Lotus Wolf

Intro…

The air is fresh, filled with the distant sounds of birds, frogs, and other small animals if you’re quiet enough to hear them. The trees are bright green, flowers are all around us, compared to darkened life I’m forced to endure every day. I’m running in my wolf form, she’s golden in color not very tall yet. It’s from not eating as well as we should be, at least that that’s what she tells me. Once at creek bed that she had found I got to see her eyes, this mixture of ocean blue and hunter green. We shift only once a month and for just a few minutes each time. With only thirty minutes allowed outside each month, other than trips to and from school. We need to avoid drawing attention. As she explains, we are a special kind of wolf and must remain hidden until it's time to meet those who will rescue us from the torment of the Black Moon Pack.

I think I’m fourteen now, though I’m not sure; but I’ve had my wolf since I was three or four at least that’s what my wolf tells me. She has kept me sane and safe. Well, as best as she can without letting everyone know what we are. Being the only I talk to freely, aside from responding to others when spoken to. Alpha Taylor, informed me about a year after getting my wolf that I was forbidden from speaking unless first spoke to. The one and only time I tried to talk to someone else, was a girl about my age at the time, I was beaten. She and I were playing with her toys, when Alpha Taylor caught me; he sent the girl home and punished me, severely. Next few days were spent locked inside a dark, and damp room in the basement without food or water. When he finally let me out, he told me never to interact with the pack’s pups again, calling me trash and saying I shouldn’t drag their pups down with me. He gave me fifty lashes, and I cried myself to sleep for a month afterward.

‘It’s been too long. We need to get back.’ I told my wolf. Not wanting to get her hurt.

‘Alright, I’ll get you to the special spot and shift back.’ She tells me softly; I knew she wanted to be out here longer, but we couldn’t risk it.

‘I’m sorry we can’t spend more time like this,’ I apologize. ‘It’s not your fault. I will never blame you, little one,’ she reassures me. Her voice always being the calming breathe to my fright. Giving me solace in the darkest of times. She is the only thing that keeps me from putting a permanent end to everything, letting the darkness take me.

We get to our spot unnoticed. I shift back still dressed, which helps hide the fact that I already have my wolf. If my clothes were found it would reveal this and I’d have been beaten and killed. Or worse. I just couldn’t bare that thought. I make it into the pack house through the door as Alpha Taylor had specifically built for me to avoid encounters with other pack members.

“WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN, MUTT?” Alpha Taylor growls.

“Out for my walk, it took longer as I was lost for a moment, sir. I’m so sorry,” I begged, knowing nothing would change the beating that was coming.

“You’ve nearly lost that privilege, you idiotic filth.” He grabs me by the throat and drags me to my room. “On your knees, Mutt.” He commands, throwing me to the floor.

“Yes, Alpha,” I choke out, getting on my knees, removing my shirt. He then strikes me with his belt. “To keep that privilege I’ve allowed you, I will be increasing the normal lashings, COUNT,” he growls. Each time I’m reminded I’m the lowest of the food chain around here, even lower than the floor I’m looking at.

I count in my head as it was, I was struggling to breathe evenly from the sheer force of his strikes and the agonizing pain, he yanks my head back by my hair. “How many times do you think I’ve hit you?” he growls in my ear.

“Two hundred, Alpha.” He drops the belt, “Correct, clean up this mess. I better not see you out of this room for at least two weeks.”

“Yes, Alpha.” I use the towel kept in my room this reason and clean up the blood. I then use the passageway he had built from my room to the mud shower in the garage to wash myself. He allows me to clean up but hates the idea of me using one of the extra bathrooms in the house, where I could be seen. I silently scream from the excruciating pain of the water hitting my back. Once I stopped bleeding my wounds finally started to heal enough to not get infected, but not enough not to scar over. I head back through passageway to my room, dress and lay on my bed, wishing for death to take me.

“Keep pissing me off, and you’ll never leave this room again.” His tone was low, each word dragged out slowly, filling the air with a chill as cold as the Arctic.

But this is only part of my story. Let’s move forward.