Hybrid Trials Bonus Chapter
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Jen Cooper
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1: The Hybrid Trials Bonus Scene: Ten Years Old
MACKENZIE
🚨WARNING🚨 The chapter you're about to read contains spoilers for The Hybrid Trials. If you haven't read the book yet, STOP and come back to this chapter once you have. Happy reading!
Ten Years Old
The rain poured over me, my body shaking as I held my knees to my chest.
I curled into myself in the old cabin. It had been abandoned before my parents had brought me here.
But they were gone.
My eyes drifted to their lifeless bodies, their blood pooled around them. They didn’t look like they used to.
They didn’t smile, they didn’t hold me while I cried. They just laid there, giant slashes across their stomachs, necks, and faces.
The windows of the cabin were shattered, glass decorating their bodies as the wind and rain thrashed around the dark night outside.
The curtains blew inside, whipping against the soggy wood, but I didn’t move.
I was freezing, hiding under the floorboards, in the cubby Dad had built. He told me to go in there and not come out until he said.
He couldn’t say anything now.
I cried harder, the tears tracking down my cheeks in big globs before pattering against the packed dirt beneath my bare feet.
I had been here for hours, cramped and freezing. But I didn’t want to leave. What if the wolves came back?
They were looking for me. They had said they were. But they didn’t call me by my name. I was the “stupid bitch” or the “little fucking hybrid.”
Better than being a murderer.
There had been five of them, tearing my parents apart while I hid.
My mother had turned to me, shaking her head, holding her finger to her lips, telling me to stay hidden, to stay quiet. All while she died, choking on her own blood.
Because of me.
I had heard the wolves. They were angry I existed. I was angry at them too. They had hurt the only people who had ever loved me. Taken them from me.
I would get back at them though, I knew that with every shivering bone in my body. I was not hiding because I was weak, I was hiding so I could avenge my parents.
I waited in the cubby another day before a man turned up to deliver some weapons my parents had ordered.
A bow and arrow. A smaller one for me to practice with. Two matching daggers to fit in my small boots. And three guns.
The man, a weapons dealer my parents had worked with for years, taught me how to use them. Then he said he was taking me to my pack.
I had trusted him. Barker had earned it by teaching me what I needed to learn, helping me bury my parents, and offering me a place to go.
So when he had said the pack would take me in, that they weren’t like the wolves that had killed my parents, I had believed him.
That was the first time I had learned not to trust anyone.
He took me to the Storm Blood Pack, Alpha Cerberus and his trusted flanks meeting us outside the grand lodge that they lived in. It was grander than anywhere I had ever lived.
Excitement bubbled through the fear and trauma that had plagued me for days.
“Cerberus. I have someone for you,” Barker said, pushing me forward.
I looked at the huge man with the long braid. He had lots of braids. Dad had said to stay away from wolves with those.
But Cerberus smiled.
“And who is this?” he asked, his vest open so I could see every muscle that made up his torso.
He was the largest man I had ever seen.
“Your hybrid,” Barker grinned.
A warning tingle rolled down my spine and I frowned, looking up at Barker. He had always called me Mackenzie. Or Murlow. Never hybrid. The warning bells went off in my head.
Cerberus raised a brow and looked over me, a frown forming. “She survived my wolves?”
I frowned harder. His wolves? Had he been behind the attack on my parents?
I trembled and stepped back, my fingers tracing the dagger in my sleeve.
Barker nodded, telling the story of how he found me, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I was being watched.
My eyes snapped to the doorway, clashing with a set of bright blue ones peering out of the shadows. A boy was frowning at me.
He looked like a smaller version of the big man. And he smelled strong, the Alpha scent my mom had taught me about filling the air around me.
He smiled at me, a tiny one that lifted the corners of his mouth. I smiled back, waving a little.
He seemed friendly, not like his dad.
Cerberus growled and eyed me. I tensed and looked back at him, my fingers brushing my hidden dagger again. If he did kill my parents, I wasn’t going to let him get to me.
