Rejecting, Your Broken Promises

Chapter 1 Katrina’s POV     Blood Claw Pack   Submissive, that is what they want me to be, but I am not going to fully submit to them. I don’t care what my punishment is, I will take it, but I will never actually submit to them. I will do what they ask of me because I can’t beat them right now, but they will never break me. I will wait for my chance, and I will break free from this horrible place. The amount of hate that I have coursing through my veins right now, won’t allow me to just comply with their wishes. I will just keep my head down, so they cannot see the hate in my eyes for them, or the flash of anger in them when they try to break me again. I am biting my lower lip right now to keep from crying out.     I keep my head lowered as I continue to try to work despite Fallon stepping on my hand as I scrub the floor. We have a tiled floor here in the mudroom area at the back door to the packhouse, and it is always a huge mess. It is the way to enter and exit the packhouse in wolf or human form. It has rained the last two days as we are about to enter the second week of May. There is mud from one end to the other and is now being tracked into the kitchen. I keep my head down and wait because I know that the Head Omega, Abigail Owens, will be coming over soon to see where I am with my cleaning. The kitchen needs to be pristine and with everyone coming in and out, through here, it is a large mess.     “Katrina, didn’t I tell you to have this cleaned up by now? I can’t allow the kitchen to have mud tracked through it”, I heard Abigail call out before she appeared in the doorway and saw what the problem was.     “Fallon, oh I didn’t see you there. I need this area to be cleaned. Please allow Katrina to finish her work. I do not want to have to explain to Alpha James why it is not cleaned properly as it should be. He will not be pleased.” Abigail told her and then looked down at me on the floor and kept her face impassive.     I felt Fallon’s heeled shoe lift slowly off my right hand and I could see the blood from her heel having gone through my skin. I stay quiet. Fallon sighed and then walked off, probably going to find her friends. I keep my mouth closed. I did not want her to know that I felt relief from her foot coming off my hand. I dropped my hand into the water bucket to get more water to scrub the hardened mud off of the floor. I felt my hand burn with the sting of the cleaning solution seeping into my injured hand. I start scrubbing the hardened mud off the floor again and get the room clean in 20 minutes.     I emptied my bucket and started mopping the kitchen, so it is clean again too. The kitchen is half covered with tracks and footprints throughout half the kitchen and it looks like a complete mess. I had put a large washable rug at the back door in the mud room to try to keep anything else from being tracked in. I don’t want to have to scrub it again today. I heard the door open behind me and I kept mopping as I assumed that it was the cook coming in at 3 to start prepping the food for dinner, or Abigail coming to check on me. I knew it wasn’t when I heard my Alpha start speaking to me.     “What in the hell happened in here Katrina? This is a complete mess. You know the kitchen has to be kept clean. I do not want the packhouse to look like this. I swear you will do anything in your power to undermine me. It is like you want to make me angry” Alpha James said to me. s**t, this is not going to be good. I felt the blow to my back, and I dropped my mop as I tumbled forward for several feet, putting my arms out to catch myself, but the floor was wet, and I slipped and landed badly on my left side. I knocked the mop bucket over when I fell, and the dirty water was seeping into my clothes. I feel a burning pain radiating from my wrist, and I know that it is broken. I have had several broken bones before and knew the familiar pain.     I struggled to try to get up before he was on me again, pulling me up by my hair making me gasp in pain from my hair being pulled like that. My scalp was burning and tender, as soon as I was standing upright again, I was punched in my stomach and fell back down onto my butt and landed in the dirty mop water that was all over the floor. I heard a gasp behind Alpha, and he turned to see Abigail standing just inside the door to the kitchen, and she was looking down at the floor in respect to Alpha James. I stayed on the floor and did not move as he turned to look at her.     “This kitchen is a pigsty, Abigail. Is this what you think of our pack? That the kitchen that prepares our food to be prepared in this disgusting kitchen? I think I need to rethink your position as Head Omega, because you know it is time for the cook to begin, and yet the kitchen is not ready to go. You need to handle the Omega’s better, as Katrina, here, is always causing problems in the pack. If needed, I will deal with her myself.” Alpha James said to us, giving Abigail another hard look before leaving the kitchen, knocking the door open and into the wall on his way out.     “Katrina, I know it is not your fault, but you are going to have to work faster. I know that Fallon lives to cause problems for you, but we both know that she is going to be Luna here when Alpha James turns the pack over to Timothy. Alpha James is just stressed as Timothy will be returning to the pack this weekend, and he wants everything to be perfect”, Abigail tells me as she comes to help me off the floor. My ankle is now sprained from the second time I was knocked down, and my wrist burned in pain.     Abigail frowns at me, as she just now notices that my wrist is broken. I heard her sigh and say, ‘Go to the pack doctor and have them set it before it starts to heal. It will never heal properly if you don’t get it set now. I will clean this up, but we will need to figure out where I can put you for you to be able to work without being hurt when you return. I am running out of places for you to work and be safe, as, for some reason, Fallon really doesn’t like you, almost as much as Alpha James does. Just go get it taken care of, so you can be back to help with dinner”.         I headed out to the pack hospital, which is just a three-story building that is near the packhouse. They wanted it near, so it could be protected in case of an attack. It sits between the houses built for the mated couples and the packhouse where the unmated were housed. I wish I could say that I don’t come here often, but that would be a lie.     I entered and walked up to the front desk and saw one of my only friends, Amanda Edmonson, sitting behind the desk. She is a nurse, but when they are shorthanded, she has to help at the front desk as well. She tried to get me the job at the front desk, but Alpha James refused, he wanted me punished until I died. I see her head lift at the sound of the automatic door opening, and I see sympathy showing in her soft brown eyes as I limp towards the front desk.     “Katrina, what happened to you?” Amanda asked softly, she could already tell I had another broken bone, and led me to X-ray so she could take some slides and see where I was for the doctor.     “The usual, Fallon and Alpha James. He was mad that the area wasn’t cleaned in a timely manner when she stood on my hand for 30 minutes to slow me down”, I told her.      “Well, your wrist is broken again, and I will wrap your ankle for the sprain. Let me see your hand she stood on”  Amanda said to me as she checked out all my injuries and, mindlinked the doctor to come and set my broken wrist.     “You are so lucky to heal so quickly, even without being able to phase. I know you can’t sense her, but you heal too quickly to be wolfless. Something else is going on with you, but we don’t know what it is. I will say that if this continues, you may need to leave the pack, for your own safety. Alpha James is not going to let you live, he is going to keep punishing you until you die. He is getting worse and worse since Luna was killed. I have no ties here” Amanda told me, and then leaned forward to whisper in my ear, “If I need to help you escape, I will. We can find another pack for us to live in, or we can just go to live with humans.     I looked down at my hand and watched Amanda as she quickly cleaned the wound in my hand with little sounds of “tsk” coming out of her occasionally as she worked. “Katrina, she stepped down with enough force to c***k your hand, the bone was damaged from the force of it. She hates you, and she has Alpha James' full support to abuse you. You can’t keep letting them. Please think about what I said to you, you will end up dead if you stay here”, Amanda told me, and I know she is right, but I can’t think of anywhere else to go. I had no one but my aunt, Nina Harrell, who was killed in a rogue attack 6 years ago when I was 14. Thinking of my aunt reminds me of that day and I lay back while the doctor works on my wrist now, and Amanda goes back to the desk.     “Katrina, I hope you can make it a week and give your wrist time to heal before you come back to see us” the doctor said with a smile, but he knows that it is not up to me at all.     “I hope so too, Doc, but that is out of my hands. I can’t control what other people do to me”, I told him as I turned to leave. I waved at Amanda on my way out.     “Be careful, Katrina, you need to stay away from Fallon as best you can. She should be shopping and getting ready for the rest of this week. You remember that Timothy will be coming back home this coming weekend. She will need her hair done, and her nails done, so you should probably be safe for the rest of the week at least. Plus, this weekend we will also have the Alphas staying with us for a little while, so you know they will leave you alone then too” Amanda lowered her voice and came back to me to whisper in my ear again. “I meant what I said, Katrina, eventually they will kill you. You have only been in this pack for about 7 years, and since your aunt died you have been here to the hospital over 100 times. I know we are wolves, but that is really pushing it, even for us. I am your friend, and I will help you. Just let me know and we will leave this place together”.        “I may take you up on that. I pray the Goddess keeps me safe for the week as well. I need a break, and you are right, she will be out shopping. Hopefully, Alpha James is focused on Timothy coming back, and not on hurting me this week", I told her and smiled in what I hope looked like I believed it, but from the expression on her face, I know I failed. I hugged Amanda and then took off to go back to the packhouse. I hope the rest of the week goes smoothly.