His Half Blood Princess

1.

One month earlier

I sat inside the small library in my home, alone and reading a book. I've read this book before, just like every other book in this small library, and after running out of more books to read, I resorted to rereading the books for the umpteenth time, but that didn't make them the least interesting.

The story of my parents would have deserved to be in one of these books itself, but if only it had ended well, not that the marriage itself had ended.

Everything in this library was old and hadn't seen any fresh change except the constant cleaning with a broom and rag. The old creaky chair I now sat on behind the table that could barely take the weight of three books was the spot that my father used to come here and read to himself every night before going to sleep but for the past ten years I was the one who filled that spot.

And my father? Well, he isn't really dead, just half alive and half dead.

And what is the other half, the part that is still alive doing? Getting drunk in bars and not just sinking into the liquor but in, debt.

For the past five years, I used to wonder why the bar owner let my father drink without paying a single dime, because guess what, my father has sold every single valuable thing left in this house and the only thing left being worthy of recognition are the three people living in it.

Twenty-one-year old me, my eleven-year-old younger brother and our human mother and occasionally my werewolf father, who would come to do God knows what in his room and leave in less than an hour without acknowledging his own children, but I did mention he's half alive, so I'm not sure he's much worthy of being counted with us.

He rarely comes, but when he does come, those are the worst days. He would stumble in, his shoulders slumped and his eyes looking soulless like a corpse or a zombie that had just been awoken from the grave and come back home to take revenge on the ones who killed him.

And his scent! Now that's a talk for another day.

Every time he came home, I would quickly pull my brother Bruno with me and lock us up inside my room. I would shut his ears with my two hands. I didn't want him to be more traumatised than he already is, and worse of all, to be traumatised just like me. Countless times I wished I had someone who would shut my own ears too, mouthing to me that it would all be over soon with hope in their eyes and make me forget all the shouting that takes place whenever my father was there as they quarrelled with mother, but even with my ears shut I doubt it could block the shouting since my sense were higher than that of a normal human.

The worst feeling was having to let my mother face him all by herself. I wished I could do something but my mother warned me never to interfere.

Before my father died, sorry I mean half died, when my brother was yet to be born, he used to be my favourite person in the world.

He would tell me about his life back in the Lunar Moon pack before he met my mother and fell in love. His pack was against mating with humans, but my father chose to leave his pack to come live with my mother in this small village. He would often tell me what it was like to be a werewolf and how he would guide me when it was my time to shift, which he suggested would be when I became sixteen years of age.

Full-blooded werewolves shifted to their wolves at or even before the age of thirteen, but since I was a half blood, father suggested I would shift at sixteen years.

I had neither shifted nor had any wolfish experiences, except for my heightened senses and I am twenty-one years old.

Nine years old, I was excited and hoped more than anything for it to come when I would find my mate and we would live happily ever after. Right now I am not so keen on that, especially seeing how my parents turned out.

And now those beautiful memories with my father has been overshadowed by another.

Now most of what I can remember was when I was ten years old. The day Bruno was born and that was the day everything changed. Father had come inside the room while my mother and I stared at a cute sleeping baby Bruno in her arms. I had looked up at father with a smile on my face but the dark expression on his face made me cower.

On seeing him, my mother quickly handed me baby Bruno and left with father to another room and they started shouting at each other. Bruno opened his eyes and started to cry and that was the first time I shut his ears so he couldn't hear more and go to sleep.

*

I flipped to the next page on the book already knowing what was going to happen, but that didn't make it any less interesting, the story was after all better than my life.

Just then the door opened with a huge creaking sound that sounded so deafening to the ears and I looked up at my brother with an annoyed expression and he smiled sheepishly.

Sometimes we would joke that it was for security purpose to alert us whenever a thief came inside the house, even though there was nothing worth stealing in the house, even to the poorest thief, unless they are human stealing thieves. But I don't think there's anything one could do with a stolen human.

Bruno marched to where I was sitting holding the straps of his suspender pants and stood beside me peeking at my book.

"What is it Bruno?" I asked him.

"Hey big sis, I couldn't find the black thread and needle." he said, looking at me, his dark hair and blue eyes a clear contrast to my dirty blonde hair and green eyes, I took after my father, much to my dismay.

From afar, our clothes looked just okay, but on a closer look, you could see that they were all faded and had patches in some places, hence why we used thread and needles all the time, even Bruno was now an expert in patch work.

"Oh I was the one that took it," I said closing the book. "it's inside the drawer beside my bed." I told him and he nodded.

"Are you going somewhere?" I asked. Mother used to send me out on errands saying her little Bruno was too young to go out. That was until I turned sixteen, and after that people would always whisper while looking at me wherever I went.

Of course I could hear all of what they were saying. They gossiped about my family's misfortunes.

"Yes, mother sent me to buy some bread for supper," he replied before marching out of the room and I quickly got up, I can't believe I had been so lost reading I forgot to go help my mother with the chores.

I went over to the shelf I took the book from before putting it back on the shelf as slowly as one would put a sleeping baby back on the bed to avoid waking the baby up, but in this case I put the book slowly back on the shelf so that the shelf wouldn't fall apart, it looked so askew and out of shape as if one nudge would break it and I wonder how it was able to keep standing at all.

I walked out of the library and went straight to the kitchen where my mother was sitting on a stool and cutting vegetables with her back to me and I took my white apron hanging on a hook before putting it over my baby pink blouse and blue flowing skirt. The blouse was originally a hot pink but now faded, a lovely transformation if you ask me.

"Sorry for coming late mother, is there anything I have to do?" I asked her when she didn't even look at me.

"It's so easy for you to get lost reading books isn't it?" she said, taking a deep breath and I went and stood beside her, I couldn't point a finger at it but she kind of looked frustrated.

"Mother, are you okay?" I asked putting my hand on her shoulder.

"Yes I'm okay Serena," she looked at me with a smile that didn't reach her eyes and ended up looking so sad I felt my heart break at the sight. If there was anything I could do to make her happy, I would have done it a long time ago.

"Take that green table cloth and wash it before it gets dark." she said and pointed to the table cloth on the ground. I took it and went outside using the kitchen door which led me to our small backyard. Taking the small metal bucket and putting the table cloth in it, I fetched some water from the well and was about to go back to the kitchen to get a small stool to sit on when I heard his angry voice.

"Where is she?!" he boomed.

"Please, just give me more time." I heard my mother said and I got confused. Is father looking for me?

"Damn it!" he shouted at her and I felt my fists clench in anger. "You know we were supposed to give her out when she turned sixteen but you promised to pay my debts!" he boomed.

"I swear I will do everything I can to give you all the money you want."

"You said the same thing when she turned eighteen." the more they talked the more I got confused, what and who are they talking about?

"We would never be in this situation if not for you, you shameless fool!" I heard my mother bite back.

"How dare you say that to your husband who gave a roof over your head, you ingrate! I left my life and everything I had because of you and this is how you repay me?" Father shouted before I heard a loud screaming and my eyes widened in shock, the scream wasn't my mother's but Bruno's.

Before you know it, I rushed inside the kitchen to see the worst scene ever. The half dead man was strangling my mother with both hands while she struggled with his grip and a crying Bruno was pulling the zombie by the leg trying to pull him off. For a second, I was completely lost on what to do but then, my mother looked at me, her eyes teary and red while she gasped for breath and my heart clenched at the horror in front of me.

'No! Save mother!' I heard a strange voice shout inside my head and I knew right there and then that I wasn't going to let this monster take my family away from me.