9. Abigail
9
ABIGAIL
I wake with a smile, and the sunlight glinting on polished wood and crystal-clear glass. Thorn is sleeping beside me, and I stretch and climb out of bed to brush my teeth and get dressed. The memory of the men who warned me is nothing but a fades afterthought.
Thorn comes up behind me, wrapping his big body around mine as he nuzzles my neck. “You look delicious, my mate. Is there anything you need?”
I shrug while brushing my teeth. What can I need? I have him and the forest, and there’s nothing else that could compare to this.
“Nothing at all?” I recognize the playful tone and narrow my eyes at him.
His lips curl up into a smile, and he races into the bedroom. I quickly rinse my mouth out and rush after him, curious what’s got him so excited this morning.
He pulls a huge shiny white box from under the bed and sets it on the rumpled mess of quilts. “I think there is one thing you could use, although I loath to provide it since it will mean I can’t touch your bare skin anytime I want.”
I peer down at my naked body and put my hands on my hips, mentally urging him on.
With a flourish, he lifts the lid and throws it aside. Then he parts the creamy white tissue paper to reveal…clothes.
I let him see the confusion on my face and grab a notepad off the side table. You bought me clothes?
With equal excitement, he whips a sweater from the packaging. “Not just any clothes. The softest wool money can buy.”
I reach across the bed and pet the fabric, then freeze, eyes flying wide. Then I mouth the word, “WOW.”
He nods with a self-satisfied grin.
I pull the sweater to me and hold it up to my chest while he pulls piece after piece out of the box. An entire beautiful wardrobe in jewel tones. I swallow a lump in my throat and pull the small box of intimates across the bed.
“Those might be for both of us,” he says.
I pull out some of the underwear and marvel at how perfectly it all fits. Tears are building in my eyes, and I turn my back as I dress so he doesn’t see. Of course, he senses something is wrong with his strange wolf powers.
“Abbie, what is it? You’re supposed to be happy with the gift, not crying.”
I snatch the pad off the bed and scribble. I’ve never owned new clothes before. Not as long as I can remember. I’ve always gotten my stepsister’s hand-me-downs, and they made sure they were in the worst shape before they reached me.
He growled low in his throat and then hugged me tight to his chest. “They can’t hurt you anymore.”
We stay that way for a few moments until my stomach releases a loud rumble. I snort and shake my head as he pulls away. “I’ll go hunting. You put away your new clothing. I cleared a drawer out for you in the dresser.”
Again, I hide the sheen in my eyes and turn to survey the clothes.
When the door closes behind him, I focus on neatly folding everything he’d haphazardly flourished at me while he unwrapped them. Each piece is more lovely than the last. I can’t believe he did this for me. It must have cost him a fortune, let alone to get it out here in the middle of the woods on the side of a mountain.
I get everything neatly folded in the empty drawer and smile at the idea of my clothes being with his. My belongings mixing and mingling with his belongings. Like we are starting a home together, a real home.
I smile as I tidy up the bedroom. He’ll grumble about me cleaning when he returns, but then he’ll have to show me who is dominant, and I like the way that turns out in the end. Once I gather his laundry from where it’s scattered all over the bedroom floor, everything is perfect. I make the bed and then head into the kitchen for some coffee. He’ll like it when he returns. Even though he stays pretty warm as a wolf, he gets chilled when he turns back to human, and the blood flow in his body changes.
It takes a moment to make the coffee, and I marvel at how content I feel. The doubts are gone. And while I still wonder what he could want with me, a nobody, I’m not going to question the gift I’ve been given any longer.
I deserve to be happy. I let the words flash in my mind again. I deserve to be happy.
The living room takes longer to tidy up, considering how he likes to throw all the pillows in front of the fireplace and fuck me in front of the warm glow. There are pillows from one end of the house to the other. It takes a good ten minutes to round them all up and get them back on the furniture.
I’m feeling pretty good about myself when I hear knocking. A low knock on solid wood. I glance up at the open rafters, hunting for birds, but don’t see anything.
Then I spin to check the porch and freeze. Two men are standing on the other side of the door. One of them is the naked man who approached me before. Apparently, he hadn’t learned his lesson. At least they are wearing clothes this time.
He points at the door handle and then gives me a sheepish grin. I shake my head. No way in hell I’m letting them inside.
But that doesn’t deter them. I stumble back a step against the kitchen counter when the other man, taller, broader than the first, opens the door and steps into the cabin like he owns it.
I point behind them, mouthing at them to get the hell out. Of course, they ignore me, the smaller man closing the door behind him. I don’t want to risk getting any closer to them, and the only other exit to the house is off the balcony in the bedroom, but it leads straight down to a ravine, easy for a wolf to navigate, not so much a human.
The smaller man smiles. “Remember me? I’m Levi, and this is my brother, Westin. We belong to the pack up in the village. I told you I wanted to keep you safe, and I’m going to repeat myself. You don’t know anything about Thorn or what he’s done, and I promised myself I wouldn’t let him do it to another human again.”
I frown and grab the notepad on the table. What other human?
He studies the words and then scans my face. “Oh, you don’t speak?”
I shake my head and stab the pen at the paper.
