The Perfect Rejection

Chapter Four - New

"You ready to tell me what the hell they did to you in that pack?" Alpha Harke asked me for the third day in a row.

"No," I replied and shoved a forkful of eggs into my mouth. I nearly moaned at the taste. It was delicious, but I could only eat a few bites before I was full.

"Roxanne you have to tell me eventually," he urged.

My nose wrinkled. "Fine," I growled, roughly tossing my fork onto my plate. I stood up and put my dishes in the sink before sitting down on the couch.

"Alpha Harke—" I started to say as he sat down beside me but he cut me off.

"Just call me Xavier," he chuckled, a small smile on his lips.

"Sorry, Xavier, look I—" I paused, rubbing my temples with a groan of frustration. "I have no idea how to talk about this. It's a really long story and it doesn't make much sense."

He leaned over to rest his elbows on his knees. "Just start at the beginning Roxanne, I have all the time in the world right now. I just want to know who you are and why you were trying to escape from that pack."

I sighed. "Okay fine, I guess something important you should know first is Alpha Thaddeus used to be our beta, my mother and father were the real luna and alpha of the pack when I was young," I started.

His eyebrows shot up. "He was the beta? No one ever told me that."

"My pack was always very isolated. Nobody really knew much about us so they barely noticed when we put a man with beta blood in the position of alpha," I explained with a shrug.

"Huh okay. So why were your parents replaced?"

"When I was twelve, my pack was attacked by rogues, and my family was captured and tortured," I murmured. I resisted the urge to describe the scenes that I couldn't get out of my head. That was too much for anyone to hear and I couldn't stand the thought of living through it again.

I felt Xavier's hand on my back and leaned towards him instinctively. "They didn't do much to me at first, their focus was mostly on my parents. I just got dirty water and a little bit of food every few days to keep my brother and I alive," I said.

"How long were you there?"

"I think they said it was something like three months? After a while they started torturing me, they got really creative with it too. Nothing was off limits apparently, they took every bit of innocence I had."

I had always thought the first time I told the story I would be a sobbing, broken mess, but all I could feel was muted anger. It was so distant, it felt like I was telling someone else's story rather than my own. I was still furious at them though, they destroyed my soul and set me on a path of pain and suffering for years afterwards. They took my parents from me—they took my brother, my wolf, my home—everything I had worth living for, except my mate. A growl settled in my chest. They ended up taking that too.

Xavier looked like he wanted to respond but said nothing. His jaw was clenched tight and I could see his neck veins bulging.

Uncomfortable with the silence, I continued. "Just before my rescue, they told me to kill my parents. I refused, but then they said they would kill me if I didn't."

"And you gave in?" He asked, very carefully.

There was no accusation in his tone but I knew what he was thinking. I closed my eyes, the tears finally falling as the frustration became overwhelming. "I had no choice, it was an alpha's order!" My throat started to close and I could feel my breath shaking now. "I snapped my father's neck and cut my mother's throat," I sobbed. Tears were streaming down my face fast and pain shot through my body with each shuddering breath.