The Ruined Luna

Caitlyn

I’m ruined. The only problem: I don’t remember how it happened.

“Who…WHO did this to you?!” My father screamed, demanding I give him the name of my rapist.

Tears streamed down my battered face as I stared directly into the onyx eyes of his wolf; furious that his one and only pup had just been violated, committing the ultimate sin.

“ANSWER ME!”

I wish I could have given him an explanation, “I…I..I don’t know Daddy!” I cried, sobbing uncontrollably into my hands.

My father wrote me off after that.

I was no longer the apple of his eye. I was soiled and unclean and any potential mate my father had previously considered lining up for me, was now off the table. And as for my fated mate? I could kiss my dreams of him ever accepting me goodbye, and that was IF I ever found him!

I was just sixteen years old when I fell pregnant; the innocent pup, the result of me being brutally raped by one of my father’s many enemies, was quietly carried off into the night away from prying eyes…and from me, to be raised in the shadows as a bastard.

Only, I never wanted that for my own pup. But, I had no choice. My father made sure of that when he sent me away into exile to “have my bastard” as he so lovingly put it.

I’ll never forget the last words my father said directly to me. The complete and utter disregard for cutting me to the core, ripping my heart out and shattering the one and only semblance of a normal family life I had ever known.

“This is your fault! If you hadn’t asked for it, behaving like a common WHORE, you wouldn’t have gotten exactly what you deserved!”

It didn’t matter that it wasn’t my fault. I had NO memory of it even happening! At least, I can’t imagine even allowing someone to TOUCH me, let alone rape me and it being my own fault. It didn’t matter that I was only sixteen and still didn’t have my wolf! I was completely defenseless without my wolf against, presumably, a fully mature wolf! Nope.

Before this had happened, I was the pinnacle of beauty, innocence, purity, and perfection according to my father, the Alpha King. What in the goddess level of damnation could EVER in a million years, cause me to WANT to change that any time soon?

Seriously, I was dumbstruck and it infuriated me. Why couldn’t I remember what happened to me? Why would I ever put myself in such a compromising position to allow that to happen?

I let my mind follow that torturous rabbit hole of wonderings turned into my own forms of physical and emotional torturings. I felt like I lived in a state of constant physical and emotional turmoil and I couldn’t cope with the fact that I didn’t understand why I deserved the treatment and punishment I began receiving after that when all I had ever known was being pure and perfect in my father’s eyes and the eyes of our kingdom’s subjects.

I eventually circled back on my psyche and pulled my head out of the deep depression I found myself in a few months pregnant, when I felt my pup kick for the first time. It restarted my brain and helped me to bury those emotions and troubles of my past and only focus on the present and future. I left the past in the past, so that I could begin to rebuild my life.

It’s been two years since my rape, and one year, three months and two weeks and four days since I delivered a healthy 8 pound 9 ounce beautiful pup into this world. I was allowed to hold him for 5 minutes before they ripped him out of my arms and took him away from me forever.

I will never heal from the pure agony and pain that I endure every single day of my life from the gaping hole in my bleeding heart left there by the absence of my pup.

“Caitlyn, you really should eat something love,” Roger, or Stanley, or whatever his name was said as he leaned into my body and pushed my long blonde wavy locks away from my shoulder and neck so he could place soft, feathery kisses up and down the now exposed area. I felt nothing but the actual dampness of his lips as they touched my skin. It was neither pleasant or unpleasant, neither enjoyable or not. I’m numb in every other way; hardened by my past in order to grow stronger and take control of my present and future.

I had just finished using him for my own pleasures. I was half laying, half sitting up against the headboard of my bed, the look of sex and debauchery plastered all over my face and body with a satisfied and dazed look on my face. Not caring that my messy bedhead of hair and clothes scattered across my room nor of the smell of sex that permeated throughout the room made it obvious what I had been doing all day and night long. I was at the bottom of another sexual bender feeling completely empty and alone in the world.

My father had many chosen mates before finding my mother, his fated mate. He never allowed any of his chosen mates to mark him, and once he tired of them, he killed them. Once my mother passed away a few days after giving birth to me, my father picked up where he left off in his line of chosen mates, and he never really stopped. I call his mates now more of a harem than him actually choosing any particular one anymore. He’s heartless and ruthless even more to them than he has ever been to me.

I guess I just learned early on from him that the easiest way to numb or dull the aching pain in your heart, no matter what kind of heartbreak you endured, was to drown yourself in pleasures of the flesh.

I knew instantly after the rape that I would never be accepted by my fated mate, not after carrying the child of my attacker. He would never know that fact, but still, I would know, and if my own father couldn’t look at me the same again, how could my mate ever?

Nope. I wasn’t willing to go there. I wouldn’t allow it. I was done being a victim! I wasn’t going to allow my fated mate to have the LAST piece of my tattered heart, only for him to rip it out and reject me.

