Hidden Hearts

Charles sighed as he navigated through the streets of San Diego, California his mate in the passenger seat. He knew that this situation was bad from what his father had told him, but no one could tell them exactly how bad. One of the humans involved with the pack had called Bran after her husband left the phone number out with a note asking her to make the call. Apparently the wolves had been ordered not to call Bran for any reason and if he were honest with himself the situation was looking a lot like what happened to Anna but without the presence of an omega.

The pack was in a meeting when Charles and Anna arrived. Anna was asking about the newly changed wolf and was stunned when the lower ranking wolves told her they were under strict orders not to speak of the newly changed wolf. Finally one of the humans, a woman named Julia, grabbed her pulled her aside and explained the youngster had been locked in the safe room for going on three days. She also asked where the alpha and second where as the third was hosting the meeting. She was shocked to learn that he was in the safe room with the young wolf that didn’t need to be there at the point.

She told Charles and the Julia guided them to the safe room.

“Can you get us in?” Charles asked as they heard a young voice crying for help.

“Yes,” she replied.

Julia found the spare key and handed it to Charles.

“He knows I called you so it’s not safe for me to be in here when that door opens.” She sighed “My husband has done all he could to keep me safe but it’s only a matter of time before he gets to me.”

“It’s okay, we will protect you, Julia.” Anna said giving the woman’s shoulders a gentle squeeze.

“Thank you, my husband wanted to call, really he did, but… he couldn’t defy his alpha.” Julia sighed leaning her head on Anna.

“Thank you for calling us, Julia, now get behind me, this will get ugly.” Anna warned as Charles opened the door. Julia did as instructed without question; she figured if a werewolf said that they had a perfectly good reason to say so.

The Alpha was reaching back to punch a young Asian teen girl another time when Charles got in the way.

“Is this how you treat all of your new wolves.” He demanded.

“Who gives you the authority to stop me?” the alpha demanded in reply.

“The Marrok,” Charles replied simply as the fight began.

It didn’t take long for the Alpha and second to fall to the safe room floor, dead and not much longer for the pack to gather in the next room to try and find out what happened to the two of them, the third in front.

“Charles what is going on?” he asked

“Are you the third?” he asked.

“Yes, why?” the third, Nathan Murray replied.

“Then I guess that makes you the Alpha.” Charles replied. He knew the third wasn’t involved in the situation, he could see early on that the third had tried to keep the young wolves safe from the ones that abused them.

“What about her?” Nathan asked as the young female wouldn’t allow any of the medics touch her and it was becoming clear that she was about to undergo an involuntary change.

“I am taking her back to Aspen Creek with us.” Charles replied simply.

Nathan was going to try and stop her change but Charles stopped him.

“Let her change, she’ll heal faster in her wolf form.” Charles reminded Nathan “and we’re both dominant enough to keep her safe and under control.”

“True.” Nathan conceded “I just feel bad for her, she never asked for any of this, she was attacked and just happened to be lucky enough to survive only to be treated like this.”

“How old is she?” Anna asked.

“She turned fourteen during her recovery.” Nathan replied.

Anna looked stunned and Charles had to push brother wolf down as he learned the horror the young wolf in front of him had seen and how young she actually was. He was slightly surprised by Brother wolf’s reaction, as if this were his pup rather than some strange young wolf they had never met before.

“What is her name?” Anna asked her eyes looking over the young wolf, who was about the size of a small wolf and marked like a border collie, a black body, white nose, legs, chest, tail tip and ring around her neck. They figured she was so small because she was only fourteen years old and would get larger as she got older.

“Lee SeoHyun, her parents immigrated from Korea when she was seven years old, I contacted our former alpha’s mate, they had custody of her, she is willing to give you whatever you need to legally take her away from this hell, custody documents, high school transcripts, medical records, just tell us what she’ll need.” Nathan said.

“Where are her biological parents?” Charles asked.

“They’re dead I’m afraid. They were attacked as well but they didn’t survive the Change.” Nathan explained. “We were shocked she survived when they didn’t.”

Charles didn’t let his shock show but Anna could feel it over the slightly open mate bond, and she made it no secret she was stunned as she walked over and encouraged SeoHyun to use her lap for a pillow.

“Easy, little one, no one is going to hurt you.” She assured her “You’re safe.”

Her broken bones were set, Anna keeping her calm, while Charles gathered the paperwork he needed to take the young wolf back to Aspen Creek with him. He then called Bran to fill him in on the details of the case that they had yet to learn.

Bran swore and confirmed that he did want SeoHyun brought to Aspen Creek to learn to control her wolf and recover from her ordeal.

“Okay, Da, we will be there later this evening.” Charles replied not wanting to keep SeoHyun in San Diego any longer than he had to.

“Good, I want to get her out of that pack as soon as possible.” Bran informed him simply.

SeoHyun watched in fear as the large Native American man ordered around the wolves that stood idly by as she was abused. Would he treat her different, the woman that came with him sure did. The woman was gently rubbing her face and SeoHyun found she enjoyed that touch. She soon started giving her small pieces of raw meat that she ate. She had never dreamed that she would ever eat raw meat but as a werewolf there were days where she just craved it. She was starving and the meat tasted surprisingly good.

Soon they had her following them out to a car and Anna encouraged her to get into the back seat. She had been listening to them and learned that is name was Charles Cornick and hers was Anna, they were married and lived together in a place called Aspen Creek with someone they referred to as the Marrok. This was apparently a very powerful wolf from the way others reacted when his name was mentioned and she could only hope he would not harm her as other powerful wolves had. Charles hadn’t harmed her, he had protected her from abuse and killed her abusers so they could never touch her again. She looked at Charles and began to wonder if she could really trust him.

She nudged the back of his shoulder as they came to a stop at a red light.

“Don’t worry little one, Aspen Creek is going to seem like a whole different world than this place than anything you’ve seen here.” He assured her gently “I’ll make sure of it.”