The Shifters Heart(not continued)

Chapter 7

I was hoping to wake up in my peaceful meadow. When I wake up in the small stall, I freak and start kicking the door. The other horses neigh, trying to get me to calm down.

The sound of the whip on stone makes me angry. I remember everything. I snort and kick the door, wanting to get out and get these guys out. My gate opens and I rush out, bucking and rearing.

Something hard strikes my head and I fall, black spots in my eyes.

"Stupid horse. Doesn't know what's good for it."

My brain feels like it erupted and I feel blood leaking out of the wound. My hooves scrape against the hard stone at I try to get up.

The whip licks my side many times, before finally, I manage to stand. As soon as I do, the blood from the whip marks run down my fur. The dried blood from yesterday mixes with the fresh blood.

This makes me angrier. I charge the whip wielder, making him stumble and fall. My hoof lands hard on his arm holding this whip and I hear a snap. I grin internally. Another hard thing hits my head, but harder.

It continues to hit me multiple times, before I stumble and fall again. Through my pain haze, I see a polished looking wood stick. Thin on one end, getting wider as you go up.

"The more you fight, the more you get punished."

He kicks my side, before slamming the stick down on my ribs. I hear a small snap and he does it multiple times. A few more cracks and he smiles happily.

"You work the hardest today. In fact, you are getting all the work."

One of the horses looks at me in pity and I have no clue why. I wheeze and get up when the whip wielder hits me with the whip in his other hand. I rush out, ignoring the pain. If this was how I would protect the others, I would take all their work.

I am hooked up to a plow and I have to pull it across a huge field. That took at least 3 hours. By this time, I'm exhausted.

"Ready to give in horsey?"

I snort and head to the next job. It was herding cows. I was run for  an hour, herding 200 cow into a pen.  I was then forced to sprint during a hunt. I had no rest as I based their game.

This took them 2 hours to get the kill. I'm about to collapse from exhaustion and pain, when he whips me.

"We have one last job."

He cleans the blood off my fur and head, then hook my up to a carriage. He forces me to go to a cobble stone street and let people on the carriage. My body is burning in pain, but I don't let it show. A familiar girl leans against a building. I watch as she takes a picture of me and then quickly puts the device away. The whip hits my back a d I take off, not looking back.

By the end of the day, I'm just ready to collapse. And when I get to my stall, I fall to my knees, barely able to move. The other horses inspect me, grateful and sad that I did every job.

I gratefully fall into the sweet safety of sleep.

                                 ****
Katie's POV

I walk along the length of our stables. The horses have large stalls and are fed regularly. They don't work unless it's plow pulling or carriage pulling. Other then that, we ride them and others take them out.

I think about the day my mom and dad died. I'm pretty sure that Jared died soon after, because I don't feel the sibling bond. My horse wants to believe their alive, but I gave up a while ago.

I found my mate and he's a wolf. I begged him to get stables, and we save horses from that retched man Drake. He worked his horses to the point of no return. He whipped and starved them.

I hear he got a protector and he is beginning to protect the others by doing all their jobs. I'm going the next day to check them out and get all the horses out of them.

I haven't gone in like 5 months, so it was time to visit. I would visit tomorrow. My mate, Cody, walks in as I plan.

"Hey babe, I hear your going back to the horrid place tomorrow."

"Yea, I heard he caught a new one, and it's a protector. You know how those are. They sometimes die without their herds."

"I know. It would be good to fill in the empty stalls. We still have a lot of those."

"I know. I'm gonna get him arrested for animal abuse. It's gonna take about 6 more months to finish it."

"I hope those horses can hang on."

"Me too."
He kisses my cheek and turns to go tend the horses. Every time that a horse came from that place, they were so scared. We couldn't even touch them.

I hope that new horse holds on. We need a leader in our 'herd'. We could give him a purpose. I shrug and head out.

It was getting closer to Christmas and I had yet to find the perfect present. I pull on my coat and tell Cody I'm heading out.

Time skip

As I walk down Main Street, I see Drake. His new horse has visible wounds and looked so tired, even just arriving. He didn't even look up as people climbed on.

His coat was dirty and he had open whip wounds. His skull had a few dents and I could tell he was hit hard in the head.

He was wheezing and his side was badly bruised. Broken ribs. He just arrived and he was already badly beaten.

Cody, I see Drake and his new horse. He just got it and it's already been badly beaten and over worked.

On my way hon, stay there.

I lean against a building and secretly take a picture, just in case they moved. The pic showed every injury on the horse. That's when I noticed something weird.

He was the same color and size as my dad. My heart drops.

Oh god. We thought he was dead!!

I guess not. It may have been just Jared and mom that died.

The carriage takes off right as Cody pulls up. Good thing I got that pic.

"They just left."

"Darn. Did you get a pic?"

"Yep." I say, popping the p.

His eyes widen at the picture.

"He has multiple deep whip marks, the most dangerous is on his chest. He might have broken ribs and maybe a punctured lung. And he has brain damage now at the least. Could you try to talk to him?"

"No, I can only do that with you, the pack, and my famil- wait!! He is family!!"

"What?"

"Me and Tornado think that he's our dad."

"Oh. Well, we need to help him fast."

I nod and go to call the police about the abuse.