WOUNDED HEART

Life can be cruel in ways you never quite expect.

You try to do everything right, be kind, be patient, make sacrifices believing that somehow it will lead to something better. I always knew life wouldn’t be easy, but I kept going anyway. I thought, in the end, it would be worth it.

Sometimes… it isn’t.

Some people reach a point where the weight becomes too much where continuing feels more unbearable than the thought of ending it. If someone had told me I’d become one of those people… someone who would actually welcome death, I would’ve called them insane.

And yet… here I am.

The truth is, my life had been unraveling long before that night. Two days before I was taken, I had already decided how it would end.

That day, everything collapsed at once.

I lost my job without warning. No explanation, no second chances... just gone. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, the man I had loved for five years, the man I was supposed to marry looked me in the eyes and told me it was over.

Just like that.

No explanation that made sense. No warning. Just cold finality.

Then he asked me to leave. His apartment. The place I thought was ours.

I remember standing there, completely numb, trying to figure out what I had done wrong. I had given him everything—my time, my energy, my love. I built my future around him. I thought we were building something real… something lasting.

But to him… I was just an inconvenience.

His words replayed in my mind over and over, each time cutting deeper.

I had nowhere to go. Going back to my parents wasn’t an option. I had no money, no way to rent a place, barely enough for food, let alone a bus ticket. And there was no one I trusted enough to ask for help.

So when night fell, I left.

Everything I had left of my life fit into a single suitcase.

The cold hit me almost immediately. I rubbed my hands together, trying to keep warm, but it barely helped. My jacket, my wool cap none of it was enough against the biting air.

Then the snow started.

I remember looking up just as a single snowflake drifted down, landing softly on my forehead before melting away. I wiped it off without thinking, watching as the snowfall grew heavier… faster… swallowing everything around me.

At some point, I left the road and wandered into the woods.

I told myself I was looking for shelter an abandoned house, somewhere to rest. But deep down… I knew the truth.

I didn’t really care anymore.

I walked for hours. My legs ached, my body was numb, and the snow kept falling, thicker and heavier, until the world felt distant… muted.

That’s when I found the cliff.

I stood there for a long time, staring down into the darkness below. The drop was steep, steep enough that I knew it would end everything.

It felt… peaceful, in a strange way.

No more pain. No more confusion. No more trying, only to lose everything anyway.

It came down to this: jump… or slowly freeze, starve, and disappear without a trace.

At least this way… it would be my choice.

I closed my eyes.

And I stepped forward.

But before I could fall, something slammed into me from the side hard. The impact sent me flying backward. The world spun violently as I hit the ground, pain exploding through my head.

And then...

Darkness.

“Is she on something?”

“No,” the other voice replied flatly. “I didn’t taste anything unusual in her blood. She was about to jump off a cliff when I took her.”

A pause.

“Figured… why let her kill herself when she could still be useful?”

“How long has she been like this?”

“She hasn’t said a word since I brought her here. Not even when we fed.”

Silence stretched between them, thick and uneasy.

“I hope you didn’t get carried away.”

“I didn’t,” he muttered. Then, quieter, “The others… maybe a little.”

I could hear them.

Their voices felt far away, like they were echoing through water—distorted, distant, unreal. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids were unbearably heavy, like they didn’t belong to me anymore.

My body felt… wrong.

Hollow. Cold. Weak.

Like something important had been drained out of me.

Then a harsh light snapped on.

Pain stabbed through my skull, sharp and immediate, forcing a weak sound from somewhere deep in my throat as I managed to pry my eyes open just enough to see.

Blurry shapes.

Two figures stood over me,one on either side. I couldn’t make out their faces, but I could feel them.

Something about them was wrong.

Predatory.

“I told you,”One of them snapped, irritation cutting through his voice, “you could feed off her,not drain her dry.”

“She’s still breathing,” the other replied.

“Barely.”

Footsteps crossed the room.

Then a door opened… and shut.

Silence.

The man beside me moved, crouching down. I felt his hands at my wrists, then my ankles, working slowly as he loosened the ropes binding me.

Careful. Controlled.

Like he was testing something.

Waiting.

Waiting for me to react.

