days later, they found me. I was cowering under my family’s bloodied bodies, after that I was the laughing stock of the pack. The treatment I got was cruel, being an orphan I was moved into the pack house, but that made my life a living hell. The pack house was a communal area, I would be pushed around by everyone, made to do all the menial daily tasks. The alpha even told me that being such a coward, I was an embarrassment to our pack before beating me half to death. The day before my thirteenth birthday I ran, packed a few things and left the pack before I could be any more of a laughing stock when they saw my weak wolf.

When I noticed that Jeff had begun to come too that night, the alcohol wearing off quicker due to his high metabolism, he staggered over the threshold. When he back handed the girl for not clearing the vomit on the floor, that he had only a minute before produced, it made me feel as if I was needed in this girl’s life. It was probably due to my previous treatment, but still, I couldn’t help but wonder whether this foreign feeling might be the destined mate pull. As I was yet to find my mate, I had never felt it and the feeling I felt towards this girl was certainly a protective one. After months of being around her, my wolf, Kane had never spoken to me concerning my mate and the only way she saw me was as her brotherly saviour, not that I had actually saved her from anything, so I tossed that notion away.

When he had finally passed out on the bar I struggled to get Jeff into my car, I drove him home, the odour coming from the sickening man making me retch as I made my way through the dark country lanes that led to the middle of nowhere.

Light streamed onto the doorstep, helping me to notice that the door was still in the open state that Jeff had left it in his hurry to get to his favourite hangout. I knew as soon as I saw the door was open that Freya would still be helplessly out cold on the living room floor. I dragged the overweight monster inside the rundown shack and dumped him unceremoniously on his bed and went straight to the kitchen.

Gathering the items I needed, a bowl of cool water, a cloth and some rags to use as bandages, I walked straight to her still body, placing the bowl on the coffee table and soaking the cloth with the clean water before wringing it out and dabbing it around her face, holding it against the now black bruises on her jaw and cheek bones. I let out a long sigh of relief as I noticed her lashes begin to flutter slightly and her eyelids gradually open, while her eyes adjusted to the bright light that was illuminating the room.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do anything. It’s just I fear if I did he would kill you to prove a point.” I said guiltily, as I tried to gently remove some of the blood that was smudged all over her face.

“Then he’d probably kill you afterward.” I heard in her almost whisper that she had resigned herself to the treatment she received daily.

Before I knew it, I was dragging her into my arms and it felt like finally, after ten years of solitude, I was no longer alone in the world, as if I had found my home and my purpose with this sweet girl. I gave her a reassuring peck to the forehead.

“I don’t know why, but I just feel protective over you. I know we’ve not known each other very long, but I think of you as a little sister. I wouldn’t want to be around him if it wasn’t for you. I need to know every day that he hasn’t killed you.” I admitted to her and she rewarded me with a breath taking smile.

“I always wanted a big brother and now I have one.”

“When was the last time you ate?” I pulled out the banana and bottled water, I had previously stashed in my coat pockets and handed them to her, knowing it would have been quite a while since she last had any source of nourishment.

I thought to myself that one day, I would have to bring her some sort of meal, or a sandwich at the very least.  

“About three days. Thank you.” She said gratefully as she took the food and I watched carefully as she savoured each mouthful she took of the simple fruit.

I stared into her blue eyes for what felt like an eternity before I heard a clunking noise and the right side of my head and felt a searing pain, followed by three more of the same. As my vision began to blur and everything turned black, the last thing I remembered was Freya’s eyes widening in shock and her pleading screams of mercy, directed to whoever was behind me.

I woke after what must have been hours, as I noticed sunlight had replaced the darkness from the night before. I raised my head from the floor and looked around the room, lying next to my head was a blood stained baseball bat. Looking down at my clothes and the carpet next to me, they were covered in blood splatters. I was still slightly dazed and confused in my groggy state as to what happened, but the first thing that hit me was, why was it so quiet? Followed by, where the hell is Freya?

I started to recall the events of last night, cleaning Freya after the beating she took from her father and then the pain to the side of my head, I now realised must have been from the force of the baseball bat hitting me.

I slowly rose from my position on the ground and started to look around the shabby place Jeff and Freya called home and found the only things that were missing were Jeff, my sweet girl and my car keys, along with my banged up Ford Fiesta.

My sole intention was to protect this girl, but again I had failed. All I knew now was that I had to find her and I would go to any lengths to save her from that evil man, even if it meant killing the fucker!