Hope

I take slow steps towards my room and wince. Everything hurts. My legs, my hands and my back. Even after that I am proud of myself. I didn't cry. I didn't shed a tear. I didn't release a sound. Not even a wince. And I enjoyed the irritated look on Nickolas and Michelle's face. But now that the adrenaline has weared off, I can feel the fabric clinging to my back. I can feel every drop of blood that trickles down my back and onto the floor. I take another step and wince. Marina would still be in the kitchen with the others. Nickolas's pack is a small one with a hundred wolves. Only twenty five of them live in the pack house. They are still sleeping. It's only 6:40 am. Another droplet trickles down and falls on the floor. I feel sympathy for the slaves that will have to clean it.

After ten minutes of walking at the pace of a tortoise, I reach my room. I open it and go to my drawer where I keep my clothes and toiletries. It is a small room with two small single beds, a table with drawers where we (me and Marina) keep our clothes. There is one bathroom attached to the room. There's a fan for summers and a tubelight. There's also a clock and a window on the wall opposite to the door. That's my room.

I step into the bathroom and hang my clothes on the hanger there. I then very carefully peel my shirt from my back and every time it irritates a scar I wince. A tear drops from my eye and I hastily wipe it off. I take off the rest of my clothes and start the shower. The water mixes with the blood on my back and trails down my body and onto the bathroom floor. I tip my head up and the water directly hits my face and I enjoy the feeling it arises. So much has happened with me in such a short time. Tears well up in my eyes as i recall the rejection of my mate. I want to curl up in a ball and die. If he had taken me with him then I wouldn't have to experience this, experience those hateful comments but he didn't. I knew somewhere deep in my heart that a man as gorgeous and powerful as him will not accept me. If he ever comes back to me, what will I do? Accept him or reject him? I know that cannot happen. If he wanted me, he wouldn't have left me. Right?

I need to get a grip on myself. These possibilities, they are just fantasy. My fantasy that will never be real. Why would he ever come back? What am I? Just a slave. And on top of that a Human slave. Why would someone ever want me?

I was so lost in my head that I didn't hear the sound of knocking until I heard Marina and Sarah shouting my name. I immediately stop the shower and wrap myself in a towel.

"I am coming. Just a few more minutes!" I call back and dry my hair and wear my clothes. A simple loose t- shirt as it won't irritate my back and a blue ragged jeans which has two holes in it but still looks good.

After finishing my business I open the door and step out to find my friends glaring at me. I should prepare my funeral. They are going to kill me.

As I eye the door, thinking of a way to flee without getting myself killed, they both walk up to me with their scary glares on their faces and I seriously think about hiding in the bathroom. Just as they are within my arms reach they both throw themselves on me, tackling me into a hug and I force my legs to not give out. Their arms move to my back to soothe me and I wince.

"What happened, Hope?"asks Sarah, confused at why I winced and then realization filled them.

"They whipped you!" Marina exclaims in outrage.

Sarah hurries to the bathroom to bring out first aid as Marina curses Michelle and Nickolas in a hundred different languages and I had to cover my ears as I don't want to learn how to curse in whatever languages Marina does.

"Hope, why did you say that to her? I am not saying that what she said was right but you knew how much of a crybaby she is. In the end, you got the punishment." Says Sarah and then turns to Marina who still hadn't shut her mouth, "And geez girl, shut your mouth or you'll ruin my virgin ears." She scolds her when she gets out of the bathroom and opens the antiseptic bottle. I try my best to hold back my laughter at Sarah's comment but my mouth thinks today is the best day to kill me and I laugh.

They both watch me laugh with small smiles on their faces and I immediately sober up. Now it's my turn to be confused.

"You didn't laugh at all since a week. We're just happy to see you laughing." Marina says when she sees the frown on my face. I smile at them for a second forgetting about everything that is wrong in my life and focus at what is right. I have a loving friends, a best friend and I still have my talent of singing. I know it's not enough but it will do for now. It's true that when God takes something from you, he gives you a hundred times better. He took my parents but gave me these loving friends and a mate in return. It's not God's fault that my mate didn't love me. Everyone makes their own decisions. My mate made his. I can not blame God for everything. There are people out there who have no one. I should be happy with what I have.

Sarah and Marina make me sit down and pull my t-shirt up from my back and then turn me around. They both gasp, shocked when they see the state my back is in. I can imagine what they are seeing.

Fifteen ugly scars running from one side of my back to the other in every direction and a hundred old ones hiding beneath them while some old scars are visible. They both don't know what a monster my uncle was. How much he liked whipping me while using me. Hot tears fill my eyes as I remember all the times he used me behind my aunt's back. They weren't mates so she didn't feel the cheating pains and lived her life ignoring my existence. Many times I tried to tell someone but I couldn't. He was everywhere. Every time I tried to tell someone, he was there. And then he died in a rouge attack and I was transferred into this pack. In my whole life I had never been so thankful to rouges before.

"H-h-how m-many?"comes the broken voice of Sarah as it passes through the fog in my head and pulls me out from my daze. I twist my body to look at both of them and pull my t-shirt down. Silent tears are flowing from Sarah's eyes and Marina is crying and sobbing quietly with her hand on her mouth trying to muffle the sobs. I feel their sorrow radiating from them and my eyes moistened. I make everyone cry. Anyone who sees my back gives me a look of pity which I try to ignore everytime. For example the doctors to whom I was sent to after I almost died because of a very brutal rape.

"Fifteen." I reply quietly and their crying grows. I stand up and force my feet to move towards them and hug them with all my might. They hug me back carefully, trying to not touch my back.

