The Girl's Dark Mate (COMPLETED but currently rewriting)

2.6

"You were a dream. Then a reality. Now a memory."
Iain Thomas, The City Rises and Falls
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Song:  This must be my dream, 1975
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KARA'S P.O.V.

My mother knew from an early age that I would be unlucky. She knew from the second she felt me stir inside her that my entire life would be composed only of heartache and tragedy.

I remember her bundling me up in scarves and jackets. I remember her spraying me with perfume. I remember her giving me, a little toddler, glasses to wear - even if I had perfect vision. All these things I remember her doing to cover up my identity were rendered useless because from just a single glance you could just tell that I wasn't like them.

My mother is from a pack up north that doesn't believe in mates, to the point that if one is even thought to believe in one they would be banished and branded as an outcast. So it would be to no ones surprise that she had a relationship with someone briefly and without much thought. The whole let-me-sleep-with-a-random-stranger-for-the-night thing wasn't a problem for the pack. The stranger being a vampire was.

Make no mistake, my mother was not in love with my biological father, but she held so much pride in herself and maybe even arrogance that when asked who the father was she would not hesitate to tell them that he was of a different species. She didn't even care that people looked at her different. That's just about the only thing I admire about her - her pride and value of her own self-worth.

After giving birth to me, it became indisputable that she was indeed with a hybrid child and that even to this day is beyond taboo. It is, by pack law (de facto and de jure), a crime to have a child with another species. So I was born a crime.

My mother never cowered though, she never wavered in strength or become regretful for having me. Instead she fled, to protect me.

She came to the pack when Caleb's father began with The Raids, knowing fully well that the Alpha would take her and me in with the knowledge that she would give herself up to him, willingly, at any moments notice.

I recall tentatively this image of her crying into her hands one night. We had lived in this pack for what had seemed like lifetimes but has only been five years.

"Kara," she lifted her head to show me her glassy eyes and tear stained face, "come here." I did so and quickly because she never talked to me, really no one ever talked to me. Every time I left this room (which was a rare occasion) I had to keep my head down in submission and was never addressed by anyone.

So I climbed onto her lap, my hands latching onto the collar of her shirt.

Her hair was like mine, the same color. Except hers fell so prettily down her back in waves. Her complexion was this beautiful shade of olive that made her silver eyes seem like gems.

"I have to leave Kara, I have to leave." She was barely speaking above a whisper and I would later realize that she had said this in such a tone because all of the Alpha's mistresses were well accounted for (and by that I mean that they didn't even leave the vicinity of their room without his knowledge, let alone shift).

"Ok, where are we going?" I asked.

"Kara I'm leaving, but you're going to stay here okay?"

That night she fled for the second time in her life, leaving me alone to bare the burden of being born a crime.

I'd like to say that I was raised by some kind or sweet or compassionate, understanding pack member, but that would be a lie and wouldn't fit into the life I live.

I raised myself. Literally.

I, the hybrid, the crime, the mutation, the mutt, the abomination, learned from an early age that some people, maybe even all people will not like you. And this pack, this conservative, traditional pack did not accept me.

I wasn't thrown out, I was just ignored. I found solace in being invisible even though I knew people were fully aware of my presence.

When I shifted for the first time, I was alone. All of bones cracked and broke and mended and broke again and popped out of their sockets and realigned themselves for hours without end. A shift should never be commenced alone and is never commenced alone. Because somehow, someway, a wolf always seems to drift towards another shifter when in their first transition. I didn't fully transition because of my blood, but I was stuck in a state between being a wolf and a human.

I was looking up at the night's sky and the stars for hours trying to ignore the pain. I remember feeling like I was being pressed against the open sky, against the darkness, looking out into the infinite, like was about to defy all laws of Earths gravity and float off from the ground into the sky, the infinite all alone. Then out of the corner of my eye came another shifter, one who like me, would be destined to live out an unlucky life. Caleb.

He was never my friend and I was never his. But we found that we could exist next to each other so quietly that we felt slightly better together. In that way, we understood each other. He recognized me for being a crime and I recognized him for being the child of the most vile Alpha known in recent history.

I met my mate shortly after turning eighteen. I never, not for a moment, thought that he would accept me - and he didn't.

For some reason I understand perfectly well why he did what he did to me that day. I don't forgive him or excuse his actions but I understand them. I lied to Alice when I told her that I thought my life would turn around when meeting him.

Adam called me a "worthless bitch" then he kissed me. Then I kissed him. And I thought I would die from feeling him pressed into me. And then we were only breaths and lips and pinned to each other on the floor.

Afterwards he became a little more physical in the most violent sense.

And I fell apart even though I knew we were not meant to work out, maybe a small part of me wanted it.
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"Caleb," I pull him from this room. He spends his entire life with her in this room.

Things are going to change. And I'm going to make sure of it.

"Get the fuck out of this room. We're going to go find a cure." I promised him this.

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Song: This must be my dream, 1975

Questions?

LSM

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