Chapter 1 Everlee’s POV
I never thought my life would end up this way. It was never peaches and cream growing up in my house, but it was not awful either. I wasn’t abused by my parents while growing up, I was simply ignored. While most families spent as much of their time with one another whenever they could, that was not how mine worked.
My parents were never around much when I was younger. They always prided themselves on being the best at whatever they did and that took up all their time and attention, leaving nothing left for a pup. My dad was one of the pack elite warriors while my mom was the main pack doctor. Their careers kept them very busy, so I spent most of my early years in the pack daycare center until I was old enough to be able to take care of myself.
Oh, my name is Everlee Braxton by the way and, as you can already tell, I am not a normal human, I am a Werewolf. Pretty cool, right? Well, it is if you are able to shift, and unfortunately, I am one of the unlucky few who was born wolf less. Yep, it does happen, but it is extremely rare to have a wolf less pup out of two full-blooded wolves. Most of the time, it happens in mated pairs where one of the mates is another species like humans, but even then, most of their pups usually still have a wolf. But not me.
What is a mate? Well, think of it like a soulmate to humans. It is basically the same concept; a mate is the actual other part of our soul, and their human and wolf are chosen for us by the Moon Goddess, our Fated Mate is what we call it, and they are very special to us. When Fated Mates find each other, they are instantly drawn to one another once we scent them and the need to claim them as ours is incredibly strong, leading many couples to mate and mark one another the very same day.
Even though I had been born wolf less and would likely never shift like the rest of those in my pack, I had always held onto the hope that I would still be blessed with a mate one day. I hoped that I might still find him, and he would take me away from this world of people who despised me for something that I had no control over. But now I don’t think that will even happen. Why you ask? Well, that’s because I was sold.
Sold like I was nothing more than a piece of meat. And by the looks on these male wolves' faces as they leer at me, it is clear in their expressions that it is exactly what they think of me. Meat, a toy, a plaything for them to use and abuse however they want. My skin crawled and my stomach rolled with nausea at the thought of them touching me.
Who could do such a thing as to sell a woman to such fiendish wolves? Well, that would be my Alpha. Alpha Sawyer was the Alpha of The White Claw Pack and had been Alpha there since before I was even born. He was a cold, hard man who held unreasonable expectations and never accepted anything that was less than the absolute best when it came to his pack and its members.
Having a wolf less member of the pack would make him look weaker to other Alphas. So, he chose to just get rid of me completely, I guess, and save himself some embarrassment. I had been a complete and utter disappointment to my family as well when I did not get my wolf on my thirteenth birthday and my parents had kicked me out of the house, and even though my Alpha did not want me in the pack anymore, I was forced to then move into the pack house since he could not just banish a thirteen-year-old for being wolf less.
That was even worse than before. Most of the young unmated male warriors lived in the pack house once they turned eighteen and being the only female within the house garnered me a lot of unwanted attention. Alpha Sawyer believed in the traditional way a pack should be run and that meant that females were not allowed to train to be warriors. As I got older and started to develop more curves, their advances got more frequent. I can not tell you the amount of times that they would corner me to try and force themselves on me over the years. I had always found a way to escape them when that would happen and did my best to stay hidden and out of their sight when they were around.
I knew one day my luck would run out and that day finally came. That night, the unmated males had been out drinking and celebrating getting their assignments for the pack all evening. I had been grabbing a snack from the kitchen before heading upstairs to my room thinking I was safe for the night with them gone, but I was wrong.
When I heard their laughter echoing through the quiet hallways of the pack house, I froze for a second before trying to duck back out the back stairwell, but I was too late. When they saw me, I could tell that this was not going to be good, and I had been right. The five of them cornered me, cutting off any chance I had of escaping and backing me into the corner of the kitchen and surrounding me. I remember the looks on their faces, lust, desire, and excitement contorting their faces as they leered at every inch of me before they started touching and grouping my body and tugging at my shirt.
“Where do you think you are going?” Asked Evan. He was the oldest and the ringleader of this small group. He leaned in close to my face and I could smell the stench of alcohol on his breath as he gripped my chin and forced me to look at him before I pulled my chin from his grasp. It took a lot to get a werewolf drunk, considering that with our high body heat and faster metabolism, the alcohol tended to burn off rather quickly. “Doesn’t she look pretty boys?” He adds, hiccupping, and the other four others nod in agreement as they continue to try and touch more of my body as one of them ripped my shirt open revealing my black bra.
“Feisty one, isn’t she?” Ryan said as I slapped his hands away from my breast when he tried to grope me. “Don’t fight us babe. We will take excellent care of that beautiful body of yours and have you begging us for even more once we are done.” He says smugly.
I thought for sure that that night was going to be the night they finally raped me, but at the last possible second, a loud roar shook the entire house, causing them to stop and stare at their very angry Alpha who had been standing behind them. The force of his growl and the power of his alpha aura that was coming off him was hitting all of us like a ton of bricks.
