Inhumane

009

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...