DAMON

There was this time in my life where everything was under control and certain. The Hatcher Pack was stable and strong, Cody and I settled a dispute with a war ragged Alpha of the sea, we took over from our parents with ease, we established the New Ways and carried them out effectively. I imagined when I would find my mate, all would carry on just as smooth. After all, it was meant to be.

When I met Paige Baylor, officially... It was nothing of the sort. She was dying, and then she was committed to a life of killing my kind. Not in that particular order. Not only that but collusion with a killer. One known and feared. All of the packs in the northwest knew of Samuel Baylor. Otherwise known as Seth Baylor's son, demons as is. They pillaged wolf territory, burning houses, and slaughtering females and pups. There were even rumors of blackmailing wolves into joining their ranks and handing over information.

Of course, there were nastier rumors too, some of Seth's men were said to rape the females in front of their mates or using blades dipped in a chemical used to kill the inner primitivity of wolves, stabbing them and letting them suffer in between human and wolf.

And here was Paige, the daughter of these men, brought up with guns aimed at wolves.

It took a lot out of me, seeing her after she shifted for the first time and lost it. SItuations like that occur frequently with new wolves. More frequently for wolves like me; the totum lupus. A rare gene that turns your eyes primitive gold like our natural counterparts, and puts just a bit more primitivity over my humanity. Paige's mind couldn't handle the string of events and took over for a while. Always leaving the taken without any recollection of what had happened in between.

Faith brought her to me and we stood in the middle of the clearing before Faith and Cody's house. She was draped in Faith's brown coat, long hair hanging over her shoulders. Pale legs and bare feet planted firmly in the snow. She looked ethereal, her one brown eye the only thing that seemed to tie her to the Earth. Everything about her seemed to want to float away if she just closed her eyes, or at least that's what I thought. The more I got to know her, the more I realized just how firm those feet were rooted in the soil.

With shoulders pitched back and head high, she stopped ten feet before me. I watched her nostrils flare, feeling mine do the same as the breeze blew her taste towards me. I could smell honey and roses beneath Faith's scent, and then my own scent, wolf, the bond. I could also smell river water and snow. Shivering with the idea of what could be taken from me, with what I had right in front of me.

While I wanted to feel disgust and sorrow and regret for having her, the hunter's daughter, as a mate, no such feelings arose. I was meant to love this female, and I was sure there was more to her than this story. The feeling that she would get better, see the bigger picture, was so strong that I could see it. Us. Working out. The image was so clear that it would fuck with me for the rest of my life.

"Let's go inside. She's freezing." Faith said, guiding her enemy's kin into her own home. I could only nod dumbly, speechless for the first time in my life. My destiny right before my eyes, in my world.

Paige stared up at me, one brown eye and the other the totum gold, blank, but cracking. She barely contained her true emotions beneath that mask she was working hard to contain. I was impressed by her strength in such hard times. Looking back on the day, I wish I would've stepped forward and grabbed her by the shoulders and willed a false truth. I wish I would've stole her away earlier. I wish...

I held her gaze, shivers dragging taintalizing fingers down my spine, then followed the females inside.

My mate hesitated by the couch and then by the fire again, before Faith set a wool blanket down on the wooden coffee table and left to grab her some clothes and start a bath to warm her up.

"So, Paige..." I began, rifling through my brain for a topic. I was a bumbling juvenile again, unsure what to say to females or how to control myself.

"I just want answers." She said, and for the first time, I heard the anxiety. Once I heard it, it was impossible to miss. The clench of her hands, the slightly trembling lower lip, the lack of color in her face.

Gesturing for her to sit, she didn't, but I did so myself. I settled into one of the matching armchairs, me lounging, her poised and ready for a fight. I could see the hunter in her, the wolf, the human.

"What happened to me?" She demanded, eyes glaring straight into mine, hostile. 

"You lost yourself for a day, after I... Bit you. You know what I am- who I am." I paused, gauging her reaction. She was taking it so far, she had storms in her eyes. "You are now part wolf."

"You just- you just bit me? No permission, no talking to me first? You just had to bite me?" Paige's hands held with eachother and I was tempted to envelop them in my own. To soothe her inner fears and anxiety, I'm not sure it would have helped. "Part wolf?"

"Paige, it was that or death. Trust me, I wanted it any other way. I didn't want to drag you into my world." I stared into her eyes that weren't looking back at me. Her brows are furrowed deeply, and it took a second... But I saw it. The dark, angry rage that passed over her face like a blizzard, she turned even icier. Her lips parted, ready to unleash, but she was cut off.