I would decide my fate and my future.

I took my future into my own hands and decided to wear that mark of shame proudly and take up the family way just like my dear old dad! Over the course of the past year, I have grown a little harem of my own.

Everything is very hush, hush and secretive, but it doesn’t change the fact that those closest and constantly around the palace such as the omega servants, and all the highest ranked wolves that work day-in, and day-out with my father, all know what I do to occupy my time day and night.

I’ve become taken with taking every advantage I can get away with around the palace, waiting, wondering when my father will finally snap and be forced to bring me back into his presence to “deal with me”.

I took in a deep sigh as I came out of my dazed blissful haze my latest orgasm had put me in, “I’m not hungry, but thank you for reminding me. You can leave now,” I said coldly, not bothering to look at him. I pushed my body away, breaking the lover’s hold he had on me.

He didn’t waste any time getting to his feet and pulling his pants back on. After slipping his shoes back on and running his fingers through his gorgeous dark blonde locks, he picked up his shirt, and looked back at me with a smile on his way out the door.

“Till next time, sugar?” He questioned with a slightly desperate, yet hopeful look on his face.

I smiled, the smile not reaching my eyes; I didn’t bother to look over at him, “Yeah…maybe.”

With that, he walked out the door, closing it shut softly behind him.

I leaned toward my night stand and grabbed my inhaler and took two hits, holding my breath deeply and for as long as I could on the second hit.

Normal wolves that have asthma or a weak heart, use an inhaler to open up their airways so they can breathe. I had the pack doctor replace my “medication” with opium poppy weed, or what I like to call, happy weed. It doesn’t help you breath, but it does dull the pain in my chest enough that I can breath and get through my day. It dulls my senses and helps the time pass faster. My lovers say that it makes me into a zombie of sorts, but why are they complaining? Don’t they like compliant she-wolves that will let them do whatever they want to them?

It’s frowned upon by all the high ranking wolves and don’t even get me started on those chaste prude she-wolves under my station that think they’re so much better than me because they’re still pure! Those bitches can suck a big dick for all I care what they think of my lifestyle and life choices! They didn’t have to ENDURE what I have had to endure.

I will be my judge, jury, and executioner.

I exhaled the breath I had been holding in as I whistled for my sweet fox, Whiskey, to jump up into my lap so I could pet him.

“You’re all I need in this world, Whiskey. You’re my ride-or-die, aren’t you buddy?” I patted his head and began rubbing his ears softly. He loved it when I did this - he starts drooling and he slowly lulls into a sleep in my lap if I do it long enough.

The day after my son was taken from me, I was returned back to the castle as if nothing had happened, my exile finally lifted.

But everything had happened and no one cared!

I wasn’t supposed to say anything about what had happened to me to anyone because according to my father, “If anyone were to find out about that bastard,” he’d, “NEVER be able to get rid,” of me.

He never cared about me, just how my actions made him look as a king. It showed me how little he actually valued me as his daughter and only heir! I was just another form of monetary exchange to him; one that would help him gain an alliance and power from a marriage treaty.

I wanted to kill myself that day.

I almost went through with it too, and then I heard a small whining cry coming from under the stairs of the barn I had set everything up in to rid myself of this world. I was just about to get up on the chair and wrap my neck in the rope when something inside me told me to go find the sad noise.

'Go to that sound, Caitlyn.’ It whispered.

When I went back outside and looked under the steps, I saw the most adorable red and white baby fox, abandoned without his mother. My heart melted for the first time since losing my pup and I instantly knew that I couldn’t let this innocent little creature die.

He saved me that night.

From that moment on, Whiskey was mine and no one would tell me otherwise. He became like a child, the child I never got to raise, and now he comforts me and doesn’t leave my side.

I heard a loud booming noise come from the entrance to my chambers.

“CAITLYN! THIS HAS TO STOP!”

The booming shout of the pack beta, Donovan, was never a welcome surprise in my chambers.

Ugh, I wasn’t in the mood to listen to my father’s puppet lecturing me and dictating my father’s orders to me.

I was eighteen and I still didn’t have my wolf. My father believes it’s because I dishonored him and shamed our lineage and the goddess by allowing another wolf to soil me and at such a young age.

Donovan is more of a realist than a spiritualist, and has kept encouraging me to be patient, reminding me that some of the strongest Alpha’s in history took longer and didn’t shift or get their wolves until much later.

He goes and does these kinds of things, giving me hope and encouragement, only to turn around and come storming into my quarters all angry and huffy-puffy and shit the next. He does this all the time when my father has ripped him a new asshole for some shameful act I have committed and he apparently holds his beta responsible for allowing it.

“Donny…heyyyy…what are you talking about? You keep coming in here accusing me of things I know nothing of,” I feigned innocence as I continued rubbing Whiskey’s ears, not caring what state Donovan saw me in.

