My Mate?

Chapter 1

Aribella

Almost five years had passed since my parents died. So much changed overnight. So much more had changed in the five years since then as well.

The biggest change had been that Alpha Evan did not allow mated pairs to both be part of warrior ranks. The loss and orphaning of so many had hit him hard, and he thought that if he didn't allow two parts of a whole to be in positions where they could both die, it wouldn't happen again. Nothing is that easy though.

The next biggest change was that programs for female training were basically extinguished. Females could train to be warriors of course, but there weren't any programs for under-aged females anymore. My dad had always had programs for the young ones, male or female. Now only the males were pushed to train. Females didn't have an instructor who was willing to train them. Another fallout from dad's death.

Less noticeable changes had occurred as well. One such change was that us girls who had been orphaned no longer spent time with our peers as a group. The boys all trained together, so the ones that were orphaned all still saw everyone else daily. Since we didn't train or really have any other social activity, we became basically separated from the pack. Although unintentional, it happened.

All of us orphaned children were split. Boys went with James MacVoy, a warrior that trained with dad. Us girls went with Emma Blankard. Her mate had died with the rest of our parents. She didn't have any pups so the Alpha had though that caring for the group of us that could, in a way, feel her pain, would help us all. Bonding over shared pain and all that rubbish.

Except that wasn't the case. Emma didn't have any family in the pack besides her mate. She had been a lone wolf and the only family she had, were from Ravenwood. A very sequestered pack with some very old and traditional ways. Ways that she had basically lived by mate or no.

Emma was so traditional, that the thought of being in charge of the seven of us, wasn't what she wanted to do. She had asked for permission to have her 'family' come help her with us. A brother, Richard Rokwell, and his friends Zach Garcia and Brian Chase. Once they were settled in, Emma turned us over to their care, basically saying peace out. A better way to put it was she abandoned us to them.

If I thought losing my parents was awful, I was wrong. The three men in charge of us were utterly incompetent and completely repugnant. The first few years, it was just complete indifference to us. They ignored us, barely leaving enough money for food. We got an allowance to spend. An allowance of $700 for seven girls. For the month.

That had to go to food, school supplies, clothes, toiletries. They figured that we could survive on $100 apiece. Although basically impossible in normal circumstances, we did manage. We used coupons for anything we could and traveled to the next town over to take advantage of the garage sales and charity centers that the humans had. Any clothes we bought we made sure to keep as good as possible so we could hand them down as we grew out of them.

When each of us started to get older though, the three got worse. It started with sickening stares, attempts at touching, inappropriate commentary. If we thought all of that was awful, we were wrong.

Xena was the oldest of us all. When she turned sixteen, the stares and slight touches got bolder. Then one day, they caught her, trapping her alone. She didn't have to tell us what happened, we knew full well. The cold and dead look in her eyes told us everything she didn't want to. We tried to talk to others, but no one would listen.

From then on, we started training on our own, preparing to defend ourselves. Victoria and I were only a about a month apart in age, but about five months younger than Xena. Mandy followed us, being four months younger than me. Marie was a year younger. The twins, Nina and Amara were now thirteen.