Two Hearts, One Soul
Autor
Teresa Knapp
Lecturas
1,1M
Capítulos
27
Chapter 1: Sam runs away from home
Samantha “Sam” Leilani Madison had been born the daughter of Red Moon pack’s Beta but her father and the pack’s Alpha had been killed when she was just 12 years old. Her Uncle Louis, known as Lou, was her father’s younger half brother and he had framed her mother, Angelia who was called Angie, for their deaths.
Uncle Lou had always been jealous of his older brother and felt he deserved more since his mother was alive and Rafe’s had died when he was just a pup. Uncle Lou set her father up by claiming that her mother had been unfaithful to her father with a rogue and had led them to an ambush. It wasn’t true but her Uncle had convinced the Alpha’s younger brother to believe it to be true and together they had convinced the Alpha and his Beta that it was true.
In support of his Beta Rafe, Alpha Raymond had gone with him to confront Angie and her non-existent rogue lover but when they arrived, Angie was nowhere to be seen or smelled but there were over 50 rogues waiting in ambush. The surprise attack had overpowered the two lone wolves and they were killed.
When Angie had arrived home from dropping Sam off at school and running errands for Lou’s mother, Angie had been arrested and locked away in the cells, where she had been repeatedly beaten and then left to starve to death. Sam had tried to sneak her food and water a couple of times but had been caught and beaten severely for her efforts.
Her Uncle’s mate, her Aunt Mae, had convinced him that Sam was just an innocent child and his brother’s daughter and she was not to blame for what had happened. Even though Mae secretly knew that Sam’s mother was not guilty, Mae was afraid of what he would do to her if she confronted him and tried to save Angie too.
Her Uncle Lou had finally agreed to let Mae feed Sam one meal a day at first but Sam had gotten caught stealing food to slip to her mother and he had stopped her meals. She’d not been allowed to go back to her house and at first she had been allowed to sleep in the corner of the maid quarters but Ester, a slut that worked in the kitchen, didn’t like her and accused her of stealing. Sam had been beaten and after that Uncle Lou would only allow her to sleep in a small closet in their wash room and she had only been allowed that because Aunt Mae had pleaded for her.
It didn’t stop him from beating her when she made a mistake or got caught stealing food but at least she could lock her door to keep unwanted, un-mated males from getting to her. What had hurt the most was that she wasn’t allowed to go back to her house for any of her clothes or personal belongings and she wasn’t allowed to go school anymore.
As Sam was old enough to do chores, at first she was put to work in the kitchens, washing dishes and cleaning up after the cook and her helpers. She had watched and Cook had even allowed her to help sometimes so she had learned to cook but was never allowed to eat anything she had helped to make. When she got caught eating a piece of leftover meat from someone’s plate, she had been beaten and her time in the kitchen ended.
After that, she was put to work as a maid for the pack house. It had been her job to make sure the laundry was done and that there were clean sheets every day. The Alpha demanded that all the used beds in the house were to have the sheets changed daily.
Once, Sam had been caught sleeping on the dirty laundry and had been severely beaten for it. She was only allowed to have cast off clothes, with no pockets so that she couldn’t steal and was only allowed to eat the scraps from the table for food, but sometimes after everyone went to bed, she would sneak food from the pantry or refrigerator. Sometimes Cook Betty would take pity on her and slip her food but since there were usually other people around, that was rare. At first Sam was always hungry but as the years passed, her stomach shrunk and now she required very little food to survive, however she wasn’t as strong as she should have been and it took a toll on her body, stopping her growth at 5’2”.
When she had shifted for the first time, she had been alone and terrified. It’d hurt so much! She had been 15 and had gone through so much that year. She had started her period several months before that and had been so terrified of being raped by any of the un-mated males in the pack that she had stayed hidden in the laundry room for the entire four days it lasted. She had to steal her cycle supplies from the bathrooms of the rooms she cleaned that had women in them until her Aunt Mae had realized it and then would sneak her supplies after that.
Thankfully there was a small wet room on one side where she could at least use the toilet and take a shower and she did her level best to keep the smell of her cycle down to a minimum. She had made sure that all of the un-mated males were out on the training field or guard duty before she would come out of the laundry room to do her chores.
She always tried to make herself as small as possible, which wasn’t terribly hard for her 5’2” human side because she was painfully thin and her dark hair and complexion made it easier to hide in the shadows.
After her sixteen birthday she started to blossom into a woman and she quickly developed breasts. Within a year she had gone from being almost flat chested to a full B cup, as far as she could guess, and knew that unless she was very careful, someone was going to take notice and then she would be ruined. She would use old worn out t-shirts, ripped into strips to wrap her breast to keep them from flopping around and tried to flatten herself as much as possible.
