Cassie -
“Cr@ck 20 eggs into the mixing bowl, NO Shell!
Add a dash of milk,
A teaspoon of pepper,
And whisk…..
Melt some butter in the pan and pour.”
If I focus on these steps, I might make it through the morning. I can’t mess up the eggs again. They will never let me live it down. I can’t take another beating like yesterday, I’m barely healed as it is, add another beating like that and I will be out of commission, with no hope of passing my exams this week, and if I don’t pass these exams I will never get out of here.
I stop my musings long enough to stir the eggs and lower the heat, burnt eggs means burnt hands, I managed the bacon this morning and the sausages are a lovely colour, now all I need are these damn eggs to finish.
The toaster pops startling me from my thoughts, just as Ace saunters into the kitchen, Ace, the man of the moment, the man of my nightmares…
“Cas, are you dreaming about me again?” Ace asks me with a wicked smirk on his face. It isn’t an ugly face per se, but that face haunts my waking and sleeping hours, torment, and evil laughter follow me around.
Turning my back on him, I stir the eggs and butter the toast, then I feel his hand gently settle on my arm “Cassie, I asked you a question.” and squeeze, yep that’s going to leave a mark.
“Ace, please I am trying to cook breakfast, I’m almost done I promise.” I respond in a patient, almost pleading tone, I don’t want to be accused of “sassing” him again.
My name is Cassandra, though I am more commonly known as Cassie. I am 16, and will be 17 tomorrow, I’m 5’5” tall, with long brown hair that reaches my waist and chocolate brown coloured eyes, and I am currently severely underweight though I wasn’t always underweight, I used to be toned, athletic even, though I wasn't in the training programme, but when Alpha Sven and Luna Lily left the pack 6 months ago, to tend to the pack’s businesses, everything changed for me.
Ace, being the Beta, was left in charge of the pack in their absence. I should feel sorry for him, he lost his father and mother in the same battle so many others did and he was promoted to the Beta position for an older Alpha couple, it is a lot of responsibility as it is and with the Alpha and Luna away, it was even harder on him. But my sympathy was limited since as soon as they left packlands, he turned on me, I don't know what I ever did to make him decide I would be his target, but he seems to hate me, he set all laundry and cooking duties on my shoulders alone, and I have to clean all the bathrooms daily as well, which would be manageable if I didn’t care about my education, but that is the only way I will ever escape him, so school matters to me.
Finishing school well will enable me to leave the pack at least temporarily to study anything of my choice that can benefit the pack, I have decided I want to be a chef, don't get me wrong, I suck at cooking, eggs especially, but I'm hoping with further education I can overcome that issue and learn creative meals to please the whole pack. I've wanted to be a cook for years now, to do what my mother did before she died. After her death my father managed to live for a little over a year, before succumbing to the mate bond, well I say he lived, but it was more like he existed, the mate bond will do that to you, living without your other half is torture. If he had been lucky he may have found his second chance mate and recovered from his loss, however that was not meant to be for my father.
Ace –
The Moon Goddess has a sick sense of humour, I didn’t want my first mate, so I killed her, she was a useless servant of a girl, weak and pathetic, I figured if I didn’t reject her but ‘lost her’ then my second chance mate would be a better pick for me, so when I met her in the forest that last time, I pretended I wanted to be with her, which was easy, we flirted a little, I seduced her into my arms and then I snapped her neck, quick and painless, see, I was good to her, I could have made her suffer but I didn’t.
After all I am the heir to the pack, with Alpha and Luna unable to produce an heir, the position falls to me as their Beta. So when I found my mate at 17 and realised what a waste of space she was, I had to act. No way was she going to be Luna beside me. Nobody knows what happened with her, and now the Moon Goddess has done it again, paired me with a useless mate, a mate with no standing within the pack, Goddess, I want her so much, but I know that is only the bond, as a person I want someone who is strong, who will stand up for themselves, who will make me look good, someone who won’t embarrass me. But my second chance mate doesn’t even know she is my mate yet, she is a child, not yet 17, and she refuses to submit to me, so I force her, I make her submit to me, and when she doesn’t, I make her suffer. The Delta's daughter seems into it, she wants me and she dislikes Cassie, so I use her for my benefit and encourage her treatment of my mate. Maybe I can have both, Maddie on my arm and Cassie in my bed. I may hate her but I need her if I want a child. If I can somehow have both of them, then nobody needs to ever know about Cassie being my mate. When she gets pregnant we can make it so Maddie seems pregnant, nobody would ever question us, so long as we are Alpha and Luna. Then once she bears me a son, I can be done with her as well, I don’t want her for anything but an heir, though my body reacts to her as though I do.
