Forbidden Mate

Side story (Delaney)

To know the story better, let's go back to the very beginning ~

My loving parents were ecstatic to have a baby girl, though they never knew that I would grow up to be a pain in the ass. Because my parents spoiled me without any limits, I grew up to be a brat. Since childhood, I took pride in the love I received from my parents and that's why I never understood how there are children out there who are suffering under their parents.

The first time I was exposed to such cruelty was when I first saw our Alpha's daughter getting lashed with a silver whip under the command of the Alpha. All she did was defend her only caring parents but she was punished until she was barely breathing.

My six years old self-made an oath right then - that if it was under my limits, I would go to any lengths to protect people in need. That was the first time I realized there is no such thing as black or white in this world. Everyone has a nasty side to them that they hide.

And the person who made me realize this and woke up feeling to help people in need was none other than Alora.

That was my very first encounter with her and my last too until I found her again many years later in the worst condition possible.

It wasn't long after that whip incident that the Beta of our pack had enough of the cruelty of our Alpha and challenged our Alpha. He lost, of course, and as a punishment, he was thrown out of the pack. He took his mate, a half demon and half witch, and his son, who was the same age as me, and disappeared from our lives.

Though the Beta has left, many of our people were in cahoots with him. He built a pack of his own with the people he saved. He was a man of high morals and he never cared what the helping party was. For him, everyone was the same, be it a werewolf, a witch, a vampire, or a dragon shifter. He helped everyone who needed his help, and he gained many followers and their loyalty. Years later, when I was eight, he attacked our pack once again. Or should I say, our pack helped him attack the Alpha, and that was the battle he won?

The previous Alpha was thrown out of the pack and our previous Beta became our new Alpha. Unfortunately, he was attacked on his way to a business trip a few years later, and along with his mate, he was killed.

The Alpha's son, the very first to have the power of both a demon and a werewolf, became our Alpha. Our pack was barely surviving and just at the age of ten, he showed his impressive skills and made sure everyone in our pack was well-fed.

He won the hearts and respect of the pack members rather quickly. I wanted to support him grow our pack and that fueled my desire to become someone that could help the pack. As there was no Beta in the pack, he held a battle to allow the strongest to fill that rule. I won that battle and became the Beta of the Hale pack.

We bonded quickly and we became best friends in no time. I had a blunt personality since childhood but surprisingly, he was very lenient towards me. It might be because he saw me as his sister.

Years passed by and one day, he got information about the killer of his parents. Not surprisingly, it was the bastard Alpha. Draven went on a hunt with me and his most trusted aide/my mate, Drazhan.

That bastard somehow predicted it or someone from our side betrayed us, but when we reached the place our previous Alpha was residing in, there was nothing left but a body of a man (dead) in a cell and a girl (barely alive) in a cell.

I couldn't figure out who she was because there was nothing humane about her. She looked like a skeleton with thin skin wrapping around it. It was hard to look at her without tearing up.

It wasn't until we took her to the pack hospital and the doctors cleaned her up that I could see some resemblance. It was heart-wrenching to watch her scream in agony and begging not to hurt her. When she regained consciousness, she had already forgotten who she was. The pack doctor said it was her brain's defense mechanism to cope.

She asked many questions when she woke up. She couldn't remember anything except her name and desperately grabbed onto Draven, calling for his help. That's when Draven decided to make her his so-called daughter. He hugged her and told her that he was his dad and that she could trust him. It took a while for Alora to trust him but after a while, she started trusting him. The problem, however, occurred when Draven thought it would do her good to meet with people but it had the opposite effect.

Her memory loss was temporary and when she was taken out, all the bad memories related to the pack rushed to the forefront of her mind. Days after days, she suffered from panic attacks and her condition started deteriorating. She developed the habit of scratching herself with claws whenever she had flashbacks. It was then that the high priestess and Draven decided to seal her memory and take her somewhere where she would be safe from the bad memories.

Who would have known his decision to save the girl would lead to him genuinely caring about her, and that it would eventually come to bite his ass?

~•~