Mate

Marissa tossed and turned, her usual nightmare haunting her again as she fought to escape it.

The nightmares came every time she closes her eyes to sleep. 

These nightmares range from the day she cried her eyes out after realizing she’d been sold, the beatings, to the assault, to the torture and now, to the werewolves. 

This time,  was running through the woods, a werewolf hot on her tail as she ran as fast as her legs could carry her. 

Exhaustion was already creeping in but she couldn’t stop.

Unfortunately for her, she tripped on a stone and fell. She didn’t get a second to recover when the wolf was already pouncing on her. 

She screamed, her heart in her mouth as she waited, accepting her fate.

The werewolf towered over her, it’s eyes golden and glowing, it was beautiful but right now, it wanted to eat her. 

The wolf opened its mouth, and she closed her eyes waiting to the pain but none came. However, she felt tongue and wetness on her face. 

The wolf had just licked her face. 

She woke up gasping, the sensations and fear from the dream following her to the physical. Her breaths were still coming out short as she was still panting. 

The blinding light from the windows brought tears to her eyes as they were too harsh, and directly in her eyes. It felt like the sun was directly in front of her eyes, considering that she hadn’t seen the sun in a very long time. 

She blinked away the tears that pooled in her eyes due to the brightness of the light and took in her surroundings. 

‘This must be the monsters’ place’. She thought to herself as she remembered the last thing she saw before she fainted, shivers went down her spine at the thought of facing those beings again. 

She took in the unfamiliar but very clean room. The walls, bedsheets, and curtains where white,  while the bed frame, wardrobe and doors were blue. 

The first thing she noticed was how much her filth had sullied the clean white bed sheets. Shame filled her remembering just close her stinky self was close to that handsome man. Sorry monster. 

Her previous captors only allowed her and the others bathe once in a month, and it had been almost a month now. 

Her eyes immediately located the small door by the side of the room which she desperately wished was a bathroom. The desperacy of getting clean voided every other thought she had. 

Coming down from the bed in wobbly strides, she walked towards that door. 

It felt like she hadn’t used her legs in so long which was actually true. It has been several years since she walked without cuffs or chains binding her legs together. 

Twisting the door knob, she slowly pushed the door almost not wanting to see what was inside as it could be a disappointment if it turned out to not be a bathroom, but fortunately it was. 

“Oh, it really is a bathroom”. She said to herself excitedly,  her voice sounding strange in her ears. She hadn’t really spoken in years. Screamed, yes but hasn’t really spoken. 

Who was she going to speak to, when the cells made it seem like you were the only one captured until it was bath time. 

The only way she knew that she was not alone was by the little vibrations in the walls, or the sound of chains when someone moved. 

The aim of her previous captors were to break them beyond repair, and they actually succeeded to an extent.

They had broken her, in almost every way. 

She heard of so many of the captives like her going mad from the torture and isolation, so she gratefully held on to the little sanity she had left. 

She entered into the bathroom and it was the biggest washroom she had ever seen, not like she really any other one to compare it to.

The white and sky blue tiles on the walls made it look so amazing, blue had always a favorite color of hers. 

She was so happy that she had to scold herself to remember where exactly she was. 

‘I’m a prisoner here too. Let me shower fast before they catch me and whip me. They can do that once I’m done bathing. I’ll gladly take it’. She thought to herself as she showered with urgency. 

She hadn’t thought of clothes while she was doing this and immediately she was done showering, panic set in. 

“My clothes are a torn stinky mess, what do I wear?”. She said to herself as she rushed out to open the wardrobe only to find clothes but what left her stunned was the mirror inside the closet. 

For the first time in so long, she saw what she looked like and she didn’t like it one bit. 

Growing up, everyone called her a beauty but who she was seeing in the mirror was very far from beauty but closer to beast.

The bones on her neckline were protruding, her face looked like you could trace her skull from how shrunken it was, her once clear skin was littered in bruises, and her eyes. Oh, her eyes looked lifeless. 

That had been the most compliment she could remember getting before she was captured. 

The only thing that gave her comfort was her dark curly long hair which was almost at her ankles, wild and free. It was a tangled mess but full enough to cover some parts of her that she didn’t want to see. 

The thought of detangling it made her shiver. 

'it'll hurt like hell, but pain is nothing new'. She said to herself as she attempted running a hand through her matted curls.

Then the thought that her captors could walk in at any moment, made her return to her search for clothes to wear. 

She found some, and they were all too big but they were clean and smelt so good. They would also cover her scars, so she wore them and sat back on the bed waiting for whatever torture was going to befall her today. 

After several minutes, she grew impatient and the delicious smell wafting into the room was not helping matters. 

She had not smelt anything that delicious before and her hunger and curiousity got the best of her. 

She could not even guess what food was producing the amazing smell because she hadn't eaten anything but bland rice and water for as long as she could remember.

So she walked out of the room, following the smell like a dog. 

If there was something she knew how to do well, it was to identify smells so this was a piece of cake. 

She found a flight of stairs and was coming down on them when her eyes caught the two men or werewolves who captured her, her heart drummed in her chest out of fear. 

As she was about to turn and run back to where she came from, the big bad alpha was immediately in front of her saying;

“Mate”. 

That single word made Dario almost burst into flames from happiness, want, fear, and just pure joy. 

‘Who would’ve thought that I would have a mate?’. He thought to himself as his legs carried him towards her. 

Now standing right in front of her, he truly looked at her and immediately decided that he would never let her go. 

“Mine”. He said again, but this time, he nuzzled his cheek against her, which scared her more than she cared to admit. 

All she thought was: ‘No, not again. I don’t want to belong to anyone anymore’. 

“No”. She uttered, now making eye contact with him, and for the first time in along time, Dario felt deep pain.