Cassie -
Anyway as I was saying, My name is Cassie but I am merely 'Cas' to Ace since he couldn't possibly use 2 syllables for my name. I'm 16, and will be able to find my mate when I turn 17 tomorrow, and the last 6 months have been like a bad dream, Ace is the main culprit, breaking my arm for burning food or blacking my eye for failing to remove a stain from the clothes, but Madeline, queen bee wannabe, and Delta's daughter, is the reason I've lost so much weight, she pours liquids on my food, or complains to Ace that I have been stealing food so that he stops me from eating with everyone else. Madeline hangs from Ace's sleeve all day long. I assume she helps him in some way with his duties, but I can't fathom how.
Between Ace's punishments and Madeleines starving tactics, I don't look even remotely like my former self. They can’t let me gain my weight back. If they do, my wolf would be stronger, and their physical attacks wouldn’t be as effective, and we can’t have that now, can we? Everyone needs a punching bag, and that would be my purpose in life since Alpha Sven left.
Our wolves are always present in our subconscious, but we don’t communicate with them and they don’t communicate with us, they get to control our wolf form while we have dominion over our human form, but being a wolf enables us to heal faster than your average human, our endurance is much higher, we are faster and generally stronger and we can recognise our mate once we come of age at 17. I'm not sure I want anyone from Twin Lakes Pack to be my mate, everyone has seen the way I am treated and not one person has defended me, scared of receiving the same treatment I suppose. Accepting my mate will come with conditions and an explanation at the very least if they are a member of this pack, if they are from another pack then I doubt I will get to meet them.
Flash back to yesterdayCassie - Yesterday started the same as any other for me, but thankfully, the weather was nice, the breakfast was done on time and the pile of washing was not the mountain it usually was, which made me consider hanging the washing outside to dry as I had some extra time today, what with it being a Sunday.But then, something went wrong, I felt the shift in the atmosphere as soon as I left the kitchen to begin the washing. The dining room fell silent as I entered. You could have heard a pin drop. There was a loud bang, which made me look up to see the pack were all sitting there, heads bowed in submission, hands flat on the table tops, nobody touching their food. At the end of the large room, right next to the warming trolley, at the head table, was Ace, standing upright and glowering in my direction with his fists planted on the table. Like a deer in headlights, I froze wondering what could have happened to entice such a drastic reaction from everybody, especia
Cassie - "Where did you just go? I was speaking to you!" Ace's harsh voice breaks through my thoughts as he takes hold of my wrist. "I’m sorry, Ace," I whimper trying to pull my arm away as his grip tightens. "Beta!"He snaps harshly, "I have decided you will only address me as Beta from this moment onwards, you do not deserve to call me by my given name." He punctuated his declaration with a sharp, jerking twist of my wrist. "Yes, Beta," I say quickly, silently praying he releases his grip on me soon, he is likely to snap my wrist if he grips much harder, "h… how can I help, what can I do?" I pause, then continue, "Breakfast is almost ready I promise, I just need to stir the eggs one last time, and then I can begin serving." "Hurry then, Cas, I'm hungry after training, and you have chores to complete. The warriors have just dropped off their workout gear for washing," His hisses, his hold on my wrist tightening beyond the point of pain, I can no longer feel my fingers. "Yes Ac…B
Cassie - Kneeling there on the soft area rug beside his bed, my heart is pounding, I have to force myself to remain still yet remain breathing. I may not be submitting to him, but I can make it appear that way for as long as I can, to appease him, hopefully he will fall for it and go easier on me, until I can think of a way out of this. Ace's feet appear in my line of sight, and I know by the flexing of them that he is squatting down in front of me, but still I don't move, not even a flinch. He places 2 fingers under my chin and forces my head up, so I am looking into his dark brown eyes as he gazes back at me. I thought I glimpsed a flicker of what could have been wonder in their depths, but it was gone before I could truly know. He spoke in a whisper, as though not wanting anyone to overhear, "Cassie, Cassie, Cassie, I'm hurt you say you don't wish to be alone with me, you see, I happen to know you want me, that is why you are submitting to me so prettily. So submissive and open
