Chapter 1 - Becka
Two years ago
The whole room hummed from the electricity that passed through the walls. I guess it took a lot of electricity to run a prison facility, and even though my room looked like it was part of a normal house, it was still just a fancy prison cell.
My mom had tried her best to make the place look homely. She had made sure I was provided with a desk and a comfortable seating area in addition to the utilitarian bed and bathroom my father had arranged for me to have. I appreciated her efforts and tried the best I could to keep my spirits up, but it was hard not to feel bitter about being kept inside a cage for all of my life.
It didn’t help that since my wolf awakened a few hours earlier, the humming in the walls seemed so much louder, and the lack of fresh air made my wolf anxious. It was infuriating.
Further down the corridor, I could hear one of the doors opening, causing my heart to beat faster in excitement. I knew that it was probably only a couple of the guards coming to give us our breakfast. I shouldn’t be excited over something so mundane, but I couldn’t help it. I hardly ever got visitors, and other than a few books once a week, I didn’t have any other form of entertainment. So the small amount of human interaction that I got three times a day was the highlight of my day.
As the noises got closer to my door, I took the time to straighten my bed and make my hair look a little more presentable. My oldest sister would have laughed at me if she saw the way I acted when the guards came to visit us, but I didn’t put much stake in her opinions.
She was only a few months older than I, and yet she acted as though she knew everything. In reality, she struggled with the isolation and the confinement a lot more than the rest of us, and it had made her bitter and cynical. She had been like that for a long time, but after getting her wolf, things had got much worse.
It felt as though she was slowly losing her mind. We were only allowed to interact with each other a few times a month, usually when our mother came to visit, and I was worried that one day soon she would no longer be stable enough to attend those gatherings.
“These little sluts are always so excited to see us, I bet all of them would be willing to fuck us if we asked,” One of the guards said as he adjusted the trolley so he could type the key code into the panel next to my door.
The other guard laughed before adding, “I wouldn’t even try that if I were you. Alpha Kennedy might not come here often, but if he ever heard of someone taking advantage of his daughters, then he wouldn’t hesitate to skin them alive.”
Their words made me feel sick. I had never heard their discussions from inside the room before today, and it made me wonder if they were always so vulgar behind our backs. If they were, then it was no wonder my older sister was struggling now that her wolf was around.
The keypad on my door chimed before allowing the door to swing open, revealing the two guards who looked after us for most of the day. They gave me a warm grin before proceeding to wheel the trolley into the room. Everything felt and looked different now that I had my wolf. The scent of the food was much more appealing, and even though the lights from the corridor beyond my room were just as dim as they usually were, I could see everything a great deal clearer.
But that wasn’t the only thing that had changed.
I had seen the guard who was pushing the trolley carrying my food every day for the last three years, but he had never smelled anywhere near this good to me before. Unfortunately, I knew exactly what that meant.
My wolf surged forward within my mind, clawing beneath the surface as she tried to push me to go to my mate. I wanted to heed her request. I had spent years longing for a mate who would take me away from this place and give me a better life, but I was also terrified. The silence that hung in the air between us told me that this wasn’t going to be some fairy tale where he swept me off my feet and we lived the rest of our lives in blissful happiness.
It was more likely to be a tragedy.
The other guard cleared his throat, pulling the attention of both me and my mate towards him.
“What the fuck, man? We don’t have time for you to stand there all day ogling some whore,” he growled, and I recognised his voice immediately as the most vulgar of the pair who had spoken earlier. The realisation made my wolf purr, but it did little to ease the anxiety in my gut.
My mate growled at the other guard before moving forward to block his line of sight to me. My mate was large, even by werewolf standards, but I could see around him just enough to see the tense look on his friend’s face.
“Holly shit, man, does that mean she is your mate?”
My mate nodded his head in acknowledgement before adding, “Can you give us a moment?”
The other guard muttered a few words in agreement before swiftly placing a plate of food on my desk and backing the trolley out of the room. Once the door had clicked closed behind him, my mate turned around to face me, and I took a good look at him for the first time.
He was tall, about6ft4, and he had dark brown hair that he kept shaved close to his head. He wore the same uniform that all the guards within the facility wore, but even fully dressed, I could tell that he was muscular underneath it. I couldn’t smell any hint of a rank on him, not that such things mattered to me.
I had been neglected by everyone for so long that I would happily give up my rank or become an Omega if it meant getting out of this place. All I wanted was to live a quiet life with my mate and my family. If only I had been paired with someone who would give me that chance, but even my wolf had started to doubt that it was going to happen.
My mate observed me silently for a few seconds before shaking his head, almost as though he was trying to shake an idea from his mind. “It is such a shame,” he mumbled.
“What is?” I knew his words weren’t meant for me, but after spending nineteen years locked in a room, I was damn sick of being treated as though I wasn’t even there.
“You know that there is no chance we can be together, right? Your father would never accept me taking you as my mate.”
White hot anger flared within me in a way I had never felt before. If my mate accepted me and marked me, then my father would have no way of coming between our relationship without killing us. My father might be angry with us at first, but he would have no choice other than to rethink his plans for me. Given time, I was sure that he would calm down and allow both of us to go free in time.
That had been my escape plan for as long as I could remember. I couldn’t believe that the mate who was supposed to love me unconditionally wasn’t even willing to consider a future with me. The Alpha wolf within me wanted to rip his throat out for such cowardice.
“That is bullshit. If you wanted to accept me, then you could. You are just a coward.”
“It isn’t quite that simple. I know you spend all day reading books and daydreaming of a better life, but I have to live in the real world. Your father isn’t like the Alphas you read about in your books. He is vicious, and if I cross him, then he will kill me. You have to understand that,” he pleaded. His hands were hovering just above my arms. It was almost as though he wanted to touch me, but I wasn’t going to let myself hope for such affection from this man.
He had made it clear that he wasn’t interested, so we may as well get this over with.
“Fine. Reject me and then leave, but perhaps you should think about getting a different job, because I don’t want to have to see your face every day.”
I took a step back and crossed my arms over my chest while trying not to show how hurt I was. For an instant, I was sure that I saw a flash of pain in my mate’s eyes as I put the distance between us. However, mere moments after I noticed it, it was gone, replaced with what appeared to be calm indifference.
He took a deep breath before uttering the words that shattered my already fractured existence.
“I,EddisonTaylor, reject you, AlphaBeckaKennedy, as my mate.”
The pain that radiated through my chest was the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. It was so strong that I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball on the floor, but I was an Alpha, and I wasn’t going to let him see me cry. Instead, I clenched my hands into fists at my side and quickly uttered my acceptance of his rejection.
As soon as the words left my mouth,Eddisoncollapsed to the floor in front of me. The pain in his eyes was difficult to witness, and the ghost of the bond between us compelled me to comfort him, but I held firm in my position. He was the one who was unwilling to even give us a chance, so why should I make any of this easy for him?
After a couple of minutes of breathing through the pain, he had managed to pull himself together enough to get back on his feet. Although he still looked as though a light breeze would be enough to knock him over. Maybe under other circumstances, I could have laughed at him for that.
“I’m really sorry,Becka, the last thing I wanted to do was reject you,” he told me while reaching out towards my arm.
“I don’t give a damn about your weak ass apologies.”
“Please don’t be like that, you are perfect, and it would have been an honour to claim you as my mate.”
“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. I don’t give a shit what you think of me, now get the fuck out of my room before I make you eat your own tongue,” I growled, allowing my wolf’s voice to intertwine with mine.
