Alpha's Pet Book 2

EVONY

Opening my eyes was a curse.

Most mornings, I wished to sleep forever. That way, I would never have to eat and, thus, wouldn’t have to feel the pain of hunger; I would never have to hide to avoid my father; and I wouldn’t have to cry because of my misery.

Yet, every morning, no matter my condition, I still woke up.

Sitting up on my bed, I glanced at my window and could see a faint light showing through the cracks, which gave me all the proof I needed that a new day had started.

My stomach started to churn and made itself known. I hadn’t eaten in two days, and Father hadn’t been in the best of moods lately. Taking his anger out on me was a pastime for him.

I wondered why he didn’t just kill me or throw me out like he so desperately wanted to.

I had even heard Beta Jace asking him why he didn’t just get rid of me. My father’s response was that I was useful and was their only leverage against their biggest opposer.

I didn’t understand, but I knew he didn’t care about me; he just wanted me close so I wouldn’t run away.

Crawling out of bed, I changed my clothes, discarding the ones from yesterday. My body was sore from all the beatings, and there were bruises covering my arms and sides.

Slipping on my jacket and boots, I finished getting dressed and peeked outside my bedroom door. The hallway was empty, and I could clearly hear my father shouting at someone in his office upstairs.

Sneaking out of my room, I made my way outside without anyone noticing. There were a few pack members outside going about their daily business, but none of them bothered me.

Heck, I doubted half this pack even knew about my existence.

It was rare for me to go outside because it was dangerous. If my father had happened to catch me, then I’d have been in a load of trouble. But after yesterday’s beating, I needed a break.

Sneaking out into the forest, I made my way to my refuge. It was an old, abandoned witch cabin that no one had used in years, and I kinda doubted my father even knew about it.

Once I got to the cabin, I smiled.

Around this time of the year, the place was covered in blooming flowers and was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, not to mention everyone else had sensitive noses, so people avoided the place like vampires avoided garlic. I was not sure if that was true; it just seemed silly.

While I was running over to the cabin, I saw that the roses were growing strong and there were even vines crawling up the sides of the cabin. Taking a rose with me, I went inside and shut the door behind me.

The place was a bit dusty, but that was only because I couldn’t reach all the shelves to clean them.

I sat down on the old mattress in the back corner and admired the red rose in my hand. It was beautiful, perfect in every way, much different from me.

I smiled sadly while admiring the flower. I wondered if my mother liked roses.

A crash outside made me drop the flower, and my heartbeat sped up. What was that? Was someone here? Carefully, I made my way to the back door and looked outside.

There was a boy around my age, with brown hair, wearing shorts and a T-shirt and trying to replace the gardening tools he had knocked over.

I knew instantly who he was: Ethan, son of Beta Jace. Panic started to take over me. What was he doing here? Did he follow me? Was he going to tell his father I snuck out of the house? Or worse, my father?

He looked up and noticed me watching him. I panicked and slammed the door shut before locking it.

What should I do now?

“Hey, wait! I didn’t mean to scare you!” he called out before knocking at the door.

“Open up and let me in! The smell from all these flowers is making me sick!” he whined.

My mind was racing. What was I supposed to do? If I ignored him, he would go and tell someone about my hiding spot, but if I let him in, he might beat me up for locking the door on him. If I ran, I would have nowhere to go.

Deciding between getting hurt by a teenager or my father felt like a lose-lose situation, but I preferred the boy to my father.

Hesitantly, I mustered up all my courage and opened the door. Ethan stood on the other side of the door, and once it was opened, he looked at me, surprised.

“You actually opened the door…”

I gave him a hard glare, but as soon as I realized what I was doing, I stopped and turned my gaze to the ground in submission.

“Whoa, whoa, what are you doing? Aren’t you Alpha Kade’s daughter? Why are you acting submissive?”

He looked at me like I was crazy, but I barely raised my gaze to look at him.

Wasn’t he mad that I glared at him? Father would usually slap me if I gave him that look. Either way, I needed to make sure he didn’t tell Father. I didn’t want to experience the punishment he would give me for sneaking out.

“I’m sorry; please don’t tell my father I’m out here! Please! I’ll do anything you want,” I begged.

Ethan looked at me, surprised, but after a moment, he had a big smile spread across his face. I gulped as he crossed his arms.

“Anything?”

I nodded my head. “Anything, please…”

Humming to himself, he looked around and then glanced back at the cabin I was standing in front of.

“Can I come in? I wasn’t kidding; the smell of flowers here is seriously driving me crazy.”

Hesitantly, I stepped to the side and let him walk into my favorite spot in the pack.

What was going to happen now? Would he trash the place? Beat me himself? Maybe make me do things that would upset my father even more? I should have thought this through before saying I would do anything.