The brother—Westin, did he say?—picks up the conversation. “You aren’t Thorn’s first human target. He pursued someone before. He followed her, telling her that she belongs to him, but she was scared, and that’s when he killed her.”
No! I freeze, my heart climbing my spine like a ladder. When I don’t respond, he continues. “That’s not the important part, Abigail. The woman he took as his mate, the one he chased down until she died, that woman was your mother… Lily.”
Levi cuts in. “That's why he targeted you.”
No, no, no. That can't be true. None of this is true. What we have is real. He loves me. I weakly scribbled on the pad. You are wrong. My mom died in a car accident. I hold on to the pen so tightly I’m worried I might break it in my hold. I’m his mate.
Pity enters Levi’s eyes. “Did he tell you that? That’s what he told your mom too.”
Do you have any proof?
Levi and Weston exchange glances before Levi pulls out a stack of pictures from his pocket. He hands them to me apprehensively. “Are you sure you want to see this?” He questions with a frown.
I nod. I have to know the truth. Taking the pictures I stare at them one at a time. The first one is my mothers car, I only recall it because she is standing next to it. I barely remember that time, only a few happy vague memories buried behind a million bad ones. I try to think back, my head aching as if my brain is trying to pull something out of the depths of my memory. My head is nothing but a jumbled mess. I can’t remember much before my stepmother and her daughters. They made my life hell and overwrote every happy memory I might have had up until then.
The second picture is of my mothers car after the accident. Tears well up in my eyes as I take in the dismantled car, imagining her last minutes of life. I look at the third picture, it’s a close up of the back of the car. I look closer, bringing the photo up to my face. I gasp when I see it, the clear claw marks in the metal, something that could have only been done by a supernatural wolf with claws strong enough to pierce through metal.
“I know this must be very hard for you but please believe us, we only want to help. What do you really know about your so-called Mate?
I blink and try to recall what I know about Thorn, and it’s nothing. Not much at all besides the fact that he loves to fuck me, and he enjoys hunting. Could he have really killed my mother? He’s the right age. It makes sense to me now, though. Why someone like Thorn would want a nobody like me. I can’t even speak to him properly. He wants the woman he lost, and he gets the added benefit of never having to hear her voice either.
I swallow down the anger, the betrayal, the hurt, the fear, all of it. Just like I’ve done so many times before. Then I write on the pad again. So what now?
Levi smiles, and Westin nods like I’ve made the right decision. “You come with us, and we take you home. You’ll be safe there. We’ll make sure he can’t get you again. Your stepmother misses you terribly, so I’ve heard.”
It takes all my strength not to roll my eyes at that statement. But what choice do I have? Stay here and be Thorn’s look-a-like plaything or go back there and at least stay alive a little longer. Thorn would get tired of me eventually…then maybe kill me. This way, I’m making the choice for myself.
Westin and Levi lead me to a truck and take me back to my stepmother’s house in record time. It looks the exact same as it did when Thorn carried me away from this place. The paint is peeling, and the yard is sparse, like no one gives a shit what the outer walls look like. Not that the inside is any better.
We go inside, and my stepmother and stepsisters make a big show of how excited they are to have me back. I don’t smile. I don’t cry.
My heart is broken, and there’s nothing left inside me but ash. There’s nothing to do but keep on going.
They exclaim over my new clothes and fawn over my hair. But the second the men leave, they descend like wolves, tearing the seams of my new sweater and ripping the shoes from my feet. I knew the happy family act wouldn’t last long.
“You ungrateful girl,” my stepmother growls in my face. “You let that monster take you away, and what, you fucked him for these pretty clothes? You little whore. Well, I’ll show you where the whores hang out in this house.”
She grabs my hair at the nape of my neck and drags me toward the basement. I can barely keep my feet under me down the stairs. When she releases me, she shoves me toward a box built into the wall. It looks like a circuit box maybe?
“Open it,” she demands. “Or I’ll lock you down here without food or water until you do.”
I try the clasp but quickly realize it’s locked. Of course it is. There is a little number dial built into the side. I try random numbers until my stepmother slaps me hard in the back of the head. “This was your father’s box. It’s something meaningful. I know you know what it is. Now open it.”
I consider my options and frown as I scroll the dials to the numbers of my mother’s birthday. It clicks open with a small hiss. Inside, there’s a glass-shaped wolf like a decorative figurine. It’s heavy as I pull it from the box. A note sits inside the small wolf, written in my father’s handwriting.
This was your mother’s favorite.
My stepmother snatches it from my hand and twists it around, studying it from every angle. “It’s just a piece of junk.”
I try to reach out, but I’m not fast enough. The glass hits the concrete basement floor and shatters before I can get my hands underneath it.
My stepsisters laugh all the way up the stairs, following their mother. The lock at the top clicks, and then the light goes out to leave me in the dark. Figures. I knew they’d treat me worse this time, yet some tiny part of me held out hope there was something human left in them. But, no, they are soulless harpies, and I hate them so much I almost choke with it.
I feel around the box, looking for any other clues, but there’s nothing save a small light built into the top of it. I click it on and sigh. Well, at least I have a little light. I kneel near the glass to study it, but it’s beyond repair. Just like my life.