Alpha Rhys

Chapter 1

Patience, virtues, obedience, and love. I grew up in a seemingly perfect home with perfect parents. They never fought and our house was always full of laughter. I never saw it coming when my mother left my father. They filed for divorce and she left him alone with me. Not only was I shocked about the split, but I was also sent through a spiral when my mother never kept in contact. It was almost like she was erased from this world.

I've tried to find her after her disappearance, but all I came across with are theories. Because of her sudden mood change, I looked into reasons why she could have changed. There is a company in the Central pack that is researching some serum that can reverse the mate bonding to where someone is completely single. I can't fully understand why they would even want to do something barbaric like that, but it is none of my business. Plus, there would be no way she could have gotten in contact with it. Another theory is with her leaving and not coming up in any news reports or online profiles. She must have been involved in something that doesn't let her travel back to me. There is no way she would leave me alone. I know she couldn't forget her feelings about me too.

My father had changed in a year's time after she left. He had gone from nice to abusive. It only got worse when he remarried a woman who came with two daughters and a son. I had been demoted somehow as his daughter to their servant. I don't understand how my father could have ever loved this retched woman, but somehow, he fell in love with her. I was only six at the time they pretended I wasn't alive and treated me as a maid. My father had told me that I was just as much as a mistake like his previous marriage. He loves his non-biological children more than he seemed to love me when I was younger.

Maliciousness runs through their blood. None of the new family members were nice to me from the beginning. Now sixteen, I had learned their ways and how to survive in the house here. They use me all the time for everything and anything they need. All I can do is accept it since I cannot live on my own and they own me. I've learned that if I act strong, they do everything in their power to tear me down. After a long time of that, I learned to grow stronger, but choose to stay quiet and submissive to avoid any type of disagreement.

I'm fragile and strong. Conflict is a natural poison that runs through me, along with another secret. My stepmother says that the reason they don't like me is because I am cursed. If I was to touch anyone, I would be doomed to serve them. I am bound to the person I touch with skin contact and thus, should never have contact with anyone. They say I'm better off staying with them since they would treat me better than anyone in the outside world, yet I am wary about that comment.

My step mother also said that my mother left because she was tired of me. I last had contact with my dad, which made me bound to serve him and gave my mother a way out. Since I wasn't tied to her at that moment, she decided to use that moment to leave me and my father for good. I can't accept this as the answer to why she left, but I can't argue it otherwise.

My alarm wakes me up abruptly, sending me away from my dreams and into reality. I wake up two hours before anyone else to get ready and lightly clean. When everyone else wakes up, it tells me that it is time to make breakfast. If I make it too late, they get cranky. If I make it too early and it gets even a little cold, they throw it out and force me to make them more.

When I hear them stir, I prepare to start breakfast. This morning, I am lost in my own thoughts that I forget to check the mail. I make sure that the food will not burn on my trip to the mailbox and quickly run outside. Hopefully no one will notice my absence or insolence from forgetting to do this earlier. I open the door, letting the cool air into the warm house, and shut it quickly. The handle opens the small mailbox easily. Taking the envelopes out, I look through them while walking back to the small house.