"The bath is ready, Paige." Faith said gently from the doorway. I get up to help but both females shoot me a look. Sitting back down makes my headache.

Paige gathers herself and dissapears upstairs without another look towards me.

PAIGE

I was always struggling with the truth. It was always something so easy to comprehend but so hard to handle. That sort of compassion was out of my reach. It was easier to let the truth go and accept what was right in front of me. At least that's what I thought before I slipped into the bathtub of the enemy. I didn't know where I was or why I was there. Only that I was part wolf... Part monster.

I was somewhat scared, anxious, and annoyed. But most of all, I was angry. Silently fuming, I stepped into the bathroom, tuning out the female as she spoke of where things were and what soap was what. She talked on anyways until her voice drifted and I registered the click of the door. Locking it for good measure, I turned only to face myself in the full-length mirror. With the blanket dropped, the extent of my body was revealed to me.

Purple tones bloomed all over my limbs, torso, and back. A crescent shapped scar was carved into the junction between my neck and collar bone. My hair was matted and damp from the snow and dirt. What caught my attention most was my eyes. I stepped closer, one had changed. One iris had morphed into a honey gold color.

The color of a wolf.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to die.

A deep, dark part of me whispered into the emptiness of the back of my mind. Your father will kill you. I met my own eyes in the mirror. Just like your mother.

Grabbing my hair at the roots, I fisted and squeezed my eyes shut. I curled in so hard my body shook and my eyes watered. A large shudder raked over my shoulders and down my spine.

The bear seemed like a better death than my father. I wasn't sure how I could face him with the face that I now shared with a wolf. Looking into my face in the mirror, thinking about Damon and his wolf eyes, the wolves in the forest that I hunted... The beginnings of dots connecting to make one giant picture. None of these wolves were wild, they were part human. None of these monsters my father spent his days targetting and hunting were natural. They were all abominations, mutants. I understood this, after all I was one of them.

I hate you, telling the girl with two different eyes in the mirror.

A deep breath in, another, and finally I was lowering myself into the tub that had cooled off. I was thinking to myself that he knew this, my father had to have known these wolves were not wolves, but men. That's why he rolled in the big bucks from small-town millionaires looking to grow their wealth and project their power.

I wanted to scream in defeat, but my face remained as stoic and impassive as I had trained it to be throughout all my years. If this was my father's game, then I would play.

The wolves were the reason my mother was dead, and I just couldn't let that go. I wouldn't let it go.

I sank beneath the surface, holding myself beneath until I was letting water into my lungs with vision blurring black at the edges. I rose myself back to the surface without hurry, wondering about if I stayed beneath for just one more second.

I need a gun.

After an hour, I had collected my composure and put the facts behind me. There was wolf in my blood, the man had bitten me, I was furious, I wanted revenge. These things went in my back pocket, I'd sit on them for the rest of my life.

Faith had left me a pair of dark green polyester pants and a cream thermal with some thick wool socks. I put them on, noting all my digits were intact and slightly less purple.

When I closed my eyes, I saw the river, the bear, and then the wolf.

I felt like an idiot for planning on how to escape them, unsure of where I would go. All my ideas ended with dead ends and my body in the snow. All I could do for now was collect more information, more reasons to be angry.

I made my way back downstairs where the wolf and a man equally as big were dwarfing the armchairs in front of the fire. My hair was soaking through the back of my shirt, chilling my skin, but I didn't dare move closer to that fire. Both of the men looked over at me, taking in my wet and tired appearence. I folded my arms over my chest.

There was a sickening urge to move closer to the wolf eyed man, but I refused to listen. All my senses were attuned to him, the tiny hairs of my arms directing towards him, on edge. I was disgusted with this from the start, without even knowing why.

"Paige, have a seat," said the blonde man across from the wolf.

"I'm good," I growled, feeling the rumble in my chest and growing ever more angry. His eyes met mine and I was floored, I saw he could be just as angry. This was the Alpha, I realized, as he stood and grew like a giant oak. He too could be firmly planted in his place, all knowing of the power he held over others. He reminded me of my father, but more primitive.

