Chapter 1 - Karissa
This series is undergoing extensive editing and revision. The excerpt you are about to read will differ significantly from the new material in progress.
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I never believed werewolves were real… until my 25th birthday. They were creatures relegated to pure fantasy. Beings used as scapegoats or to keep misbehaving children in line. Products born from the melding of oral traditions and religious texts found across the world over.
I didn’t know why I was taken by the Blood Claw pack. One moment I was out to dinner with friends, surrounded by laughter and the babble of other diners as I excused myself to take a call, and the next I was being thrown against a wall by an explosive shock wave. I had come to, blood seeping down my face with ringing ears, double vision, and a blinding headache. I had reached for my phone, the screen shattered, when hands grabbed me from the floor. Fire laced through my chest as I struggled to get air into my lungs. An arm banded tight around my waist, my arms pinned to my sides and held me to a broad chest. Every muscle in my body protested the sudden rough treatment. My legs refused to work, buckling in weakness.
Someone pressed a rag over my nose and mouth, its fibers scratching against my skin as they forced it into me with bruising strength. Instead of smoke, plaster, and the fading smell of barbecue, damp and sweet filled the air. The hand keeping the rag on my face wrenched my head over to the left, causing the world to spin around me.
My captor’s face pressed into the exposed right-side of my neck. Their nose trailed upwards until lips met my ear. Hot breath blasted into my eardrum, stiff stubble scrapped along my cheek, and vibrations rumbled from words made indistinguishable by the ringing in my ears. Their mouth moved away from my ear, though it lasted but a second. Someone’s lips latched onto my neck and I felt a new agony as they pierced my skin in two spots. My body jerked on instinct. Both my spasming chest and the rag stifled any screams I released. My brain, overloaded with the events of the past thirty seconds, pulled me into unconsciousness.
At first, I assumed my capture was because I was the daughter of a “national hero” and someone thought they could get a large ransom for me. My father was a bus driver for a public transportation company in the Bay Area of California. His route had taken him to one of the main transfer hubs in Oakland. It was there he held a suicide bomber at bay until his passengers were off his bus. While everyone else made it to safety, he didn’t.
As the days turned to weeks, then months, I didn’t cling to the unrealistic hope of rescue. I had mere existence left. My life dwindled down to the ten by fifteen concrete basement storage room turned prison cell. A heavy steel door that only opened from the outside provided the single way in or out. The interior of the door was smooth, with a flange covering the seam when it closed. The door opened out into the short hall beyond; which meant the hinges were out of my reach outside as well. A small barred open window and a bucket were the only other features in this gray, lifeless cell.
A soft, low bark drew my attention back to the present, and my cracking lips moved into a smile. Daylight filtering through the window was blocked out by the form of a large dog. Most would mistake him for a wolf with his size, gray sable coat, and large brown eyes. On his forehead was a distinctive white marking, an octagram or eight-point star. He’s called a dire wolf dog and bred specially by Blood Claw. This dog is the reason I’m still here. I’ve held on out of spite.
“Hey, Ranga,” I said. “Looks like it could be another lazy day for me.” I winced as I tried turning over and felt my body protest. Taking as deep of a breath as I could, I pushed myself up on the exhale. I made my way over to the window before I reached through and sunk my fingers into Ranga’s soft and fluffy coat.
I haven’t seen a reflection of myself since I was thrown in here, but I didn’t require one to know bruises and lacerations covered my deathly pale skin, and every limb throbbed with fractured and/or broken bones. I felt like someone put me through the wringer, which wasn’t far from the truth. Frequent beatings left me unable to move for days at a time. They gave me food sporadically, barely enough to keep me alive.
My body has wasted down from my curvy frame of two hundred sixty pounds to probably a hundred soaking wet. I was skin and bones, with just enough muscle to walk around my cell. Of course, being able to walk was relative to how many injuries I sustained from the most recent beatings.
Time has lost meaning beyond when the sun or moon are journeying through the sky. My dark blonde hair has grown from just reaching the top of my shoulders to halfway down my back.
“Akuma! Where are you, you mangy mutt?” a kennel worker shouted. Ranga responded with a low growl.
“Hey now. I don’t like it either, but you have to be a good boy for me,” I said, scratching behind his ears. Then, on a whim, I took one velvety soft pointed ear and gently folded it down against his head. Ranga huffed and looked at me with a side eye glance. A floppy-eared wolf is one of the most hilarious and adorable things and never fails to bring a smile to my lips. Ranga cleaned my arm when he had enough of my only shenanigan.
Muffled voices approached, and Ranga perked his head up. “No biting any visitors, Ranga. I doubt they would come here.”
“Akuma!” Ranga huffed at the name once more. I always find it funny that they never think to check outside my cell window for him.
“You still need your breakfast, don’t you?” I asked him. “Go on, I’ll be okay. I’m just gonna rest for a bit more. You’re the goodest boy there is.” Ranga sighed, gave my arm one last lick, then belly crawled out from under the shrubs that blocked the view from the window.
I let myself collapse to the floor; the pain had been building and once I reached the ground, it only took a few seconds before I slipped back into unconsciousness.
***
“You fucking bitch!”
The drunken slur jolted me awake just before I felt a hand grab my hair and toss me into the far wall of the cell. My head smacked against the concrete wall and fireworks exploded across my vision. A fist hit across my left cheek and a knee went into my ribs. I felt a crack in my rib cage before a hand fisted my hair again and I went flying to the other side of the cell. I was able to roll enough to minimize any extra damage, but what was already there sent white hot shooting spasms throughout my entire body.
“Tell me how!” the Alpha yelled in my face.
“How what?” I asked, the words coming out in a wheeze. “I don’t know what you’re asking about.” He grabbed the front of my dress and pulled me up towards his face.
“You’re whoring yourself out to him, aren’t you, slut. How many times have you spread your legs for him? Tell me!” I could smell the alcohol on his breath as I tried pushing him away, but my battered arms had no more strength left. It was taking everything in me to hold them where they were.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I said once more. He growled and grabbed my left breast, his fingers digging in and leaving even more bruises as he pulled.
“You enticed him with these tits of yours, didn’t you? Gave him a peep show through your window?”
“I only talked to Ranga today,” I said. My breast was released and a slap landed across my face followed with a backhand right after.
“That mutt’s name is Akuma, and he’s the only reason you’re still alive you worthless bitch.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “What’s the matter, Alpha? Afraid of the big, bad dire wolf?”
The Alpha’s eyes flashed and his fists and feet were hitting any part of me that they could. I was able to deflect a few, but more hit their mark than didn’t.
Fuck, I just couldn’t keep a lid on my sarcastic mouth. Here lies Karissa Synger. She was sarcastic at the wrong time, but she made a good pun, I thought before a fist hit my temple one last time and everything went black.