I was pretty used to being seen naked and by many men. I didn’t mind him looking at me since shifters are constantly shifting between their forms. It’s pretty commonplace to see a shifter or two in their birthday suits from time-to-time; our wolves sometimes grow unpredictable about when they want to shift.

He stood in the doorway to my bedroom, arms crossed, looking rather irritated, more so than usual. These days, he was more of my father than my actual father was since you know…the whole exiling me thing and disgracing the crown and all. He’s really more like the serious-yet-supportive uncle type.

“That’s Beta Donovan. At this rate, I’ll settle for Donovan,” he grumbled, glowering down at me from the doorway.

“Damnit Caitlyn! You always…nevermind,” he shook his head of the frustration clearly written across his red headed, scruffy, graying bearded face.

I internally giggled at this level of frustration I have achieved in him…new level unlocked!

“You can’t keep parading your…friends…around the palace, let them share your bed for the night and then be seen by the entire court exiting your chambers barely clothed the next morning with your SCENT all over him!” He spat the last part when he emphasized with disgust the word scent. Asshole.

"First of all, he wasn’t barely clothed. He left wearing shoes, pants, a belt, and…well, he was wearing the shirt draped over one of his shoulders!” I smirked innocently, not even bothering to deny the rest of his accusations.

He looked at me stone faced and unmoved by my obvious attempt at playful sarcasm.

“What? Gosh…way to kill a girl’s libido Donny,” I joked but conceded, “fine. I’ll stop parading them in front of dad and all his leeches, I mean, subjects; wolves and shifters alike!”

“Damnit Caitlyn, you’re not listening to me clearly! This is OVER. Your father is putting a stop to it now, once and for all!” He stands firm and unmoving as he throws a dress of mine from the sofa at me, supposedly to put on and cover up while he speaks with me.

It’s almost natural for shifters around other shifters that aren’t clothed to help them obtain clothing to cover up. Our wolves recognize the need to protect our body in our human form as well as our animal form. Therefore, our wolves feel restless when around a naked human form because pack serves to protect pack. A threat to any form of pack protection causes restlessness and unrest in them.

Clothing, when worn appropriately, serves as many levels of protection to our human bodies, much like the excess scruff and skin of our wolf form that helps in defending ourselves from other predators. This is essentially why it’s almost an instinctual urge for Donovan to seek out clothing and give them to me quickly after realizing I was indisposed. I had part of the sheets covering me, but he had a perfect view of my perky full and plump breasts with my small pebbling pink nipples while I laid against my headboard petting Whiskey.

I pulled on the sundress I wore yesterday that he tossed me and proceeded to laugh, “Okay, what is it this time that he thinks he’s going to do to punish me now?”

Donovan sighed, softening a bit, looking more relaxed, yet sad and disappointed, “This isn’t a punishment Caitlyn. This will give you a new purpose, and a new life.”

I laughed, rolling my eyes, “Oh, now he’s on a spiritual journey, huh? Thinks sending me on a pilgrimage or something will magically knock some sense into me and keep my legs closed?”

Donovan stood, watching as I got up and poured some food in Whiskey’s bowl before going to pour myself a cup of steaming hot coffee.

When I returned from exile, I made sure my chambers were self-sufficient so I would not need the assistance of anyone in the castle unless I wanted their help. Installing a small full functioning kitchen was my first priority. Dear old dad didn’t want to cover the costs, so I used my life savings fund that my mother had left to me from her pack after her death. I’d never touched it until he began to deny my financial requests.

I could tell Donovan was struggling to tell me the next piece of information.

I sat, legs crossed in my oversized recliner, watching Whiskey nibble on his breakfast as I sipped my freshly brewed nectar of life.

Donovan took a deep breath and sighed before sitting on the couch across from me. He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes giving everything away. He didn’t know how to tell me what dad ordered him to come tell me.

“Look,” he began, “I know you haven’t had the easiest few years lately, and I know that your dad doesn’t give two shits about the semantics of how everything happened to you because you left him unable to seek revenge, but you know I have been on your side - always!”

Why was he trying to butter me up? He must know I am not going to like this one bit. He’s reminding me of how good he has been to me so I won’t hold this against him.

I squinted my eyes, glaring at him in thought.

“Just spit it out Donovan! I’m too hung over to try and read between your blurred lines.”

He looked upset and frustrated.

“Look, Caitlyn…I did everything I could to convince your father of any other options. ANY option other than this…I’ve covered for you as much as I could, but you don’t make it easy that often so he sees SO MUCH of your shit as a slap in his face,” he explained.

"Well…that’s because it’s meant to be,” I smirked, taking another sip of coffee, not taking my eyes off of him.