She prayed daily to be able to save herself for her mate and that he would rescue her soon. That hope was unlikely to happen since she was never allowed to be out of her closet when there were male guests in the house. They were never to see or hear her but then Lou didn’t allow many male guests to begin with.
It was not unheard of for her Uncle to allow the un-mated males to bring in breeders. They were not really there to produce babies but to pleasure anyone who wanted to get their rocks off. Some of the girls his son and friends brought to the house were willing participants, but most were not.
She often found them tied to the beds when she went in to deliver the clean sheets and put fresh towels in the bathrooms. She was not allowed to speak to them or to have anything to do with them but it had always torn her up to see them often beaten and bleeding and begging for help. It was the only time she was not required to enter the rooms but would just leave the linens by the door to be changed later by one of the other maids.
Sam had dreamed of running for a long time but had been so terrified of being caught that she had never tried. She knew that they would be able to easily outrun her since she was so weak from lack of food and almost no exercise except for doing her job. But that was until she had overheard something one night that had terrified her even more.
She hadn’t been able to identify who was talking at first but then realized it was her cousin, Ralph and a couple of the other un-mated males. She had been by the back door refilling the box of shorts that were kept by the door for when pack members shifted back to their human forms and had no clothes to put on before entering the house. Their voices had carried from the patio to where she was hiding behind the trash cans.
“Damn we should have gone and gotten some bitches tonight. I’m horny.” One of them said.
“What about your cousin? She must be of age now, right?” One of them asked.
“The laundry maid?” Ralph asked. “Yeah, she’ll be 18 soon. But have you ever seen her? She’s skinny as a rail. Her hair is always a mess. Got no ass to speak of but she has been filling out up top a bit.” Ralph had laughed. “I’d have to wear a blind fold and be shitfaced drunk to fuck that! Me, I like a woman with a big ass that I can hang on to while I fuck her for all she’s worth.”
“Who cares what she looks like? She’s got a pussy, right?” The first one asked and they all laughed.
Sam had been so scared that she had run back to her laundry room and locked the door. She had stayed up almost all night trying to think of a way she could get out of there. She realized that she knew when everyone was occupied in the house and even where the training fields were. What she didn’t know was her way around the pack property outside of the cleared land.
She had never been allowed to run in the woods but knew there were guards that patrolled the borders, day and night. She had also heard that the pack had recently been having a lot of trouble with rogues lately. It would be just her luck to make it off of pack lands to run into a rogue.
Then it finally occurred to her that the kitchen always received a grocery delivery on Friday’s. The truck always pulled up close to the backdoor. If she could just hide in the back of that truck until she could get off of pack lands she might have a chance to get away from there. The next day was Friday and she decided that if she was going to get away, tomorrow would be her best chance.
That night she took a good shower and put on the best clothes she had. She didn’t have a bra but would bind herself so that she didn’t flop around. Thankfully, she had some old sneakers that she had to keep taped with duct tape to hold them together but at least they would protect her feet somewhat.
She experimented tying a pair of shorts and a t-shirt to her leg with a torn up t-shirt that she would be able to use as a makeshift bra. Then she tried shifting. Thankfully it worked. If she had to shift without being able to remove the clothes she had on, at least she would have something to wear when she shifted back.
The next day, she was a nervous wreck waiting for the grocery truck to show up. She folded all of the clean laundry that she had done last night to make sure that everything was ready for the maids the next day. Hopefully it would keep anyone from missing her presence for at least most of the day. No one would really notice she was gone until the maids brought down the dirty linens to be washed and that wouldn’t be until well after lunch.
The man that usually brought the groceries was an older gentleman who had barely ever paid her any attention but when he had noticed her, he had always had a friendly smile and was courteous.
When he finally pulled in around 10 am, Sam had so many butterflies in her stomach that she was almost sick. As usual, she had held the door for him as he unloaded and carried things into the house and heard him tell the cook, “Last load. Sign here please.”
Sam had let the back door close quietly behind her, and with a quick look around to make sure no one would see her, she ran for the back of his truck. She quickly climbed inside and hid behind some crates of apples and bananas near the cab of the covered truck, praying that he would not close the roll up door and she would be able to escape without him hearing her. She didn’t wish to bring him trouble but he was her only means of escape.
After what seemed like an eternity, the man came out and thankfully did not close the door as he crawled back inside the cab. He started the truck and smoothly pulled out. Sam let the breath she had been holding out in a soft whoosh. Her heart was pounding as she tried to peek around the boxes to see the pack house growing smaller and smaller as they drove away.
Her heart leapt into her throat when she felt the truck slow down and then realized he was just waiting for the front gates to be opened so that he could leave. He didn’t even have to come to a full stop and after a few seconds, she felt the truck accelerate again, heard him call out “thanks” to the guard and then she saw the gates closing behind them.