He looked over his shoulder at the boy peering out of the door. “Ryken. Come here,” Cerberus ordered.
Ryken came out, striding forward in jeans and a white shirt. He had longer hair than me and was so clean.
I was not.
I looked down at my dirty clothes that were still stained with my parent’s blood and grimaced. He probably thought I was a rogue. Technically, I was.
“Yes, Father?”
“It seems we have a guest. Would you escort Miss Mackenzie Murlow to her room? We must decide whether to keep her or not.” Cerberus smiled at me but it didn’t feel warm like my parent’s smiles.
“Decide?” I asked.
Cerberus nodded. “I cannot allow you in the pack without consulting the others. But stay, get comfortable, and we will discuss your future with us. You are our blood, after all.” He patted my head and pushed me towards Ryken.
Then he strode off with Barker.
I twisted my fingers in my hands and looked up at their lodge. It was beautiful. Wood and stone meeting glass over a glistening lake. It seemed peaceful, homey.
The thought of living there with other wolves, my blood family, made me smile. I hadn’t smiled in days, not since my parents. I still couldn’t sleep and anger still lived fiercely in my heart.
But what if being with the wolves could change that?
“You smell weird,” Ryken grimaced, leading me inside.
I shrugged. “I’m a hybrid.”
Mom and Dad had said wolves would find my smell weird, so I wasn’t offended. Barker had said the same thing, but I was pretty sure that had been the smell of death.
Ryken’s eyes went wide. “Really? We’ve never had one of you here before. Father says—” He stopped himself, frowning before looking over his shoulder towards a huge room.
He nodded towards it. “C’mon, I was about to go ask Patsy for some ice cream. Do you want some?”
I had never had ice cream before, but I’d heard of it. I didn’t want to show how little I knew outside of the bare necessities, so I nodded.
“Sure, thank you.”
Ryken grinned and led me through a giant room with an angled seating area that faced a flat screen. A fireplace on a large stone wall was in the middle of the room.
There was a long bar with stools and some tables to the side. It all faced a wall of windows that looked out on the lake.
And it was so clean.
I looked back down at my clothes. I really should’ve changed.
Ryken went to lead me through to the kitchen behind the bar when the door swung open and another boy with long blonde hair ran out. His hair was shaggy and unkept, which matched his baggy shorts.
He had a wide grin as he barreled past holding a tub of ice cream.
“Got it!” he laughed, pausing when he saw me. Then he looked at the ice cream. Then at Ryken.
He sighed and handed the tub over. “You look like you need this more than I do,” he huffed just as an older woman with fraying gray hair and wrinkles popped her head out of the door waving a spatula like a weapon.
“I will gut you, Viking! Stay out of my damn kitchen, you horrid boy!” she snarled, then glared at me holding the tub.
She pointed her spatula at me. “You don’t belong here, filth. Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of before the pack finds out what the wind blew in.” She came over and snatched the ice cream back, then stormed back into the kitchen.
My eyes wide, I turned to Ryken, but he just shook his head.
“Ignore Patsy. Her mate died, and she’s gone a little crazy since.”
“Mate?” I asked, frowning. Ryken looked at Viking, who shrugged.
“I’m not talking birds and bees with her. She looks too innocent for kissing, let alone soul mates,” Viking said. Ryken grimaced and shook his head.
“Let’s forget the ice cream for now. I’ll take you to a room so you can get bathed and changed. Then I can take you to the tree house.”
I nodded, figuring it was best not to argue after the whole Patsy thing.
“My parents were soulmates,” I said as we walked. Viking followed, trudging behind. He was as big as Ryken, which was intimidating.
I made sure my daggers were still there and followed anyway.
“We know. Your parents are kind of famous.”
I raised a brow. That was news to me. Weren’t famous people super rich? We were not. I had nothing after my parents died except soul-crushing nightmares.
