Humanborn

“Please, just stop!” she kept begging. Begging for her beta to not torture her anymore.

“Why would I stop? I’m having too much fun!” His claw appeared, and he planted it in her chest. She screamed at the pain, and her vision started to blur. She heard the others laugh.

Ever since her parents had rejected her for not being a wolf, her pack had been torturing and abusing her for “just being a human.”

He pulled his claw back, and the blood gushed out. She screamed again and dropped to her knees. Everybody laughed as she started crying. Even her alpha didn’t give a damn about her.

Why should he if even her own parents didn’t?

Her beta crouched next to her and looked deep into her eyes. “Don’t ever disrespect me again.” He spit in her face and walked away.

She did her best to stand up and ran toward the woods. She left the pack house behind her and just kept running.

After a while, she fell to her knees and cried loudly. She wanted to run away.

To go to the humans and never look back, but she couldn’t, because they would find her and make her life even more miserable than it already was.

She looked at the wound and felt the pain through her whole body.

Every wolf was born with a human body and a wolf body, so any werewolf was never truly alone because their wolf was always around.

Except for her. She was born with only a human body; her wolf had never surfaced. The pack doctor had said that her wolf had died inside her when she was born.

They said it was her own fault that she was a human. Her parents had tried everything to give her wolf life. They had even bitten her more times than she could count in the hope that she would awaken.

Slowly but surely, she stood up and walked to a small river. She soaked her shirt in the river and pressed it onto her wound. She bit her lip in an attempt not to scream, which thankfully worked.

The pack didn’t need to revel in the joy of her pain again…

She sat down with her back against a tree and stared at the river. She looked at her arm and stomach and saw old bite marks from her father and countless scars from the rest of her pack.

There was almost no place on her body that wasn’t covered in scars. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She was twenty, and for fifteen of those years, she had been tortured and abused.

She had wished countless times that they would just kill her, but they never had.

She had no one.

If her wolf were alive, she would have never felt that way; hell, she would have been normal, and none of the things that had happened to her over those fifteen years would have happened!

She closed her eyes and rested her head against the tree.

After a while, screams filled the air. She jumped up and saw that it was nighttime. She put on her shirt and started running toward the pack house.

The screams got louder, and she heard a lot of wolves howling. As she got closer, she saw a bloodbath. Wolves lay ripped apart on the ground, and the pack was fighting other wolves.

Wait—why is another pack fighting them?

Before she could figure that out, a brown wolf saw her and ran toward her. As soon as she saw him, she knew he was a rogue. She started running toward a tree.

The rogue howled as he gained on her. She jumped to the tree and grabbed a branch. She felt the pain from her wound go through her body, but she ignored it. Her life depended on it.

She pulled herself up and grabbed another branch. The rogue jumped at the tree and bit her leg. She screamed as he pulled her to the ground.

She desperately crawled backward as the wolf slowly walked toward her. He leapt and pinned her on the ground. She closed her eyes as he was about to sink his teeth into her throat.

She knew that her terrible life was about to end.

But instead of feeling an excruciating pain, she felt the wolf back away a little. She opened her eyes and looked at the wolf on top of her.

He was looking not at her but at a big gray wolf standing next to them.

Another rogue.

They were mind-linking, talking to each other through their minds.

The gray wolf looked at her. His eyes were brown. The wolf on top of her also looked at her and growled. He backed away and started to change back to a human. The gray wolf also turned human.

Both men were gorgeous and...

Naked...

She averted her eyes and forced herself to look at their faces. “Who are you?” she asked the gray one; it was obvious that he was calling the shots.

His brown eyes were almost black, and he had light-brown hair. Not answering the question, the man who had been the brown wolf grabbed her and pulled her onto her feet.

She screamed as her wound tore open again.

The other man saw it and walked toward her. “You’re human?” He looked surprised and started laughing. Another wolf walked up, and the man turned his head as they communicated.

“Well, the good news is that the pack that held you captive is wiped out for the most part, and those who survived scattered,” he told her.

Even though they had been horrible to her, she felt sad... The thought of her parents being dead was a thought she’d never wanted to have.

“The bad news,” he continued, “is that you’re our captive now.” He started laughing and walked away.

“Let me go!” she said.

He turned around. “She can speak!”

“Hell, yeah, I can speak. I have no value to you, so just let me go.” He walked toward her and stopped only a few inches from her face.

“I’ll decide if you have value or not. Why were you held here?”

She knew that if she told him that she was in fact part of the pack they had just killed, she would get killed too. So she kept her mouth shut.

He pulled her shirt—which, thankfully, had long sleeves so he couldn’t see her scars—down a little and looked at her wound. “I’ll find out somehow. But it’s easier for you if you’ll just tell me.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything, filthy rogue!”

He slapped her face and grabbed her throat. “It’s not in your best interest to piss me off, human!”

She gasped for air and grabbed his wrist.

“I may be a rogue, but I’m still a wolf, and you? You’re just a human who doesn’t know a thing about us.”

He was really sure about that. Too bad for him that he was wrong.

“I know more than you think,” she said. He let go of her throat. She fell on her knees, coughing.

“We’ll see about that,” he said. He punched her head, and everything went black.

When she woke up, her headache was unbearable. She was in a decayed house, an old pack house that hadn’t been used in years. Well, except by the rogues, apparently.

She sat up and realized that she was on a couch. Her hands were bound behind her back, but her legs were free. The leader of the rogues walked her way and looked at her. “Good morning,” he said.

Thankfully, he had clothes on this time.

“Where the hell am I?” she asked.

He smirked. “I’ll ask the questions here. Who are you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Why did they hold you captive?”