“Ah, it’s a lot better in here, a little stuffy but not as bad as all those flowers!” He turned to look at me, and I instantly sank into myself, my nervousness quite obvious.

“Hmm, all right, I won’t tell your father on one condition,” he said.

“Please have mercy on me. I have nothing to offer you and can’t do anything extreme.” I held my breath as he watched me fidget with a grin on his face.

“You let me hang out here with you! Sounds good? We could be friends!”

Wait... what? I let go of the breath I was holding and looked at the boy before me. Was he serious?

“Friends?”

“Yeah! This could be like our own little secret hiding spot! Like a clubhouse! No one will know where we are, and all those flowers will make the grown-ups stay away! What do ya think?

“We can even fix this place up and bring pillows and blankets to have sleepovers! I mean if that’s cool with you... this is your spot.”

I was baffled and couldn’t understand him. He wanted to be friends with someone like me? He wanted to hang out, play, and have sleepovers... with me?

“It’s okay if you don’t want to... It’s kinda silly, so—”

He stopped talking as I hugged him, hiding my face in his shirt and letting some of my tears fall.

“Yes, I want that.” It felt like a dream come true. I would actually get to have a friend of my own.

He seemed surprised by my reaction and simply patted my head. “Let’s do that then.”

For the rest of the day, we spent our time talking and learning about each other.

He told me he always enjoyed watching his father help the alpha with daily duties such as patrols, peacekeeping, and more, and his dream was to become the best beta in the nation.

I listened happily to his aspirations and dreams. Despite his young age, his father was willing to teach him how things worked, whereas my father preferred to lock me in my room for days or hurt me.

When he asked what I did in my spare time and why he rarely ever saw me, I simply told him I was busy with my father.

I didn’t want Ethan to know about everything that I was subjected to. He probably would get upset and ask his father to do something in turn.

Both of us would get into trouble, and he might blame me for it. I didn’t want that.

Time seemed to fly by as we talked about all the things we could do in our hideout, such as make what he called forts out of blankets and pillows, have sleepovers, and so on.

By the time we realized how long we were out there, it was nighttime.

One minute we were laughing and having fun, and the next the front door was busted down by none other than Beta Jace. When I saw how angry he looked, I knew I was in trouble.

Grabbing both of us by our arms, he dragged us out of the cabin and back to the pack house, back to my father.

I was overcome with so much fear and wanted to cry from how scared I was. My father wasn’t going to be happy.

While I was too preoccupied thinking of what would happen, Ethan was angrily trying to get his father to let us go and to understand that we were sorry for being out so late.

By the time we got back to the pack house, my father was standing outside with his arms crossed and an angry look in his eyes.

Beta Jace practically threw me out in front of him, and I fell to my knees. Ethan was watching with his father, confused by the anger coming from them both.

He wasn’t used to seeing them like this. But I was, and I knew exactly what would happen. A small whimper escaped my lips just from thinking about it.

A hard smack to the side of my face had me flying to the ground, with my head snapped to the side as my father yelled at me.

“Quiet! If you think that you’re allowed to just freely leave this estate, then you’re gravely mistaken. Why were you out there? Trying to escape?”

Before I could even sit up, a hard kick to my stomach had me gasping for air and crying out in pain. I lay there on the ground, curled up in pain. Why did it always end up like this?

“You’re pathetic. Stop it!” Ethan pulled himself away from his father, who gave him a disapproving glare, which he gladly returned before shouting at him. “Why aren’t you doing anything?”

His father stared at him angrily, and Ethan seemed to have a hard time believing his father was so heartless.

“Take your boy home while I deal with this one.” Kade grabbed me by the hair, lifting me up and causing a great amount of pain to my head.

I screamed, and Ethan watched, horrified, before growling and shifting into his wolf form. He ran over to bite Kade’s hand, which made him drop me.

“Ahg! Stupid pup! Get out of my way!”

Ethan snarled in response as I watched, stunned.

Kade growled back. Being the alpha, he knew all he had to do was use his authority to make Ethan back down or even command his beta to take care of his son. But as the cruel man he was, instead he shifted and attacked Ethan.

I watched, horrified, and he bit Ethan, grabbing him by the face with his massive jaw before flinging him away.

Ethan yelped and curled up on the ground a small distance away, with his face now bleeding profusely, especially on his snout.

He would permanently lose his sense of smell after today. His father merely watched as Kade warned Ethan to never interfere.

In response, Ethan merely whimpered, cowering away from the bloodthirsty alpha.

My father shifted back to his human form before grabbing me by the arm and half dragging me back inside.

I glanced back at the boy who had tried to help me. Pain stabbed my chest because he was hurt, but I was still glad, glad that he was willing to help me and glad he got away with such a minor injury.

Ethan was truly my only friend.