Hanging

The full moon

She had no choice but to run.

As a deafening howl ripped through her body, sounding throughout the small room she’d been allotted, Elaina’s long sharp black nails ripped through the curtains at the window until they fell to the floor in shreds. In an effort to release the pain burning deep inside she did the only thing she could, lashing out with wide swipes of her arms, deadly nails scraping along every surface they encountered.

Her lips peeled back from her lycan teeth, elongated and piercing as her mouth opened wide, another grisly growl breaking free. Around her she could hear furniture crashing to the floor, material and papers being torn, and the rapid thump-thumping of her heart. It was there that the pain had originated, beginning with the day her mother died three months ago.

Elaina had believed she could go on even through the daily agony of not knowing for certain who had shot her mother down as she ran through the familiar forest. Elaina’s father had told her nothing, keeping his face stoic as he reported Tora’s death to his pack as if it were just another announcement and he were some paid employee from CNN. But he had been Tora’s mate, Elaina’s father. He should have felt something, yet he hadn’t. Elaina should have known then that something was wrong.

Instead, she’d tried to do everything her mother had taught her, tried desperately to be the alpha female she was born to be. She’d wanted to stand tall, proud of the extrakeen senses and strength she possessed over other lycan females. Coupled with the strategic planning and leadership skills she’d attained from watching her mother as she stood by Elaina’s father leading this pack, she’d had all the components to be a great alpha female. But Elaina had failed. Pitifully. Irrevocably. Failed.

She’d been humiliated and disrespected, and when she’d finally spoken up she’d been betrayed by her own father.

Another guttural growl and she spun around, this time facing the mirror over her dresser, stopping cold. Staring back at her was the beast that was her counterpart, the lycan with its feral snarl, protruding forehead and nose, eyes glowing light blue. Her hair was wild, sticking out around her face and falling in wild strands over her shoulders and down her back. She would have scared herself if that fear hadn’t been replaced by the sting of lies and deceit. By the hatred she’d harbored for the members of her father’s pack and for Penn himself. He wasn’t a father to her, wasn’t what he was when her mother had been alive. He’d changed in these months, so much so that allowing a member of his pack—his only daughter—to be assaulted the way she had been hadn’t warranted so much as a double take.

“It’s time you accept your fate, Elaina. There will be no others, only them that are willing to take you and be what you need. Do not fight the inevitable,” Penn had told her as she lay in the corner of their living room, her clothes ripped from her shivering body.

She’d kept her back turned to him, her head tucked low in disgrace as his words slammed into her skin like arrows. There would be no others because no lycan would want a female with her tall and curvy body. In Penn’s eyes she’d appeared more dominant than she should have because she was almost as tall as the males with her five-foot-nine stature, and while she wasn’t as muscular as they were, her body was built broadly. The fact that she was probably smarter than at least three out of the four betas in the pack meant nothing, nor did her abilities regarding the maintaining of the pack residence and the strategic planning skills her mother had taught her where their kind was concerned. She could be an excellent resource to the right alpha, a fact Tora cemented into her mind from the time she was a young girl.

But it wouldn’t be any member of her father’s pack. She’d realized that with startlingly clarity. They weren’t who she was meant to be with, something Tora had also told her in the days just before her death.

“I’ve taught you everything I know,” her mother had said, long lashes cloaking her soft brown eyes. “But there’s more for you, Elaina. More than I could ever teach you, more than you could have ever imagined. Beyond these walls and this pack, there is something for you. A destiny neither of us could ever have imagined.”

“What?” Elaina had asked, moving to sit next to her mother on the edge of the bed she shared with Penn. Fear and uncertainty had hung in the air like a dark cloud, just hours before they were set to attend Elaina’s college graduation. It should have been a time of joy, as she’d finished her courses early and would be receiving her BA in psychology. Tora had been so proud of Elaina’s goal to study the human psyche as well as the desire to probe deeper into the minds of the lycans. Yet today Tora looked so sad.

“Tell me what else there is?” Elaina had insisted.

But Tora had only shaken her head and managed a shaky smile. “Not today, my child. Today is all for you. It is your beginning.”

Three days later Tora had been killed and Elaina had felt more like it was her end.

But it hadn’t been. She’d survived in this house with this pack for three months since then. Every day knowing, sensing, that what had mother had said to her had been absolutely true. There was more for her than what was here. And after what had just happened to her, coupled with the fact that her father was condoning one of his beta’s trying to forcibly claim her, Elaina knew exactly what she had to do.

With a fist to the glass Elaina broke the mirror, taking a step back from the shattering pieces. Her chest heaved as she struggled to rein in the beast, to yank it inside where it belonged. As an alpha female, she’d been trained and mastered controlling her shifts, so there was no doubt she could pull the beast back, but as the anger continued to rage, the beast was unrelenting in its claim over her. She lifted the mattress from her bed, digging her nails in deep and ripping it apart, tossing the remnants across the room. Next was the dresser that she turned completely over, standing atop it to howl into the night once more. Her pack mates would hear her, they would recognize her cry, but they would not come to her. Not to offer assistance or consolation, none of them, especially not her father.

That was just fine, because she didn’t need them. Her mother had been the only one to ever give a damn about her. Tora had taught Elaina everything she knew, just as she’d told her before her death. There was nothing here for Elaina and she’d been a fool to let her father try to convince her otherwise. Her mother had been right, there was more for Elaina out there, in the world, she supposed, and Elaina was determined to find out what exactly that was. With that thought Elaina backed up until she crashed into a wall, sliding down to sit on the floor. With arms propped on her knees, head hanging low, she breathed heavily, until her heart rate slackened, the sharp nails and teeth detracting slowly. She felt more like herself, like the self-assured and independent woman she planned to be.

Then she stood and she began to pack, because her choice had been made. She would leave this place and these people and she would find what her mother knew was out there for her. She would run toward freedom, toward the life meant for Elaina Altella, not the one they’d tried to force on the alpha female.

And she wouldn’t look back. Ever.