To scream.

To fight.

But I couldn’t.

Even if I wanted to, there was nothing left in me. No strength. No fear. No anger.

No will.

So I didn’t move.

I didn’t resist.

I didn’t even look at him.

I just lay there, staring past him as my vision began to fade again, the edges darkening, pulling inward.

And this time…

I let it.

I let the darkness take me.

“We have to go. Now.”

The voice cut through the haze in my head, sharp enough to sting.

“The wolves are on their way. They’ll be here in minutes.”

“What?” Panic crept into the other man’s voice. “How the hell did they find our nest?”

“I don’t know. Maybe someone tipped them off.”

“Damn it. How many?”

“A pack. Five… maybe ten.”

Silence—tight, suffocating.

“What about her?” the second man asked. “Do we take her?”

“No. She’s dead weight. We leave her.”

“That’s risky...”

“Shut up. I’m thinking.”

A sudden crash shattered everything.

Glass exploded somewhere above me. Wood splintered. The sound ripped through the space, followed by screams, some human… some not.

My body flinched weakly, instinct without strength.

The two men didn’t hesitate. I heard their footsteps pounding up the stairs, too fast, too light. Not human.

More noise followed. Thuds. Snarls. Something heavy slamming into walls. The air itself seemed to tremble with it.

Then silence.

Not calm. Not peace.

The kind of silence that comes after something violent has already decided the outcome.

“There’s someone else here,” a deep voice growled.

It wasn’t like the others.

Lower. Heavier. It carried through the floor, through my bones.

Footsteps followed.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Each one echoed like thunder as they descended toward me.

Closer.

Closer.

I forced my eyes open, just enough to see through the blur.

A shape filled the doorway.

Massive.

Broad shoulders, towering height,too big, too solid to be normal. He moved into the room, and even in my state, something in me recoiled.

Not fear.

Something deeper. Instinctive.

“We’ve got a human down here!” he called out.

I tried to move.

I couldn’t.

Tried to speak.

Nothing came out.

All I could do was lie there, barely conscious, staring up at the figure above me…

And wonder, dimly…

If this was rescue.

Or just something worse.

The Alpha looked around at the garbage in the house. The flood of foul odors made him want to vomit. Shoes, clothes, bags and spoilt food and blood littered the area. Most likely the items of the vampires numerous victims.

All the windows were boarded up.

The other wolves moved through the house making sure didn’t miss anything.

“We’ve got a human down here”! A wolf shouted.

“Great,” the Alpha muttered. “Just what he need right now.”

He stepped away from the carnage upstairs, and descended into the basement, each step heavier than the last. The air grew colder as he went, thick with the damp, stale scent of stone and something sweeter underneath.

“A human woman”. Lying motionless on a table. Bite marks littered her skin and her arms and legs showed signs of being tied.

The sweet scent was coming from her, faint now. He swore loudly.

“I hate vampires”, his second muttered walking in, standing next to him. I was afraid something like this would happen.

On the outside he seemed calm, but on the inside he was shaking as he approached her body.

Her body was frighteningly cold, looking lifeless. Her chest rose and fell so faintly it was almost imperceptible.

“Dying”.

“Alpha Reed”.

There’s a hospital near by, we can leave her there,his beta suggested. Noticing his odd behaviour.

“Somebody bring me something warm to wrap up her body”.

A wolf left to go find something.

A young wolf who had volunteered to joined the search party, ran off and came back with a torn jacket, with blood on it.

The young wolf approached, offering the jacket. “This was the best I could find Alpha”.

He accepted the jacket. It was large,swallowing her smaller frame. Gently, he lifted her and cradled her close to his chest.

The other wolves in the room stepped out of the way.

A hush silence fell over the room as he turned and calmly walked up the stairs.

If he waited until they reach the pack, she might not make it.

“Let’s go.”

His beta gave him a questioning look but didn’t argue.

“I want you to take the others back,” he said firmly. “Keep things in order until I return.”

He glanced down at the woman in his arms. Something unfamiliar tightened in his chest.

Her time was running out and he didn’t have many options.

So he chose the only one he had left.

He would take her to the one person who might be able to save her.

That witch.