It wasn’t long after that that she felt the truck begin to slow down again and thought he was going to stop to deliver the last of his goods that were left on the truck. “What do I do now? If I stay in here, he’s going to catch me and will probably take me back. If he does, there’s no telling what Uncle Lou will do to me.” Sam thought as she nibbled on a small scar she had on the inside of her lower lip. It was a habit she had when she was worried or thinking about something.
Thinking fast, she grabbed an apple and a loose banana and inched her way to the back of the truck. She knew jumping while the truck was moving would be too dangerous so she waited until he stopped completely then jumped out of the truck, landing easily on her feet, then she took off running. Apparently he had just stopped for gas and was parking at a gas pump.
Unfortunately, one of the guards from the pack was coming out of the small convenience store, after paying for his purchase, and saw her jump out of the truck and run away. At first he almost didn’t recognize her but then her scent hit him on the breeze and he took off after her. Unfortunately for him, she had a good head start on him and he was carrying bags with several liter bottles of cola and a 12 pack of beer which slowed him down.
He decided to go back to his car and call the pack house. Beta Lou answered the phone and he quickly filled him in on what he had seen and where he was. “I’m at the gas station about 2 miles outside of our territory. She was in the back of the grocery truck. She jumped out and just started running. She’s headed away from pack lands. She’s on foot and running through the woods. I’ve got my car and can’t follow her but I can try to intercept her.”
“Do that and I’ll send a tracker and a couple of guards to follow her, just in case.” Lou said. He knew exactly where the guard was talking about. It was just outside of the pack lands at a station they all used frequently. He used his cell to call his son, Ralph and told him where to go and who to take with him. “Hurry up and get going now! Stupid girl is going to get herself killed or she’ll do something stupid and get us discovered. I don’t care what condition you bring her back in, just get her back here. I’ll deal with her then. She’s just like her damned mother!” Lou said, then hung up his phone with an evil grin.
His son, Ralph had just mentioned turning Sam into a breeder and after this stunt he just might do that. Hell, if she turned out to be any good in the sack, he just might take a turn himself. His wife, Mae, had been sleeping in a different room from him for over a year now and he had to find different entertainment in the bedroom.
Mae had been an arranged mate. His father and hers had had an agreement and Mae had basically been traded to their pack in exchange for help for her pack to end some trouble they had been having with rogues. When she was younger Mae had been beautiful, fun and willing but after their daughter had left home a little over a year ago, she decided to start sleeping in her room.
He barely had feelings for her beyond a physical desire but he had lost any love he had for her when she had grown cold and distant and refused his advances. He would never admit it but he had rarely been "nice" to her, using her body as he wanted and if she didn't get satisfaction from it, well that was her problem, not his. It was becoming a real test of his endurance to stay away when the un-mated females came into heat during the full moon. He always tried to be out of town on business during those times but it was becoming harder and harder to refuse himself the pleasures of the flesh and cold showers weren’t working anymore.
Sam had seen the guard start chasing her and had been surprised when he had given up so easily but she was so scared that she had kept on running. About an hour later, she stopped to catch her breath at the side of a stream, where she got a drink of water. Her senses were on full alert and as soon as she was sure she was no longer being chased by the guard, she decided to enjoy the apple and banana she had stolen off of the grocery truck. They were both delicious. It had been a long time since she’d had fresh fruit that wasn’t over ripe. She hadn’t had anything to eat yet today and it was already well past noon.
She had just finished getting another drink of water when she heard something. She lifted her head and inhaled, her ears twitched as she moved her head trying to figure out what it was and which direction it was coming from. Suddenly she smelled Ralph and his friends. Thankfully she was behind a large bush and they had not seen her and the wind was in her favor. She heard their voices as they jogged in her direction. They were following her footprints in the dirt and the tracker was in wolf form with his nose to the ground.
She hated to give up the clothes she had on but hearing them getting closer made her so scared that she just shifted and jumped into the creek. She let it carry her downstream for about a hundred yards or so. When she saw a place that was covered in grass that came right up almost level with the water, she quickly scrambled out and took off running. She burst through the trees on the other side and found herself in a big field almost completely covered in variegated periwinkle. “Great! This will cover my scent!”
She jumped as far as she could several times until she was nearly in the middle of the field and then lay down and rubbed her body in a particularly thick patch of it. She rolled around and around, rubbing it into her wet fur, making sure she was completely covered in it. It would have been fun except she was terrified that the tracker was going to figure out what she had done and they would find where she had come out of the water.
Just to be sure she was completely covering her scent, she shifted and rolled around in her human form as well then shifted back. Her wolf senses would work better and she could run faster as a wolf. She laid low for several minutes as she scanned the treeline with her eyes, her ears twitching in every direction, watching and listening intently for any sight or sound of them and when she was fairly confident that all was clear, she stood up and took off running again.