He growled softly, “Yeah, well, he’s over it and done. He doesn’t want to see one more “friend” of yours come from your wing of the castle. He doesn’t want to hear another group of his men talking about the ORGY you allowed them to partake in with you the night before! Goddess, you pushed him past any father’s limits, Caitlyn!”

I squinted my eyes at him again, in a glaring and disapproving look to let him know he was talking on thin ice.

“I’m just behaving like the woman he believes me to be. He never gave me the opportunity to explain anything. He just took what little information I had myself when it happened and dismissed me after that.

If he no longer wants to acknowledge that he has a daughter to the court, then why does he care what I do behind closed doors, and why does he even bother to have you come to attempt to ‘parent’ me when he clearly doesn’t care enough to do it himself?!” I am so over this part of what little relationship I have with my father any longer.

I should just take a lover…or two…and leave. I was a fool to think that maybe one day I would be able to mend the relationship I had with my father.

Donovan was the only wolf that ever tried to help me after I returned. If it weren’t for him, I would have left a long time ago. Well...that and the stupid amount of warriors dad always had on guard duty to protect me, spy on me, and prevent me from leaving the pack castle without his permission.

“He’s agreed to a treaty that will align us with the Crimson Peaks,” he quickly said, ripping the metaphoric band aid off. That jolted my attention back to him.

“Oh is that so? And how does he plan to finalize this treaty? A good ol’ fuckfest banquet like he likes to throw that I’m never allowed to attend…selfish prick,” I grumbled, taking my coffee in gulps at this point.

Donovan shook his head, unable to look me in the eyes.

“Okay,” I chuckled, “Don’t leave me in anticipation too long Donny; spit it out already.”

He turned his head to look out the window, clearly unable to look me in the eyes or even in the face, “It’s a marriage treaty, Caitlyn.”

I felt like he just slapped me across the face.

“In a month’s time, the treaty will be final. You will become the Luna of Crimson Peaks. It was the only match your father has ever been able to secure for you, given your history and the fact that you didn’t hide your indiscretions well. Every pack knows of the rumors of the Alpha King’s daughter.”

I felt like throwing up. His words hurt deep. It felt like he’d just gutted me with his words, ‘given your history and the fact that you didn’t hide your indiscretions well’. Like this was all my fault if I would have just kept my legs shut!

Maybe I was TRYING to get my father’s attention! Maybe I was TRYING to get him to show one ounce of love, affection, fuck, I’d take ANY level of care my father still had for me, but all I got was nothing.

I was speechless and couldn’t process what he just told me.

“The Alphas are on their way here. They are expected to arrive in a week’s time. I suggest you start telling your ‘friends’ and get your affairs in order before then. If you fuck this up, there won’t be another. Your father has assured me of that,” Donovan got up as if he was finished with this conversation before I could respond.

“Why is he doing this to me?” I croaked out, not realizing the tears that were falling freely from my eyes.

Donovan looked me in the eyes and quickly looked down at his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets, “Caitlyn, you know you’ve been pushing him past his limits and testing him for too long. What did you expect?! You knew eventually he would agree to a marriage proposal for you. He gave you time to get over everything and now you have taken to another lifestyle. He’s only doing what any other father would do to try and save you from yourself.”

Clearly Donovan never approved of my new lifestyle, but my own father lived an even sicker life of debauchery than even I did. He wasn’t SAVING me. That hypocritical asshole was NOT my father.

“I suggest you accept your new reality, wake the fuck up, and start acting like a Luna and not a common whore before the last Alphas in the entire country don’t even want you.”

With that, he walked to the door and left, slamming the door on the way out.

I couldn’t breath and before I realized what I was doing, I was launching my coffee mug across the room only to hit the door shortly after Donovan had slammed it shut.

I was shaking with fury and rage. I was a prisoner in my own home and I accepted it for so long, but now, my father had arranged to marry me to the most ruthless, vicious and feared pack in the entire kingdom. Not even father’s pack warriors were as brutal as Crimson Peaks warriors.

This was a punishment. His worst punishment he’s ever inflicted upon me. It wasn’t just punishment; it was banishment and disassociation. Instead of marrying me to an Alpha to take over as Alpha King and Queen, he was sending me away to live as a Luna to a pack that was the farthest possible point away from his own pack, the only pack I’ve ever known.

I was no child to the King any longer.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t survive the first year at Crimson Peaks. I’ve heard horrible rumors about the pack and the fact that it has been struggling with breeders for years. The pack was almost entirely made up of all wolves with few she-wolves. The ones that they did have were breeders. Was my father selling me off as a glorified breeder to this pack?!

Struggling to breath and feeling the pain in my chest radiating throughout my body at these thoughts, I grabbed my inhaler with my still shaking hands and immediately took several deep breaths with it, holding my breath, begging for the medication to help the pain, panic, and emptiness I felt shortly after disappear.