The Alpha And His Abused Mate (#Wattys2016)

Cut short

River's room above

"Bella this is my good friend Ellie." Bella was the cutest little thing I had ever seen, with her wild curls and her blue polka dot dress. She was also very shy, at the moment she was clinging to River's leg for dear life.

"Hi." She said as she looked out from behind his leg. I waved and bent down so I was on her level.

"Hi, Bella."

She giggled and came out and gave me a hug, which caused me to fall backward. It would have been fine if her feet hadn't been right where my bruises were and so when she accidentally kicked me. I gasped loudly, as the pain skyrocketed up my sides. River took Bella from me and told her to go play in her room, that we would be there soon. He was soon by my side and I knew this felt was like the incident in the gym. As he carefully at me up he pulled my shirt up to my belly button.

Dread fell upon me as I realized he had seen the bruises and was going to question me about it.

"Ellie what happened. I know this is not from my sister's feet."He growled out. He legit sounded like an animal. I looked up at him and gulped. As I said these next words I was praying that he couldn't tell I was lying.

"I hit the countertop... really hard...twice?" It came out more as a question and I cursed myself for not being able to lie better. A flash of relief came over his face, but he didn't look totally convinced. As he was about to say something Morgan and Alex came bounding up the stairs.

"Hey gu- Whats goin' on here?" Alex asked. I had just noticed that both of the twins had southern accents.

"Nothin' much just sittin' in the floor what 'bout you brother?" River asked sarcastically. Alex rolled his eyes, and grumbled under his breath "Someones on their man period..." That made me and Morgan burst out laughing and River growled again, but this made Alex growl back at him. They were having a staring contest when Morgan said, "Elle, that's your new nickname, I brought you your stuff." After I thanked her she gave me directions to the nearest bathroom to change in.

After changing back into my regular clothes I exited to find a sticky note with a note that said 'Go find the music' I did as it said and followed the sound of music, only to find River shirtless dancing. He didn't notice I was there so being the stalker I am, I watched him dance. As I was trying to stifle my laughter it only made me want to laugh harder, so after a good bit, I couldn't hold it in anymore, I burst out laughing. I mean this wasn't the occasional laugh, this was the 'I'm crying' laugh.

River turned around and blushed ever so slightly, and asked: "How long have you been standin' there?"

"You don't want to know. Country music ay?" Nodding my head towards his phone that had previously been playing his music.

"It was the way I was raised. Grew up listenin' to it." He said. I nodded and walked into his room. He had tan walls, with road signs all over the place.  A set of lockers were in the corner, and the wall across from the bed was a blackboard wall, which had a lot of messages on it. The sight of it brought a smile to my face, it looked like the type of room he would have. Those road signs, they caught my eye. I knew you couldn't buy ones like that in the store.

"River where did you get the road signs?" He laughed and shook his head.

" When Alex and I were sixteen we would sneak out at like, two in the morning. Earlier in the day, we would plan out where we were gonna go, so during the night we could just go and come back before anybody woke up. Most of these are from a major steal we got from a highway, old back roads, and from the town. One of the best nights of my life." The way River's eyes twinkled with happiness while he spoke made me smile, it was good to know that he did have a little fun after his parent's death.

After a couple minutes of silence, he said, "We probably need to go downstairs, make sure Alex and Morgan aren't making babies on the couch." We left his room as River put a shirt and made our way downstairs. When we got to the end of the stairs River shouted a warning.
"I'm gonna count to three and if you're still making out, I will hurt someone. One... Two...Three." We heard shuffling and what sounded like Alex cussing. I let out a laugh and made my way into the living room. I sat down on the couch with Morgan, and we were talking about band, when we were rudely interrupted.
"I'm hungry!"
"Alex your always hungry!" Morgan shouted at him.
"You know what I want?"
"Ice cream?" Now that was River. He looked at me from the corner of his eye, and when my head perked at the sound of ice cream, a smirk made its way onto his face.
"I want ice cream!" I shouted. All of them covered their ears, and I didn't think I had yelled that loud. I shrugged that off, and got off the couch and put my shoes on. River stood up and came to my side, "What are you doing?"
"We're going to get ice cream."
"I meant later, do we really have to go now?" He complained. I nodded and dragged him to the door, but we were stopped short as Bella came charging down the stairs.
"Wiver! Did you say ice cweam?" She asked excitedly. He nodded and settled her on his hip.
"You wanna go?" She nodded her head, and we made our way to a black F150. River buckled Bella into a car seat, and I got into the passenger seat.
After our field trip to get ice cream we headed back to River's house. I checked my phone and it read 6:30 pm.
"River!" He rushed to where I was and looked me over for injuries.
"What? What's wrong?!"
"You have to take me home!"
"What? Why?"
"Cause I need to get home!" I yelled.
"Okay, okay," I yelled a bye to everyone else and got in River's truck. The ride to my house was silent except for me giving him directions. After reaching my house I thanked him and walked up the steps leading to the house.  Once getting to the front door I took a deep breath and slowly opened it.
There were no noises, and no trace of anybody being home. It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders, but my celebration was cut short by that bastard.
"Where have you been?"
"At school." That lie came out pretty good. I felt a sting on my right cheek as my head turned to the left. 'Well, that wasn't nice.' In this moment of my life, I could still be sarcastic like now's not the time Ellie. 
A kick was landed to my stomach, along with another slap to my other cheek.
"You slut! I saw you get out of that boy's truck!" I mentally cursed myself for going with River in the first place.
"Go clean yourself up.. bitch," Craig said as he walked away.  I hurried up the stairs and into my bathroom and saw how beat up I was.  I cleaned the blood from my face and checked on the multiple bruises on my stomach. I slowly made my way to my bed and just fell onto it. Not caring if I slept in my street clothes I just closed my eyes and prayed for a good nights sleep.