“Not in a good way though,” Viking said. At least he was honest.
“I guessed that. We moved a lot,” I said.
I had figured out we were on the run a few years ago. Someone had asked me where we lived while we were at the supermarket. That night we had packed up and left, only just making it out before we were broken into.
I had gotten my claws and fangs that night. I had been excited, but my parents had been nervous. And sad. My mom had cried that night when she thought I couldn’t hear her.
I had figured out that they were hoping I would be a full wolf. Not being one had made everything worse because my scent was so traceable.
Ryken led me up some wide wooden stairs and down a hall before stopping. He pointed to a door.
“You can stay here. My room is next door. Viking is next to me. There should be some clean clothes in there if you want to use them,” he said.
I nodded. “Thank you.” I went into the room.
It was the biggest room I had ever stayed in. Bigger than most of the places we hid in.
I dumped my backpack on the bed and checked that my weapons were still there. Satisfied that they were, I checked the room over like my parents had taught me.
Once I was sure that no one was waiting to kill me or hurt me, I went to the bathroom. I took a shower and then changed into my own clothes from my backpack.
A new pair of jeans and a white jumper. I put my boots back on and tucked my dagger back into one boot, a gun in the other. Then I put the other dagger under my pillow. I kept the other guns and my tiny amount of belongings in the bag and went to find Ryken.
He was leaning against the opposite wall, glaring at Viking, who was grinning.
“Everything okay?” I asked, picking up on the tension.
“Fine,” Ryken said quickly, then stood up. “Viking was just going to get some food to take to the treehouse.”
Viking laughed loudly and I jumped, my fingers twitching for my dagger, but then he sobered and left us alone. Ryken was watching me, so I plastered on a smile.
“The treehouse?” I asked.
He nodded, grinning as he led me back down the stairs. We went out the sliding door onto the deck that came off the huge sitting room, then he ran. I chased him to keep up, climbing over a wooden fence with him.
We had just climbed over when a girl joined us. She put her arm through Ryken’s as we walked through the knee-high dry grass toward the edge of a forest.
“Dana, hey,” Ryken said.
“Hey Rykie. Whatcha doing?” She eyed me with what I was sure was a glare. Not that I had done anything to deserve it.
“Taking Mackenzie to the treehouse. What are you doing out here? I thought you were meant to be in class?”
She shrugged. “All the adults were called to an emergency pack meeting, so I came to find you.”
“Oh. Well, this is Mackenzie. Kenzie, meet Dana.”
I waved and smiled.
Dana huffed. “You’re what everyone is talking about. They say you don’t belong here,” she said in a nasty tone.
I shrugged. I didn’t want to get into an argument and she sounded like she wanted one. I didn’t belong here, she was right. I belonged with my parents, but they were dead, so I was trying to find a family to take me in.
Whether that was the Storm Blood Pack or not, I was still unsure.
I felt like I was meant to be there. With Ryken and Viking, I was strangely comfortable. Dana didn’t make me feel that though. Neither did Cerberus. Or Patsy.
I swallowed the grief that choked my throat and clenched my chest. I didn’t belong anywhere anymore.
Ryken pulled his arm free. “I need some more blankets and pillows for the treehouse. Go get them, Dana.”
Dana scoffed. “Why can’t you get them?”
“Go. Get. Them.” Ryken used a deeper voice, one that made my entire body tingle. I wasn’t sure what that feeling was, but it made me want to listen. To get closer to it.
Dana growled low in her chest, then looked at me. “This won’t go well for you, hybrid.” She said it with a snarl, but she was much less scary than the wolves I had seen.
I didn’t respond. I wasn’t about to pick a fight. I could win, my parents had made sure of that, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay. If that meant shutting up and taking what I could get, I would.
She stormed off.
Ryken sighed but didn’t say anything. He stopped at a tree and grabbed the rope ladder dangling down from it, handing it to me.