I doubt I will ever know if Alpha Sawyer actually punished them because, the very next morning, I had found myself here surrounded by even more wolves wanting to touch me all over again. The nightmare continues.
Goddess help me, I thought, as I was forced to stand completely bare to a small group of wolves as they circled me. I was not the only she wolf here either. There were many she wolves along with several human women that were all being examined in the large room. Each woman was standing bare under a very bright light that was almost blinding to look at with our hands tied together with zip ties and raised above our heads, secured on a hook to keep us from getting away.
I do not even know how long I have been here anymore. The days had started to run together, the days and nights no longer distinguishable due to not having any windows to see the outside world and the constant fluorescent lights that were hanging above our heads that were never turned off.
‘What do you think Aaron?” One of the males asked the other. He is not very tall and has short dirty blond hair and a scar along his left cheek that stretches from his ear to his nose.
“She sure is a nice one. I think the boss is going to be very happy with the price she brings at the auction.” The Aaron guy says as he strokes the small amount of scruff that was covering his chin.
“If he lets her go. You know how he is. Likes to play with the pretty ones a bit.” The wolf with the scar says with a grin.
“What I wouldn’t give to have her as mine.” The wolf called Aaron says as he circles me, his eyes swirling with lust. “Alpha always sells the pretty ones and gives us the mediocre ones.” He adds as he leans in close and plays with a lock of my hair that had fallen into my face.
My body shivers from his words. Goose bumps now cover every inch of my body. Goddess, please do not let him want to do that to me. I barely made it out of the last situation with my virtue still intact. I was not sure there would be anyone there to stop their so-called leader or even this wolf from taking whatever they might want from me, I thought to myself as I sent up a silent prayer to the Moon Goddess to get me out of this place before it was too late.
“When is he supposed to arrive?” the other wolf with the beard asked Aaron.
“Supposed to be some time this afternoon as long as there are no issues at the main auction house.” He says. “Doing a check on all his merchandise, after the last fiasco, he made it a point to check in more often instead of trusting anyone’s word anymore.” He adds taking a step back now.
The bearded wolf grimaces as he asks, “Did you hear what he did to them?” He asks, shaking his head a bit before continuing. “Man, that s**t was sick. He f*****g had them all drawn and quartered like some medieval shit.”
Damn, that was a pretty harsh way to kill them, but there is no telling how much he had spent on those women and to have them treated like that probably pissed him and his wolf off, I thought, as they now covered me with a robe before lowering my arms and leading me back to the small room that had become my home since I arrived here.
I had managed to make friends with one human girl who had been completely terrified when she had been brought in. Her name was Abagail Perkins, but she said everyone called her Abby. Before she had been taken, Abby lived in a city that was not too far from where my pack was in Arkansas, only about an hour away. She said that she had a happy childhood with no issues until her stepmother and stepbrother came into the picture.
Her mother had passed away when she was six and her father remarried when she was twelve. The woman had turned out to be a real basket case, Abby said, along with her son. Her Stepmother was so jealous of Abby that she went out of her way to make up the most outlandish lies just to get Abby into trouble with her father so he would punish her. And it worked, turning her father against Abby, making him think that she was acting out and just being mean to her new stepmother and stepbrother.
Her stepbrother was apparently a real creep. Once Abby hit puberty shortly after their parents had been married, he started acting oddly towards her. she said that he was always watching her, and she even caught him in her room watching her sleep a couple of times and then she said it got worse when one night she woke to his hand on her thigh as he slowly moved it up even more once she caught him. When Abby brought it up to her dad that she didn't feel safe around her stepbrother, he flipped out on her because of all the lies her stepmother had been whispering in his ear and accused Abby of trying to seduce her stepbrother instead of believing his own daughter.
After that night, Abby did not spend much time outside of her room and was just trying to make it to her eighteenth birthday so she could leave for college and never see them again. Well, that did happen just not the way she imagined it. She, too, had been sold to the Rogue Mafia as well and, more than likely, by her stepmother.
“What do you think all that was about?” Abby asked once the male wolves had left the room after putting the awful excuse for clothes back on us and securing each woman to an eye hook on the floor. Think of the clothes that someone who was suicidal might be given to wear in a prison or mental facility. They had Velcro straps at the shoulders so that they could be removed and put on without having to undo our hands at any time during the process.
Flopping down on the bed that I had been secured next to. “Well, according to the wolves that were looking at me said we are either going to some type of auction soon or to them.” I said and my body shuddered. “Their leader is supposed to be here later today.” I tell her and she looks at me with a shocked expression and the coloring in her face drains a bit.
“Hey, everything is going to be okay.” I said, trying to give her some form of comfort as I leaned back on the thin mattress, turning my body to the side.
When the human women learned that their captors were actually werewolves, they were terrified, and rightly so, if I learned that what I originally thought was nothing more than a mythical creature from scary stories was real, well it would have sent me into shock as well if I was a human.
I did not know what was going to happen when their leader got here, but now we seriously needed to find a way to get out of here before we found ourselves in an even worse situation.