Her Promise

Her Secret | Chapter Seven

MEL

“You’re going to be sorry!” a voice shouted. There was lots of commotion. Had the bad guys returned?

I uncurled my body and turned around, the shackle around my ankle still heavy. All the other kids had been taken away except me. There were a big group of bad guys moving toward one of those buildings. I shivered, remembering when they dragged me into one.

“Don’t touch her!” one of the little boys yelled. I hadn’t seen boys here other than the bad men. One of them pulled a small boy by his arm really hard.

“Hey!” I squeaked, lunging for them as the boy screamed in pain. I ran at them, not thinking about it first. The boy cried and screamed while the other kids fought the bad guys. My shackled ankle caught on the chain, tripping me as it went taught. “Don’t do that! Hey!” I yelled from the ground.

The older boy noticed me. He was handsome with his blue eyes and dark hair. He was fighting them just as much as the girl, but he seemed to be their ring leader.

Before I could yell anything else, one of the bad men stomped over to me. “I told you to keep it down!” His boot came back, and he kicked me hard in the ribs. I whimpered as I was forced to roll backward. Two more kicks came until I was too far from the other kids.

My eyes watered, and it hurt to breathe. I hugged my tummy, wanting the pain to stop. The little boy yelled again, fighting the bad men and looking at me too. The bad men won, though. They always did. They got them inside the room with no windows. When She got here, they’d never escape.

I curled back up into a ball, squeezing my eyes closed. I didn’t want to make it worse. I was the youngest, and they kept me. Even if we couldn’t escape, maybe I’d get to leave this place with the other kids.

-

Something was happening. I opened my eyes, and the bad guys were running around. Then, a wolf jumped out of nowhere, landing right on top of one of the bad guys. His massive jaw clamped down where his neck and head met, tearing it apart. I scrambled away, my back hitting the fence that my chain was locked to.

I panicked, pulling at the shackle. All around me, wolves were jumping out and attacking the bad men. Some of them were shifting and fighting back. There was blood and screaming. I couldn’t get my ankle free.

I huddled down, covering my head with my arms, hoping no one saw me. I didn’t know if these wolves were good or bad; I just wanted it all to stop.

I was shaking all over. I missed my mommy and daddy.

I didn’t notice when all the yelling stopped.

“Hey there,” someone said, touching my arm. I gasped and jumped up.

“Please! I’ll be quiet; I’ll be good!” I said quickly, trying to get away. “Please!”

“Shhh, shhh, shhh,” the man said. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help you, okay?”

I shook my head. My eyes darted down to the chain and back to him. I couldn’t get away.

“My name is Austin. I’m a warrior,” he said, holding out his hand. “I want to get you out of here, okay?”

I could still feel my whole body shaking, but I was afraid to take his hand. Someone else came rushing over. “We found these keys,” he said to the man in front of me.

“I’m going to try and get this off you, okay?” Austin said slowly. After a few tries, he got the chain unlocked from the post and then looked at me. “Can I take that off your ankle?” he asked. I nodded but didn’t move.

He inched closer until he could just barely reach me. He pushed the key into the little hole, and the lock clicked when he turned it. He pulled the shackle off my ankle, and I felt much better.

“Will you let me take you home with us? Can I help you?” Austin asked. I looked around at the men stacking the bad guys’ bodies up. They all smelled a lot better than the bad guys. I nodded my head. “What’s your name?”

“Melody,” I whispered.

Austin held his arms out. “Why don’t you let me get you out of here, Melody?” He had a warm smile, like he liked to goof around. I let him scoop me up, and I felt tired again. I saw two big men coming from the building as he turned around. They had the kids. That little boy followed behind one of them, looking around.

“That’s Liam Junior,” Austin said. “He told us about you.”

I stayed quiet. The little boy had told them about me?

“He said you needed help, so his dad, our Alpha, made sure we helped you,” Austin explained. I watched them walk into the trees and disappear.

Liam Junior had saved me.

-

I shot up into a sitting position in bed, my heart beating a million miles a minute. I ground my palms into my eyes. I couldn’t stop the dream.

Since they came for my birthday, I couldn’t stop recalling the first time I met Liam. He had literally saved my life that day. A gross feeling trickled over my skin whenever I thought about those men that had kidnapped me. I had to consciously keep myself from digging at my shoulder.

I tried to breathe deeply, willing my heartbeat to slow. I had never exercised more self-control than I had since my birthday dinner. It was almost impossible not to join Dad at the packhouse so I could be near Liam. The feeling of his hand over mine had been…

I couldn’t think about it. It was wrong. Delilah was supposed to be his mate. She was much better suited to be the mate of an Alpha than me.

I climbed out of bed and exited my room. Creeping down the hall, I silently slipped into my art room and shut the door. I flipped the light and pulled the tarp from my half-finished canvas.

I reached into the pocket of my pajama pants and pulled out the thin gold bracelet. I had agonized over whether or not I would open his present. After Delilah told me to take a minute, I ran upstairs and never made it back down. Then I sat up half the night staring at the package. When I did open it, the note said he thought it would look pretty on me, but I still hadn’t had enough gull to put it on.

I hung it on the top corner of the canvas and got to work uncovering my paints. I was going crazy for sure. I had to figure out how to handle things before something terrible happened.

They told us in school that the mate bond would find a way to form if we tried to ignore it. Our teachers said that proximity would make it even harder to resist the pull, and once acknowledged, we either had to accept or reject it. While the term ‘acknowledged’ had been debated, there was a clear theme.

My body and my wolf knew Liam was my mate, and I had to deal with it.

The biggest problem was that he wouldn’t be 17 for a while still. So he had no idea I was his mate.

My brush found the canvas, and I let the colors slowly build across the surface. Sometimes, I painted with a plan. Other times, I just let my hands do what felt right. This piece had been the latter. I had been working on it every night after waking up from that awful dream.

I didn’t want to think about how I came to Blood Eclipse. I didn’t want to think about my time in the orphanage or the little mark on the back of my shoulder. I didn’t want to remember the first time that I ever laid eyes on Liam Blackfur Jr.

And I definitely didn’t want to have to be the one to tell Liam that there was some horrible mistake and Delilah wasn’t his mate.