The Broken Luna's Fated Mate

Chapter 1: Surrendering to Fate

WARNING: This story contains strong language, depictions of bullying, depictions of domestic abuse and childhood trauma, and explicit sexual content that may not be suitable for all readers. Reader discretion is advised.

What does it feel like to be normal?

That's a question I ask myself constantly.

Most eighteen-year-old girls don't dream of working in auto shops getting covered in sweat, grease, and Goddess knows what else. Yet here I am, with a 3,000-pound car hovering over me as I try to keep from ingesting motor oil.

It's all I'm any good for.

But even that seems like a stretch most days.

Still, most girls aren't given a soldering iron as a birthday present at the tender age of five...

"Lila, you'd better get that finished by the end of the day or I'm docking your wages again," I hear my uncle, Buck, snarl from across the room.

It's not like it'll make any difference. I'm not paid to work here as it is. What's a few more hours of backbreaking work?

"I'm on it!" I shout back, wiping the sweat from my brow with my forearm.

I'm going as fast as I can, but it's never enough...

After my parents were killed, my aunt and uncle put me to work pretty much the same day they took me in out of the kindness of their heart. Or so they told me. It didn't feel very kind that they immediately put me to work. They seem to consider my child labor as payment for their "kindness and generosity."

In reality, they're just bitter rogues. They resent being forced by the Alpha council to take me in. As they remind me often, they left for a reason. And I dragged them back in.

They'll never let me forget it, not for one single day.

Every day, they work me to the point of exhaustion, till I feel like I'm going to break—and I have the scars to prove it. I try to tell myself that what doesn't kill me makes me stronger...

But if that's the case...

Why do I always feel so weak?

Needless to say, my childhood has been far from normal.

I just wish that was the only thing about me that defied normality.

The other major thing? I'm a werewolf who can't shift.

And to most other werewolves, that means I'm nothing. No one.

Usually, our wolves are a part of who we are—like our souls, our subconscious—but I'm completely detached from mine.

I have some hazy memories of my wolf, at least I think I do. However, since my parents' death when I was so young, I haven't felt her. Maybe she's in a deep slumber, or maybe she's left me entirely. I don't really know.

But every single day, it always feels like I'm missing a piece of myself. A piece I don't know if I'll ever get it back.

So, yeah. The picture-perfect example of normal, I am not. Most people would call me a fluke, or much worse. But I'm used to it.

At this point I've accepted my fate; I have no other choice.

In werewolf culture, fate is predetermined, destined, divine. There's no fighting your fate. So I might as well just give in to it.

I'm destined to be a wolf-less mechanic under my aunt and uncle's thumb. No more, no less.

Some fate, huh?