Cassie -I slowly make my way back downstairs and get myself to my room. I close the door as quickly as I can and lock it, closing myself in, away from the world. I pick up my school bag and, through my pain, I settle into my bed gingerly and attempt to complete all my assignments before I am too tired to focus. I still need to keep my grades up if I am to have any hope of leaving here.When I finally look up, having finally finished my last assignment of the day, I rub my tired eyes, relieving the dull ache that is forming behind them slightly and I glance at the old child-like clock I have on my dresser, the clock I have owned since I was around 5 years old, it is a little beaten and there is a crack in the glass front, but otherwise it has always worked well so there had been no need to buy a new one.With a sudden jolt of surprise, I see it is a little after 2am. Happy birthday to me, I think to myself, caught somewhere between excitement and dread. I wonder what fresh new hell co
Cassie -Hundreds of questions seem to be chasing each other around in circles inside my head, whirling like a tornado until they all seem to blur into one constant stream of thought. There are muffled voices, just out of my hearing range. Who is that? Odd smells surround me. Is that disinfectant? Strange sounds resonate in my ears. What is that beeping? I can't seem to focus on anything, or keep any single thought straight in my mind, and why won't my eyes open? Why can't I move or make a sound? All of this hits me in the span of about two seconds, the questions repeating themselves over and over. I try to concentrate on one specific question and manage to grab ahold of one, whose voices? I vaguely recognise those voices, like a memory of them is just out of reach. The memory of the voices tickle my brain as other details try to push this thought aside, but I cling to
Ace -They went to the fucking hospital, sh!t, now what?? I need to think of something…Almost as soon as our meeting had ended yesterday afternoon they went over to the hospital to pay a visit and spend time with each of the wolves that were injured during training and most specifically, they went to see how Cassie was and what she could tell them about how she ended up there. Luckily for me, she was still out cold when they got there and she didn’t wake up at all while they spoke with the doctor, seeing if he had any insight into how she came to be in this condition, but when Cassie wakes up I have no doubt she will tell them everything.I managed to sneak into her room last night at around 3am, during a shift change, so I went completely unnoticed and I slip
Cassie -After my conversation with Dr Thorne, he went to follow up on my blood test results, and I leaned back against the mountain of pillows behind me and closed my eyes. The words how and why kept flashing behind my closed eyelids. How did someone get ahold of wolfsbane, let alone get it into a hospital and manage to dose someone with it and why would they want to? It doesn’t take a genius to work out it was probably Ace that did it, or maybe Maddie on his orders though.I must have drifted off to sleep again for a while, and when I woke up, I was shocked, utterly speechless.Luna Lily was sitting beside me reading through a binder of some kind. She is stunning, all regal elegance and true grace with her auburn hair tied regally in a chignon and her eyes downcast to a b
Cassie -After spending another 3 long, peaceful hours in the hospital, Dr Thorne finally came around with my discharge papers. He had Thomas come into the room to hear about the aftercare I needed, so I had "no excuse" as he put it, but to follow the regime, which he delightfully told me with an impish grin on his face. I rolled my eyes at this but listened carefully as I wanted to get better quickly, he told me I needed to eat little and often, and nothing heavy to help me gain some weight back. He also gave me a prescription of vitamins to help me and my wolf get stronger again. Once he finished, he brandished the discharge papers under my nose, I signed and was handed a bag of clothes.I glanced in the bag and then sharply up at Dr Thorne who blushed slightly and said he had run out to a nearby shop on his break to buy m