Running From My Alpha Mate

Monster

Arabella drew in a shaky breath, her eyes clouding over as memories of her torment threatened to consume her once more.

"Why don't we get some breakfast first?" Maverick suggested gently, sensing her need for a brief reprieve before reopening those painful wounds. "You can tell me everything after, but let's feed ourselves."

Arabella managed a small nod of agreement. As much as she dreaded revisiting her history with the Blood Moon pack and their depraved Alpha, she knew Maverick needed to understand the full extent of the darkness they were facing.

They made their way to the manor's grand dining hall where the rest of the pack had already congregated, the aromas of fresh baked bread and sizzling breakfast meats perfuming the air. A hush fell over the others as Maverick and Arabella entered, their expressions shifting to ones of solemn concern.

Nancy was the first to approach, wrapping Arabella in a warm maternal embrace. "How are you holding up, my dear?" she murmured, her green eyes shining with empathetic worry.

"As well as can be expected," Arabella replied with a crestfallen smile, leaning into the comfort of the older woman's hug.

"We're all here for you, Arabella," Kieran, the pack's powerful beta, spoke up from where he sat at the long oak table. His words were emphatic but tinged with melancholy. "Whatever you need from us."

A lump rose in Arabella's throat at the depth of loyalty and care from these virtual strangers who had so readily accepted her into their fold. She hadn't experienced such unflinching support and camaraderie since...

The pang of wistfulness over her fractured childhood was fleeting as Maverick wrapped a protective arm around her waist, anchoring her back to the present. This was her pack now, her family, and they would stand resolute together against any threat.

As they dined, Maverick kept Arabella's hand nestled in his, tracing soothing patterns across her knuckles to remind her of his constant presence at her side. Jasmine babbled happily beside them, providing a much-needed reprieve of innocent joy amidst the solemn atmosphere.

All too soon, the remnants of their meal were cleared and Maverick turned an intent yet tender gaze upon Arabella. "Whenever you're ready, Ara. We're listening."

She mustered every ounce of her newfound strength before nodding, her expression settling into a stoic mask of resolution.

"Darius is...a monster," she began haltingly, each word feeling like shards of glass scraping against her throat. "An Alpha driven by bloodlust, cruelty and an insatiable need to dominate everything in his path."

Her gaze drifted to the window, memories transporting her back to that fateful night when her innocence was brutally stolen. "I remember the night they took me like it was yesterday...I had just turned 16, finally of age in our pack to attend my first Blood Moon Run."

Arabella swallowed hard against the lump forming in her throat. "It's a rite of passage, a depraved ceremony where unmated females are subjected to...to..." She trailed off, the words catching as her eyes glistened with unshed tears of anguish and shame.

Maverick tightened his arms around her protectively. "It's okay, Ara, I'm here. Take your time," he murmured soothingly against her hair, his heart shattering at the agony she had endured.

"They parade us out like fresh meat to be claimed by the unmated males of the pack," she continued in a haunted tone. "Darius was the Alpha at the time and presided over the festivities. When I was shoved out before the pack, I remember locking eyes with Darius. Even then, his gaze repulsed me - a soulless void of malice and depravity unlike anything I'd ever seen."

She shuddered violently at the recollection. "He was already a renowned Hunter, easily the most feared and merciless in our ranks. And something inside him...snapped that night when he saw me. His eyes blazed crimson, like all logic and restraint had abandoned him. Before I could even register what was happening, he pounced - shifting forms so quickly that his clothing was shredded in an explosion of tattered crimson fabric."

Arabella's voice took on a detached monotone, as if she was narrating someone else's experiences rather than reliving her own unspeakable trauma. "The other males instantly backed down, their instincts warning them not to challenge the unhinged Alpha once his feral gaze locked onto me. I-I tried to run, to flee into the forest and hide, b-but he was on me in an instant."

Her words faltered as wracking sobs began to shake her delicate frame, her blue eyes glazing over with the weight of her nightmarish memories. Maverick pulled her tighter against his chest, letting her tears soak through the fabric of his shirt as his fingers stroked her long hair in a soothing caress.

"I could feel his rancid breath hot against the nape of my neck as his fangs pierced my flesh," she choked out between gasps. "He dragged me like a fallen deer back towards the ceremonial pyre in the village center, my screams drowned out by the loud cheers of our pack as they celebrated his claim over me."

Her fingernails dug so deeply into Maverick's back that he could feel the warm trickle of blood seeping from the crescent wounds. But he refused to pull away, absorbing her physical anguish into himself as she continued her horrific tale.

"The torment lasted for what felt like an eternity, his brutality only escalating as I begged him to just kill me and end my suffering. The monster delighted in it all, in making me bleed, in violating every inch of my being and individuality until I felt like an empty, defiled husk." Arabella's voice had descended into a hoarse whisper, her throat raw from the effort of dredging up her buried past.

Despite all his might and status as an Alpha warrior, Maverick found himself struggling against a wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him at the imagery she conjured. The depravity she endured at the claws of that sadistic beast defied all comprehension. He wanted nothing more than to hunt down this Darius and rend his wretched existence from this world with his very own talons.

But even before that fateful night of the Blood Moon Run, Arabella's childhood had been one of constant fear and subjugation under Darius' shadow. As the Alpha, he carried an inflated sense of entitlement and exercised casual cruelty toward her and the other unmated females. Darius seemed to take perverse delight in psychological torture - from cruel mind games to wanton acts of violence against the pack's more vulnerable members. For some reason he preferred to torture her the most.