No answer. He started to get annoyed. “Look. I’m giving you a chance to be honest so I don’t have to hurt you.”

She’d lived with pain for fifteen years; she could take it. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“Oh, but you do. If you want to live, anyway.” He smirked again.

“Who says I want to live?”

His smirk disappeared and gave way to a look of surprise. He grabbed her arm and pulled her up. “If you don’t want to live, why did you run away from Spencer?”

“Spencer?”

“The brown wolf that attacked you.” It was a good question. A question that she could not answer.

“Blake!” At the sound of his name, he turned around and looked at Spencer standing in the doorway. “They’re here!” Spencer said.

Blake growled. “How did they find us?” He immediately looked at her and saw her bloody clothes. “Fuck.” He dragged her toward the door. “Time to fight. Keep an eye on her. She could be important.”

“Seriously? She’s the reason why they found us!”

Blake growled. “There was a reason why they held her there; we must figure out what. That can only happen if she’s alive!”

Spencer growled. “Fine!” He grabbed her arm and pulled her outside. They heard wolves howling in the distance and rapidly coming closer.

“Who are they?” she asked. Spencer didn’t answer and pulled her into the woods. He ran fast. Faster than her. Her legs were giving out. “I can’t!”

Spencer picked her up, and a little scream escaped her mouth. “Keep your mouth shut!” he growled at her. She immediately knew that she had to obey. He started running.

She couldn’t help but get nauseous. She heard another wolf howling and looked over Spencer’s shoulder. A beautiful black wolf was catching up to them, followed by a brown wolf.

“Um, Spencer?” Before he could answer her, the black wolf bit into Spencer’s leg. They fell to the ground, and Spencer swiftly turned into his wolf.

He growled at the brown wolf, who was face-to-face with him. The black wolf was focused on her.

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know, but something is off with her.”

“She’s human!”

“Stating the obvious, Mike.”

“But still, there’s something different about her.”

“I know; we’ll figure it out once we’re done with those fucking rogues.”

Even though she couldn’t hear his wolf and human talking to each other, she could see that he was confused.

When a werewolf was human, they were one person, the person who was, most of the time, in control. When they were a wolf, their wolf-self took over.

They could communicate with each other when they were a wolf, but in human form, they could only feel each other’s presence.

The wolf was a separate part and had a different name from the human form.

He took a step toward her, and she heard Spencer growling. The brown wolves started to fight. The black wolf didn’t pay attention to them and only focused on her.

She found the strength to stand up and started running. The wolf jumped on her and pushed her to the ground. She turned on her back and looked into his beautiful hazel eyes.

He started to turn, and within a few moments, she had not a wolf on top of her, but a man. His hair was the same color as his pelt. Midnight black.

“Who are you?” he asked.

No matter how beautiful he was, she didn’t want to be a prisoner again. She threw her leg up and kneed him in his junk. He growled and fell to his side.

She stood up and started running again. She looked back and ran straight into a gray wolf.

Blake.

She fell on the ground and looked at his brown eyes. Somehow, he looked worried. She heard a growl behind her. She tilted her head and saw the black wolf. The wolves growled at each other.

This was a fight she didn’t want to be in. Blake leapt at the black wolf and tried to bite his neck. The black wolf was larger, and he pinned Blake to the ground and glared at him.

Blake was able to push him away.

They growled at each other again. Not wanting to see the outcome, she stood up and started running. This time, she didn’t look back.

There were a lot of wolves in the area, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was her freedom.

After everything that had happened, she needed to clear her head and figure out what the hell had truly happened. She kept running no matter what.

She was too far away to hear the growls, but she knew she wasn’t safe yet.

How right she was.

Not a moment later, she was pushed to the ground and surrounded by wolves. The last thing she saw was the back of a knife hitting her head.

She woke up slowly. Her whole body hurt. She reached for her temple and realized her hands were free. She looked around and saw that she wasn’t in the decayed house anymore.

Instead, she was in a hospital bed in an infirmary.

“Good morning.” She startled at the greeting of the man who had captured her. The black wolf. “Are you okay? Your wounds were quite large.”

Her face turned pale. “Y—you looked at my body?”

He smirked.

“And what if I did?”

Rage filled her body, and she immediately stood up, wanting to attack him. She lifted her arm, but as she started to slap him, he grabbed her wrist and pushed her against the wall. “Let me go!”

He smirked again. “Calm yourself, girl. I didn’t look at you. The doctor told me you got lucky. If she hadn’t treated you, your wounds would have gotten infected and you would have died.”

She looked down and saw that she had on white jogging pants and a white long-sleeve shirt. He followed her gaze. “She also changed your clothes,” he said.

She closed her eyes for a minute. “What else did she tell you about my body?” She looked up at him.

“Only that you had a couple of scars. But I don’t find that weird since you were a captive of some rogues.”

She pushed him away. “And now I’m yours.”

“I can’t let you go. The rogues will capture you again, and the woods aren’t safe outside the pack borders. So for now, you are.”

She couldn’t believe this. In just a couple of days, she had been a prisoner by three different packs!

“Who are you? Why did the rogues capture you?”

“Fuck off.” She bumped his shoulder when she walked past him, but she didn’t get far. He grabbed her arm and pulled her back against the wall.

“Who the hell are you?” he repeated.

She looked into his hazel eyes and wanted to drown in them. “I said fuck off!”

He was getting frustrated. “At least tell me your name.”

“What’s yours?”

He smirked. “Dominic. Now tell me yours. At least you owe me that.”

“Owe you for what?”

“Saving your life.”

Okay, that’s fair enough.

“Kiara.”