Alphas broken mate

Warm hands

Beast

I woke up back in bed, feeling strangely warm.

This warmth felt familiar.

When I felt a hand tighten around my waist, I froze.

Without wasting a moment, my wolf went into complete fight mode. I felt my body tense up and my claws shot out.

The hand slowly tightened and drew me into a hard chest behind me.

Memories from my time in the ring folded my mind.

On more than one occasion, I would wake up in the cage with a man who thought I was an easy target. That they could take advantage of me while I was asleep.

And even if I woke up, what a girl could do to a strong man like them?

Most of my severe scares are from those nights because they would have an advantage over me, but no one that entered my cage has left it alive.

My mind went straight back to those moments and I was ready to rip apart whoever was behind me before they did that to me.

"Shh... Erin..."

The low vibration of Daniel's voice sent shivers down my back and I froze. My mind was sending mixed signals to my body and it had no idea in which direction it should go in.

"It's okay..."

I felt the low vibrations of his voice all over my body, it felt like it was crawling all over my skin and covering my body in this invisible vale that separated me from the rest of the world... like a cocoon of sorts.

The hand on my stomach slowly massaged my stomach.

His fingertips were tracing my naked skin.. stopping over the scars left by one of the fiercer fights I had in the cage. The man that came in was a brother or some other relative that wanted to avenge his loved one.

And he left it in a body bag himself.

I have to give it to him. He was the closest anyone has ever gotten to killing me.

Sure he snuck up on me and didn't waste a moment, but he chose the wrong spot to strike. If he chose something a bit more lethal than my stomach, then I would not be here right now. I would be rotting away in one of the nameless mass graves they used to dump all the dead in.

I stopped breathing for a moment, waiting for his reaction... not sure if I was afraid that he would react and question it... if he was going to be disgusted by it... or worse... that he would feel pity for me.

For a moment it felt like he was going to say something, but no words left his mouth. He continued to trace my skin like nothing had happened. He continued to move at a calm pace that soothed the wild beast inside of me.

"It's okay..."

He whispered the same words he used to use when he was calming me as a kid after one of the endless amounts of nightmares I had after that freaking night.

He would come into my room after I woke up screaming for my parents and he would spend the rest of the night just holding me... wiping away the tears from my cheek.

And just like back then, it worked now also.

My wolf settled down and retracted my claws.

"It's okay, Erin... you are safe. I won't let anyone hurt you."

And just like back then, I believed him.

At this exact moment, I knew that no one else could hurt me, that he would do everything to protect me no matter the cost... and that was part of the reason why I left.

Because my biggest threat was not someone else but me.

There was no beast that I feared or some outside threat that kept me up at night...

No... it was my own mind.

It was my memories that were hurting me... that killed my soul bit by bit... until there was nothing else left inside of me but the beast. That was why I left.

Because I couldn't let him suffer with me.

I refused to drag him down into the darkness with me.

On the day of our mating ceremony, I saw the damage that I had already done to him. I saw what was in the future for him if I stayed here and I couldn't let my darkness taint him anymore.

Daniel is a true night in shining armour that would have slayed any dragon or beast for me, to make me happy, to make me feel safe. But there was no dragon for him to fight.

Sure you could say that I am a princess trapped in a tower, but it's a tower of my own making... it is made by my own fear and pain. Each brick is made from a painful memory, loss and nightmare.

I was beyond healing back then and now I am so far off the path that there is no amount of work or effort that could return me to it.

"It's okay, Erin..."

And I really wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe him like I did when we were teenagers.

That he could fight off my demons by just holding me close.

My fingers travelled to his, intertwining with them on my stomach just as I used to do when we were young, letting myself pretend that what he was saying was true and that he could fight off my demons.

A slow tear ran down my cheek as I realised that it was partly true.

Right now my demons are at bay, he is fighting them off by just holding me, but it only makes the moment they return that much worse.

Because I know that it can be better and that there is a reality where I do not only live in pain. That I can feel peace and calmness in my soul.

That was the other part of the reason why I left.

It was just easier to live at the same level of pain and in time I just became numb to it, just like everything else.