Silenced: Book 1 of The Bound Trilogy

Prologue/Chapter 1

© Copyright  2012

Silenced

Prologue

All I have ever known is pain.  I can’t remember a time when I did not ache.  It has become the norm for me.  I do not know what it feels like to have the sun on my face or to look at the moon and stars.  Truth be told I do not know what they are.  I have been locked away for my entire life.  Beaten, tortured, tormented.

All I know is my four walls.  I have a pile of hay on the floor for a bed and a bucket for a toilet.  To me this is normal.  I only have one person visit and he claims to be my father.

I do not know if it is true or not.  I have no other frame of reference in my dismal little world.  I do know that I hear voices.  Well one voice.  She tells me she is my wolf and that she is there to keep me strong.  She does not want me to give up hope of escaping this hell.  At one point, she had convinced me to let her take over and since I have nothing else to keep me occupied, I let her.  I was four years old.  The pain was excruciating but it still was not as bad as some of the beatings from my ‘father’.  I could feel my bones breaking one at a time and it felt like my skin was being peeled from my body.  During all of this, I never uttered a word or whimper.  My vocal chords had been cut a long time ago so that my ‘father’ did not have to listen to my screams when he tortured me.

After the pain was gone, I awoke to a very different world.  I was able to make out more of my little room and all of my senses were sharper, clearer.  I was also looking at everything from a different height.  When I looked down at my hands, I saw paws.  I was confused but did not think anything of it, as again I had no one to tell me that this was not normal.  My wolf spoke to me and told me that this is what we looked like when she took over.  I had asked if I could come back and she let me.  It did not hurt this time and I asked her why.  She told me the first shift is the hardest and anytime from now on would be easier.  I shrugged and went to sleep.

Ever since then my ‘father’ would ask me to shift.  My wolf told me not to.  Saying that if I did then it would be worse for me if he found out I could.  I listened to her and never shifted in front of him.

I do not know how many times he asked me this question.  I have no idea how long he was going to keep me locked up away from the rest of the world.  One day I would get out of here.  One day I would know what it felt like to be out in the open and no longer caged.

One of these days, he will ask his question and I will show him what I am and get away from him.

Chapter 1

The outside world was too bright.  I had no clue if it is day or night.  I just know that it is too bright and it hurts my eyes.  I’m running, I think, away from the place I had been held my entire life.  According to my ‘father’ today is my birthday and he had a special treat for me.  I did not want to find out what that treat was so I did what I had dreamed of doing for as long as I was able to shift.  I attacked him and ripped his throat out.

I did not wait around to see if he was actually dead or not.  I just ran up some stairs to a door, and out into the wide world.  Once I was free, I shifted back into my human form and kept going.

My wolf kept begging me to let her take over so that we could get away faster and farther.  I would have let her but we were too weak.  My ‘father’ had kept food from us the last several days and it was all I could do to keep moving.  As I ran things kept scrapping against my arms, legs, and face.  I was bleeding from everywhere I was cut, but I kept moving.  My feet were being torn up from whatever was on the ground.  I didn’t care.  All I kept thinking was…ESCAPE! RUN! He will catch you and drag you back into the dark!

I lost track of how long I ran for, but when I came to smooth surface under my feet, I stopped.  I was panicking, wondering if I had run in circles and come back to my cage by accident.  Just then, I heard something growling and the ground shook under me.  I looked up and a bright light was heading straight for me.  I had no idea what was happening and froze in my tracks.

I was in the air.  It would have been fun if it had not been for the pain.  Whatever that light had been had caused me to be in this state.  I landed hard and heard several bones break.  My head connected with the smooth ground and something warm and sticky started to flow under me.

I looked back at the light and realized that it was two lights, not one.  There was something moving in the light.  I wanted to whimper and hide from whatever was there, but I couldn’t move.  It was getting harder to breath and my vision was getting blurry.  The last thing I saw was a leg kneeling next to my head.  Just as I was going to black out from the pain I felt something warm touch my face.  There was a shock and I jerked my head by accident.  I shouldn’t have done that as the world spun and went black.

~Devin’s POV~

I was in my car driving into the station.  I was running late, as there was a call over the scanner about a wolf sighting in someone’s back yard.  I lived a few blocks away from the caller so I went to investigate.  Turned out it was someone’s German Shepard who had gotten loose.  I corralled the dog and brought it back to its owner.  Now I was behind, and would have more paperwork to fill out when I got to work.  It was bad enough having paperwork as the local Alpha, but I also had paperwork as the temporary local Police Chief.  Normally my Beta would have this job so he could deal more easily with pack disputes.  Unfortunately, he was out of town traveling to different packs looking for his mate.  Neither of us had found our mates yet and I allowed him two months to travel and see if he could find his.  Needless to say, I was regretting the decision.  I was being run ragged and couldn’t wait for him to return so that I could go searching for my own mate.

Thinking of all of this I became distracted and did not notice the girl in the road until it was too late.  I slammed on the breaks and there was a screeching of tires and then a thud as I hit the girl head on.  I saw here fly through the air and land with a sickening thud several yards away.  I was out of the Range Rover in an instant and running to her.  I knelt down next to her head and noticed the blood seeping from under her.  I reached out to touch her face to see if she was still alive and was surprised by the electrical shock I received.  Electricity shot up my arm and into my heart.

Mate! Screamed my wolf.

“Shit,” I whispered.  I had just hit my own mate with my car!  Oh my God!  What am I going to do?!

Quit freaking out and get her to the pack doctor! My wolf yelled at me.

That snapped me out of my daze and I reached for my cell phone attached to my hip.  I called the pack doctor.

“Sue, its Devin.  I need you to prep a room for surgery.  I’m bringing in a car accident victim.  A young…” taking deep breath, I realized the girl in front of me is a young werewolf.  Gulping, I continued, “a young female werewolf.  She’s about 5’1” and approximately 105 lbs.  She was hit by a car and from the looks of it, she has several broken bones and a cracked skull.  It also looks like she has several cuts and bruises.  Some of which I do not think were caused by the car.”

During all this, Sue just remained quiet on the phone.  I could hear her typing this information into here computer and when I was done all she said was, “I’ll be ready.”

I couldn’t wait for an ambulance, so as carefully as possible I picked my fragile and broken mate up and placed her in the back of my Range Rover.  I drove like a bat out of Hell to the pack doctor’s office and delivered her into Sue’s hands.  I wanted to be in there with her but I knew I would be more of hindrance than a help.  I pushed my wolf down and sat in the waiting room.  I called the station and informed them of what had happened and told them I would not be in this evening.  Hanging up the phone, I sat in a surprisingly comfortable chair and settled in for a long wait.

I can’t believe I hit my mate with my car!