When she left the field, she couldn’t believe her luck when she found another section of paved road. She was planning on sticking to paved roads as much as possible since she could read the road signs to tell her where she was. She was just about to step out of the treeline when she heard a car coming slowly down the road. She hid behind a bush that was growing between two trees and watched as he passed. It was the guard from the convenience store!
She saw him carefully scanning the tree line for any sight or scent of her. She watched him slowly move down the road. She lay on her belly as flat as she could and stayed hidden there until he was well out of sight and she felt fairly safe to leave the cover of the trees. She ran down the road in the same direction he had gone for about half a mile before she cut back into the trees on the other side of the road.
She continued running, staying in the woods as much as possible and being very careful to make sure it was clear and to stay low when she had to be out in the open. She prayed she was going in the right direction. The sun had been high in the sky when she had left but now that it was getting later in the day, she focused on keeping it to her back.
Every little sound and movement had her heart racing faster than her feet as she ran until she thought she would drop. She passed close to a farm that had some apple trees and she picked one up from the ground in her mouth and ran back to the cover of the corn field to eat it before she continued on. She had burned through the apple and banana she had eaten earlier a couple of hours ago and the extra energy she was having to expend was making her feel weak and hungry again.
As it began to get dark, the temperature started to go down and she was beginning to feel weak. The muscles in her legs were beginning to cramp and she was so tired. She just needed to rest for a little while and then she would move on. She hadn’t slept hardly at all last night and had worked hard all day yesterday and it was catching up to her.
Sam had been running all day and she was tired. When she came to what she thought was an old abandoned barn, she hoped she had found a dry, safe place to hide at least long enough to get a couple of hours sleep and hopefully something to drink. She lay in the tall grass and looked around to make sure that there was no one around. She could see the faint light of a farmhouse in the distance but she didn’t see anyone moving around.
She crept slowly forward, her nose in the air, sniffing for the presence of any human or animals that might alert someone to her presence. She saw an old fashioned water pump by the entrance and prayed it still worked. She was hungry as well but doubted if she would find anything to eat in there. Right now she was more worried about water and a safe place to rest for a while. Sam was pretty sure she had given her abusive uncle and his henchmen the slip at the periwinkle field and it gave her hope that she might actually make it and could finally be free!
Sam’s mom had told her that she had come from a pack about a hundred miles east of the Red Moon packs land in a place that had the word Lake in the name but realistically she had no real idea where she was headed. She just knew she couldn’t take anymore abuse and mistreatment from her uncle and his cruel pack.
She cautiously approached the barn and stuck her head around the edge of the door that had not been closed properly. It seemed to be stuck in the dirt and grass that had grown up around the base. She sniffed deeply to make sure there was nothing and no one inside. She pushed her way in and looked around at the dark interior. Her wolf vision really helped in the dark. She could see some kind of dark hulking equipment parked in the middle of the floor and guessed it was some kind of machine used on the farm.
Once she was sure that she would be able to get at least a couple of hours sleep in there, she shifted and went back outside to the water pump. Thankfully it still worked and she pumped the handle until the water ran clear then used her hands to catch enough to satisfy her thirst.
Thankfully it wasn’t winter time yet and the summer’s warmth had not yet left even though the slight wind that blew through her long locks of dark brown hair made her realize that she should probably sleep in her wolf form for warmth. The shorts and t-shirt she had tied to her leg earlier had gotten soaked when she had run through the creek and she should let them dry before putting them on. She returned to the shelter of the barn interior and looked around for a place to hang her wet clothes and then for a place to lay down.
Unfortunately this was a hay farm and there wasn’t anything that she could see that she could eat growing in the fields but she found an old blanket that smelled like an animal she couldn’t identify hanging over a half wall on one side of the barn. There were four large boxy rooms on each side of the barn where the walls only went about half way up on the fronts.
There were some thin leather straps that hung from nails on one post that reminded her of the straps that Lou used to beat her with so she moved away from them and noticed a ladder that ran up to a loft above the rooms. She considered climbing up there to hide but realized that if someone came in, she would be trapped up there. One of the rooms had some hay pushed into one corner that didn’t smell revolting so she grabbed the old blanket and pulled it around herself then shifted before she laid down on the hay and lay her head on her front paws.
She was so tired and even though her stomach rumbled from hunger, it wasn’t the first time she’d had to go to sleep hungry. She lay thinking about what she was leaving behind and couldn’t be happier but she was still scared that they might find her. Her uncle was ruthless and his trackers were first rate.
She lay thinking about her life, what it had been and what might now be possible. She used to hear the women who worked in the kitchen talk about finding their mates and Sam wondered if she would ever find hers. She was going to be 18 soon and knew she would never find him in her pack. She knew all of the un-mated males if not on sight then by smell. Most of them were either cruel to her or smelled nasty. She had been dreaming about this day for 6 long years and it felt good to be free at last. She soon fell into an uneasy rest.