I grabbed it from him, looking up at the entrance to the treehouse. It was huge and had fairy lights lining the inside.
I smiled, excited to go up, when Ryken’s hand brushed mine.
His touch was electric, tingling all through me like his voice had. My eyes snapped to his. His bright blue eyes were wide, his hand frozen against mine on the rope ladder.
I wanted to say something but I didn’t know what. His touch was different. I looked down at his hand on mine.
It was so warm. So comforting. Like every hurt in my heart was healed. Like every bit of anger was folding in on itself. I wasn’t scared or resentful. I knew everything would be okay in that moment.
It was surreal, and I was just beginning to wonder whether I had imagined it when Ryken’s lips found mine.
His lips were soft and I touched more of his arm.
I had never been kissed before but if this was what it was like every time, I could see why adults did it.
He slid his hand to my face and pressed his lips against mine harder.
I kissed him back.
When he pulled back, something had changed. His eyes were red with veins of blue in them. And they were so wide.
He held me against him and I reached up to touch my lips, meeting his eyes.
“That was my first kiss,” I whispered.
He smiled. “Good. I want to be your every kiss.”
I beamed up at him, my heart swelling with something warm deep inside. “I want more,” I whispered.
He grinned. “I know. You’ll always want more. That’s how mates work.”
My eyes went wide at that. “Mates?”
He nodded. “I can feel it. We’re mates.”
“I think I feel it too.”
And then we went into the treehouse. We kissed for hours. We laughed. We talked. He made me feel better than I had in forever. Like I belonged. Like he would never let me go.
He promised so many things.
I saw no one else for the rest of the day and when we went to bed, I was sure life had given me a second chance.
That night, when I had nightmares, he was there, holding me. His big body around mine, keeping me warm, whispering to me.
“I’ve got you, Kenzie. I’ll always protect you. The monsters won’t get to you, I promise,” he said and I curled into him, my tears drying on his chest as we fell asleep.
The next day, he wasn’t there when I woke, so I showered and dressed, then went to find him, taking my backpack with me.
The big lodge was silent when I found Ryken standing next to his father in the sitting room.
It was filled. The entire pack was there, waiting.
I paused in the doorway, the hair on the back of my neck standing up.
Cerberus was grinning in that way that made me nervous, but it was Ryken that made me swallow deeply.
He was different. All the warmth and words that we’d shared over the last 24 hours were gone. Instead, he glared and held the same smirk his father wore.
“Uh, hi,” I stammered, staying in the doorway.
“Mackenzie.” Cerberus’s voice was no longer friendly.
I knew then what was happening.
I was losing my family all over again. They weren’t keeping me. Despite everything Ryken had promised.
I didn’t understand mates but I thought they were an unbreakable bond. At least that’s what my parents had made it seem like.
But I had been a naive kid.
Because clearly, Ryken and I were nothing. The Storm Pack blood that ran through my veins meant nothing.
I cleared my throat of the emotion trying to take my voice. “Yes?” I asked.
“We’ve made our decision and we cannot offer you a place with us. You are a hybrid. You cannot shift. And frankly,” he grinned evilly, “you are not one of us. An abomination born of an illegal pairing. You should never have been born and we cannot condone those that chose to ignore that.”
I held my head high, acting like each word wasn’t a knife in my heart. Instead of crying like I so badly wanted to do, I put walls up.
Giant steel walls. Layers upon layers of security so that by the time he was done with his speech, I could face the pack rejecting me without breaking.
“I have nowhere to go. No one else. The humans don’t trust us much yet. What am I meant to do?” I demanded, my anger making my fists shake at my sides.
Cerberus shrugged. “I don’t care. But I suggest you figure it out, far away from here. And do so quickly.”
His threat was clear. I was getting a head start before they came for me.
So I started running.
I passed the bloodied body of Barker on the lawn by the gates, then kept running.
I didn’t look back.
Not even at the face of the boy who had broken my heart.
I had been running ever since.
THE END
