Chapter 1 - Memories

4:55am. Time to get up for another day. Another day, what day of the week was it? What month was it? Mya sat up in bed and looked up to the slit of a window the other side of her room. Definitely summer. The sun was high and the sky a brilliant blue. If only she was free to lie in the grass and bathe in the basking sun. What she wouldn’t give to be free.

Mya looked around her room. A 10ft x 10ft white room containing; a single bed, upright wardrobe, a mirror, sink, shower and toilet in the corner. Her room. . . . this was no room. This was little more than a prison cell. A cold hole tucked away at the back of the manor where nobody goes. Fully soundproof so no one could hear her screams. She’d found that out the first few months she was here. Screamed and screamed until her throat bled. Nobody came. Nobody except Victor. Her tormentor. He’d come in with his baton and beat her unconscious. When she persisted with her screams he brought his knives. She looked at the scars on her arms. Just visible white lines on her tanned arms. Why would a werewolf, second in command, need knives? Because he enjoyed causing pain and mauling people to death wasn’t satisfying enough for him. Mya shivered at the memory of it. Victor was terrifying.

She shook the memories away as she stood and walked to the wardrobe to get her clothes. The standard black tank top, black jeans and matching underwear. No colour here. Everything was either black or white. The only dash of colour you would see is when someone bled. So much blood. Her ears rang with the screams of the victims she had seen. The torture she’d witnessed. This place was hell on earth. She would never have imagined so much horror when she was back at home. Home. A small cottage with a converted barn at the back surrounded by fields and livestock. Her parents sitting in the garden drinking her mother’s favourite pink lemonade from a frozen jug. “If the lemonades not ice cold it’s no good to drink” her mother would say. Every time without fail. Mya would look at her father who would roll his eyes and they’d laugh. Such a calm and happy place.

Mya would wait for her parents while they would go on their weekly hunt with the pack in the evenings. They’d stroll back the next morning. Her father’s wolf was a large black beast that stood to her shoulder and towered above her when on his back legs. A magnificent creature with bright green eyes that could see into your soul. His coat glistened in the sun, so shiny you could almost see yourself reflected in the fur. She used to take fist fulls of his fur and rub her face into his neck breathing in the earthy smell of him. A wolf built for battle and as Alpha of the pack it suited him well. Her mother’s wolf in stark contrast was a sleek, athletic build. Her fur a brilliant white it put snow to shame. With her piercing blue eyes that even in wolf form would show her devotion and love for her husband and daughter. Ying and Yang they were. Mya’s father had always told her how her mother was the calm to his storm. That’s how they worked so well together. They balanced one another perfectly.

One night when her parents were on their weekly hunt with the pack they struck. She saw the fire in the barn from her bedroom window. Mya ran down the stairs in her pyjamas her long golden hair flying wildly behind her as she raced through the house. But who could she phone? The whole pack was on the hunt. All ten members of their small pack were in wolf form with no way of answering a phone. She grabbed the fire extinguisher from the cupboard under the stairs and ran barefoot across the yard to the barn. There was no-one in the barn at present. Its sole purpose being the meeting place of the pack with spare rooms if pack meetings went on too late into the night. The fire had really taken hold quickly. She was just thinking how it was much quicker than she would of expected when an explosion from the front of the barn sent her flying backwards across the cobble yard. An explosion? But there was nothing in the barn that could of caused such a blast! She staggered to her feet just in time to see a figure walking out of the flames. A tall, thin man with dark brown hair and a perfectly kept moustache that curled at the ends.

“Ahhh Mya, there you are! We’ve been looking for you.” his voice slithered through her brain like a snake but his lips never moved to form words.

“Who are you and what are you doing on my father’s property?” She screamed at him.

“Never mind that. Be a pet and come with me quietly and no one need get hurt.” The voice crawled through her mind again.

“Leave now or suffer the consequences when my father returns”.

“Oh I think not Pet”. Pain seared through her skull and she collapsed to the ground once more.

She woke while being carried by a wolf whose scent she didn’t recognise. He was broad and muscular with sandy blonde hair and hazel eyes. You could call him handsome if he hadn’t been carrying her towards a van with blacked out windows while the blaze that took her family home lit up the night sky. He was carrying her almost tenderly with her head resting on his chest. He hadn’t noticed that she had woken. In a move quicker than she had thought she was capable of she grabbed his blonde hair pulled his head to hers and bit down hard on his ear shaking her head. Blood filled her mouth as the bottom half of his ear came off in her mouth and she spat it in his face. He roared in pain and dropped her to the floor. She scrambled to her feet and started running for her family’s woods. A deafening howl filled the night. She could hear a man shouting, “Victor no, I need her alive!” So, the blond wolfs name was Victor. The same blond wolf that was now racing towards her in wolf form. There was no way she could outrun him!

She dropped to the ground just in time as Victor soared over her head. His wolf was the same colour as his hair. A sandy blonde, almost dirty looking. Where was her family? She spun on the spot and started to run back towards the burning house, but Victor caught up. His claws sliced through her back like a knife through butter. She screamed in agony. A fire spread through her body from the wounds on her back. NO! This was not supposed to be how she was turned. She was supposed to be turned by mate once she had found in and born him children. At home with her pack there to keep her safe. She could die without them being there to look after her during her turning. She rolled onto her side. Her back arching with the pain searing through it. Victor prowled towards her, saliva dripping from his mouth. This was it. She was going to die in her front garden. Victor launched himself at her. Just as he was about to strike a man flew from the left and threw Victor across the front yard. Victor hit the garden wall and slid down it with a satisfying thump. “I told you I want her alive!” The man turned towards her and the world went black.

Mya looked in the mirror in front of her. Her tanned skin was just starting to show a few freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her long golden hair was braided and hung down the left side of her body nearly to her waist. Her piercing blue eyes staring back. Just like her mothers. Where was her mother now? Her father? Her pack? Why had they never come for her? Did they know where she was? Were they alive? So many questions unanswered. A tear rolled down her cheek. She swiped it away angrily. There was no place for tears here. They would only use it against her. A knock at the door, 5am on the dot as usual. She heard the latch unbolting from the outside. She turned to face the door.