"I said, have a seat." He gestured to the stool closest to the fire and I had no option but to move. His eyes were dark and unforgiving, I felt like I was the only one to get such an angry look from him. The stool was slightly cushioned, I made my way to it without turning my back on them, sitting on it made me exhausted. I sat, silently fuming, refusing to look towards the wolf. I kept my eyes on the Alpha, the bigger threat. He was watching me intensely, I found it impossible to hold his eyes, though I tried.

Eventually, he grew tired of the silence and leaned forward, large legs spread, elbows propped on his thighs. He clasped his hands before him as if this was a business meeting, or maybe as if he was preparing to explain something to a child in trouble.

I recalled his teeth holding my neck when he was a wolf, that summer day long, long ago. I wanted to kill him. That day had changed everything, solidified the hatred my father had installed deep in my head, my heart. That was the type of beast that killed my mother. I imagined the fear, the pain she must have felt. White hot rage flashed through me. I felt it climb up my neck like a vice as I waited for him to talk.

"Care to explain what you were doing on my territory when the bear attacked you?" Voice utterly calm, deadly, the Alpha left no room for lies.

"No, I don't," I responded, glaring back at him.

"It's tresspassing, I'm sure your father would be equally as unhappy had I done the same to him."

"You know nothing about my father." I snarled back, feeling that anger intensify like a monster inside of me.

"I know all about your father. I know all about you." His sound was made of ice. "So let's tell the truth here."

"It wasn't my fault a grizzly drug me onto your land," I said firmly, my own sound was just as cold. "If this is such a problem, why did you let your wolf turn me into this?" There was disgust in my tone, it was audible, I hoped it was a slap in the face. The wolf in the other chair grimaced, but I ignored him.

I remembered putting a knife in his side, I remembered the way it felt when I sank my hands in his fur and stared into his eyes. There wasn't a single fuck in me.

"Why are you watching my pack?" The Alpha asked, gray eyes narrow and dark.

"I thought Alphas were supposed to be smart?"

I was thrown out the glass window a moment later, I couldn't even orientate myself before I hit the ice packed snow with a crunch. Pretty sure my shoulder dislocated from the slam. It wasn't the Alpha who threw me though, it was the woman, and she was storming out the door after me a second later as shouts from the wolf erupted inside. The two men were quick to follow her out into the cold where I struggled to lift myself to my feet. It didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would, getting thrown through a window. I took the blow surprisingly well, I supposed it could be attributed to the wolf.

The wolf was stopped from approaching by the shoulder of the Alpha and a set of sharp white teeth.

I met the eyes of the woman, the female Alpha, who squared off in front of me. Her shadow from the porch light swallowed me whole. I spit blood into the snow and made it to my feet, one arm hanging longer than the other, I ignored it. My pain had been worse.

"You think you can talk to us like this after we save your ass, not once, but twice? Provided you shelter, clothing, medical assistance?" She scoffs, lunging forward and kicking me onto my back again. The air was knocked out of me, ribs groaning in protest. I made my way back to my feet, slower, but still.

"I don't know why you did,"

"You are the mate to our Beta."

I snorted, blood dribbling out my left nostril. She landed a punch to my jaw that sent me staggering.

"Whether we like it or not, you two are fated. Otherwise, we would have killed you the first time you stepped foot near our line, and then your father, and all of his pathetic men." Another punch sent me back into the snow, but this time, she got on me. Her hand clutched my throat tight. I heard the wolf growl from the doorway.

"You can't kill them, they'll kill you." I wheezed out.

"I want to snap your neck now and dump your body in front of that house," she whispered low and dangerous. This woman was also a killer, and I respected her for it.

"Do it," I growled, grabbing her hand with mine, so tight she was bruising before my eyes. "Do it." I squeezed her hand over my throat tighter, I felt strong.

Her eyes flashed as if she was seeing someone else, something else. And then she was off of me, leaving me in the snow to cough until I caught my breath and spit more blood into the white floor.

The trees spun overhead, I heard the low muttering of voices. The woman spoke up to me, "Shape up or you won't last here, this is your only option. This is who you are now, so embrace it or suffer. Don't comply, and I will kill you for real next time." And then, "Damon, get a cover for the window." The front door slammed and I heard her footsteps go deeper into the house.

I laid in the snow for a long time, no one touched me. Either they weren't allowed to, or they didn't care. Whichever it was, I was grateful.

When I got some strength back, I shoved my shoulder back into place with a grunt and wiped the blood from my face. The ideas of plans that ran through my head still remained with dead ends.