Hey guys! I am really glad you guys like my story so far, it means so much to me! I know this chapter is really boring, but this is a filler. I can't put all the excitement in the first chapter already!

The next chapter will introduce a lot of important characters in the story, though, like

1) Xavier

2) Holly

3) Parker

So I'm really excited about that!

Anyway, enjoy!

-Tavita

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Chapter One

 ***

When I dreamt, I always dreamt one thing.

Love.

I was robbed off a lot of things, but love was the only thing I’d ever really wanted. I sometimes even craved it, but it was so painfully obvious that what you wanted, you hardly ever got.

Sometimes, I’d daydream about the past, before everything became so wrong in my life. I’d remember the laughter, the smiles, the loving gazes and warm hugs. I’d remember them and I’d want them, but I knew I’d never have those days back again.

I had a great family once. My mom was serious, but soft-spoken and kind. My father, well, he was the opposite; loud, a jokester and always speaking his mind. The only thing they had in common was probably that they were both gorgeous, but they fit so well together, like their souls were intertwined. Though, it probably was, due to the fact they were mates. But I didn’t doubt that if they were even humans, they would’ve found and loved each other.

Together, Andrea and Sebastian Forrest had three children. Their eldest Parker, who was obnoxiously funny, annoying, with a protective edge, the middle child Holly who was beautiful and outgoing and lastly…me, the shy, quiet one.

It was obvious who mother and father loved the most and I think that was the sole reason my siblings never truly liked me much. Since I was the youngest and had the weak, soft look to me, they instantly took a better liking to me. Granted, it wasn’t like they ignored Parker and Holly. They loved them, too, but they just loved me a little bit more.

I was the one whose birthday parties were the most extravagant. I was the one who they’d bring to their chest for a tight and warm hug. I was the one they spent hours with when I’d made my first shift as a wolf at the age of six. I was the one they had died to protect.

It was my birthday. I was turning twelve and I was excited. I didn’t have a lot of friends, at school people bullied me, mostly Parker and Holly, but mom and dad didn’t know that. My siblings made sure of it, with their serious and angry threats. Still, I was excited because my parents always got me the best gifts and even though my pack mates didn’t like me much, they still came to my party.

That year, I had gotten a necklace with a heart locket. The stones were shiny diamonds and the chain was made out of white gold. It was expensive, beautiful and it was from my parents. I loved it.

Holly got jealous, something I knew was bound to happen, but not only jealous, she was absolutely furious, too. Her bullying took to the next level. She ruined my birthday by planting doubts of mother and father’s love for me. Everyone joined in and told me how I was a waste of space and was a mistake. Everyone told me that I was never wanted, that my parents only pitied me for being so weak and helpless.

I did the only thing I knew I could do. When it came to the fight or flight reaction, I always chose flight. I was a weak wolf. My wolf was smaller than normal and I was slow, too. So I dove into the woods, trying to go as fast as my short, chubby legs would let me.

I was sobbing in a clearing when three men surrounded me. They all had guns pointed at my head and I could smell silver which would kill us slowly and painfully as soon as it touched our blood. They spoke to each other in hushed voices and when one of them was ready to fire a bullet in my head, my parents, in their wolf forms burst in, instantly attacking them.

I was scared, I was curled in on myself, watching as blood spilled and stained the soft green grass. I watched as the hunter, who was about to kill me, shot both my parents, injecting silver into their bloodstream. I watched as my father pounced on the man and bit the side of his neck, twisting it, so that it broke with a sickening crack, before he collapsed. And I watched as two most important people of life slipped back into their human forms, bleeding out their life as they smiled at me and said two words I knew I wouldn’t be able to accomplish.

“Be strong…"

Only minutes after they both took their dying breaths, my pack came in. They took in the damage and saw that I was still alive and sobbing. Holly and Parker accused me of getting them both killed and that was the day everything changed. Now, there was no one to stop them from being cruel to me and they reveled in that.

Holly came up to my kneeling position by our parent’s body and ripped the necklace they had gifted me with from my neck. “You don’t deserve this, you sad excuse of a wolf. You got them killed, you took them away from us,” she spat before her eyes filled with tears and she ran off.

The skin burned from where the chain of the necklace had roughly rubbed across when she yanked if off. The pack all gave me disgusted looks as they followed Holly out, lifting my parents carefully and carrying them back to the pack house. There was only one man remaining, the only one who hadn’t sided with them.

He came and knelt in front of me, scooping me up in my arms. They felt familiar, but at the same time, they didn’t.

“Alpha…,” I whispered, tears thick in my voice.

His lips touched my forehead and a flood of warmth washed over my body.

“It’ll be okay, sweetie, you’ll be okay. Just be strong.”

~

But I wasn’t strong. My parents had wasted their last words to tell me to be something I could never be.

“Don’t frown, Cadrian,” Alpha Archer scolded me. “You look too sad. I can’t stand it.”

“What?” I asked, startled as I snapped back to reality, losing the image of my mother and father’s happy faces. Four years, it had been four years and the pain and guilt was still burned into my heart.

Archer frowned at me and the action brought in mind what he had said to me. So I gave him a playful smirk and said, “Don’t frown, Alpha.”



He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his office chair, kicking his feet up on the desk. “Don’t sass me, Cadrian,” he said in a teasing voice, his green eyes twinkling with humor. He reminded me of my own father, a jokester and always laughing except for the serious situations.

I chuckled, something I didn’t do often. My life hasn’t been the same since their death.

Archer gave me a smile. I knew he liked it when I was actually laughing and smiling, but that was only when I was with him. When I was in Archer’s office, things were brighter even though the office was just plain black walls and wood panel floor with a huge desk. Outside this very room was my own personal Hell, where things were bloody, painful and always filled with anger. It was a dark place out there. That’s why I cherished all my time I got to spend with Alpha Archer, which to be honest, wasn’t much since he had to run the pack.

We both fell silent for a while and I looked out the large open windows that let the evening breeze roll in and caress out skins. I knew he wanted to say something, but he hesitated. I waited patiently for him to speak. He had called me in to tell me something important, but I guess we both got sidetracked.

“I’ll be going away for a little bit, Cadrian,” he said finally, looking upset.

My mood instantly went down. “Why?” I asked, feeling the weight of the world crashing back down on my shoulders.

“There’s a pack meeting and I have to go,” he told me and my shoulders slumped a bit more.

“Oh, okay, Alpha,” I sighed and stood up.

Archer looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. “Where are you going?” he asked.

I rubbed a hand through my limp black hair. “I have to go cook dinner or they’ll get mad at me,” I mumbled.

Archer cringed. He knew how people treated me and he had tried to prevent it, but there’s only so much he could do. The whole pack – minus Archer – was against me. He couldn’t just make a law that said whoever hurt me would get kicked out. If that was a law, there would be no pack at all.

“Be careful,” he whispered, looking at me with sorrow. I looked back at him and willed the tears down. He was my anchor here. He was like my father and it’d be awful spending the next few days without him there.

“I will, Alpha,” I replied before slipping out the door and shutting it behind me.