After a few seconds, I draw back from the hug as my back had started itching. They also draw back and wipe their tears and I smile sadly at them. Everyone I love leaves, will they do the same? No. No. They will not.

'Stop thinking these depressing things!' I shout at myself.

Marina takes my hand and makes me sit on my bed. She then helps me take off my t-shirt and takes the cotton from Sarah's hands and starts cleaning my cuts. Sarah also comes forward and starts helping Marina in cleaning my wounds. I will never be able to tell them in words how much they mean to me. How much grateful I am for having them at my side. Still, after that my heart is empty. And only my mate can fill this emptiness. I want to ask him why couldn't he love me? But I cannot and I will not. Love can't be forced. I will learn to live without him even if it kills me. Even if he was just here for a month, he made my life come to life. A part of my soul loved him before everything came. Maybe we were from the same stars. He was the chapter in my life that hadn't been written but I knew it was always there. The first time I locked eyes with him in the meadow near the river, I felt as if my soul reached out to touch his. I had been living for years but I never had been alive until he came.

"Who was he?"asks Sarah and I turn to look at her, frowning. Who is she talking about?

Marina understands what Sarah is trying to say, I can read it in her expression, whenever she understands something her left eyebrow raises a bit without her knowledge.

"What she is saying is that your scars other than the today's ones look older. Much older. You came here two years ago at the age of sixteen and since that day you have been whipped thirteen times. They used the same whips on you as they do on us and both of us don't have a single scar. The scars caused by these wolves are lighter and they fade with time. So why do you have so many older ones and why are they still dark like you were just whipped yesterday? That can only mean someone punished you in your previous pack. Who was that man? I am going to kill him! How dare he touch you?!" She first starts explaining calmly but when she reaches the end she starts shaking with anger.

I want to tell them about my past. About everything I endured. But I don't want to live my past again. It's painful. It's frightening for me. The nightmares have reduced a lot since I shifted into Marina's room but they still come occasionally.

On the other hand I can't let him win. He destroyed my past and I don't want him to destroy my future. No. No he will not. He can't destroy my future. He can't win. I am going to tell them but I don't want pity looks. Everyone who knows about my past says that they can understand what I have gone through. But they can't. They didn't feel the pain when he snatched something that wasn't meant to be his. They don't know. They will never know. It was meant for my mate. For the one whose soul was tied to mine.

I feel someone wiping a drop of something wet from my cheek. It was Sarah. I didn't realize I had started crying.

"If you don't want to tell us then don't. It's your choice. You need time and that's completely understandable. It must have been painful for you...." Says Marina but I stop her.

"I need to tell you. I want to. But I think you should sit down for that." I say trying to assure her that I need to do this.

"No Hope, we can wait. You don't have to." Says Sarah but I shake my head and they both come and sit beside me, taking my hands into theirs to support me

"I-I come from the BlackAngels pack." I say and they both gasp. It was the most powerful pack in the country until a decade ago." My parents were humans but they were best friends with the Alpha and the luna. My parents came to know about werewolves when he had gone for trekking in the forest and had accidentally crossed the BlackAngels territory. The patrol guards had shifted into wolves and my dad couldn't believe his eyes. He fainted. When he woke up he was in Alpha Raven's house. Alpha Raven told dad about werewolves as my dad had seen them. Mom didn't know about them and it stayed that way. I was born after a few years. My dad and mom both loved me. They said that they will never leave me but they lied. They died in an accident twelve years ago. I still remember their faces and their names. They were the best parents anyone could ask for. After their death Alpha Raven and Luna Tara adopted me. They were so good that I started calling them dad and mom. I still remember the day when I first called luna Tara 'mom', she had jumped with happiness and smothered me with kisses. Dad too was the same. I loved them both dearly. Dad had a brother, Cyrus who was always jealous of dad because he couldn't become the Alpha. Dad loved uncle Cyrus very much. He was his younger brother after all. Betrayal is like a stake to the heart and that's what happened. Uncle Cyrus gave dad Wolfsbane and another poison to affect dad's senses. I knew about that because I saw him poison dad's coffee. I tried to tell dad but uncle Cyrus locked me in a room. He had seen me, he was a wolf after all. I cried and screamed but nothing happened. He didn't come to open the door. I waited and yelled for dad to come when I felt the pain in my chest. It was bad. It felt like someone was trying to seperate my heart from my body and I knew what that meant. Dad had died. I cried and cried. After an hour I felt another one and I immediately knew that I lost mood too. It was the worst day of my life. Uncle Cyrus became the new Alpha and showed the pack members a video in which I held a coffee cup up and was taking it somewhere. The pack members now regarded me as the killer of their previous alpha and my life was ruined. He had showed them half of the video. I was going to throw that cup away but he came in between and snatched the cup and that was when he locked me into a room. I tried to convince everyone but they had already believed that I," I scoff and continue, tears streaming down my face as I speak about the death of my parents,"was the murderer. Cyrus acted like that he had just not poisoned my father and killed my mother when she was weak because of the death of her mate. The pack members made me a slave when I was ten and the worse of that all was I was Cyrus's slave. He was a sadistic bastard. He started beating me to take out his frustration.

For Two years, I lived in the fear of death. He would lock me into a basement at night. It was dark. So dark. I would scream for him to take me out as it always reminded me of the day my parents died. It's where my fear of darkness came from. Tired of my screaming, he locked me in a basement with snakes. They were his pets and they weren't poisonous. But they bit me every night. I couldn't even scream as the snakes didn't like noise." I shudder when I imagine those snakes crawling towards me." The pack members bullied and abused me. I was just a ten year old who lost her parents but they didn't care except two people. The pack's doctor Mr. Martin and his wife Layla didn't believe the video Cyrus showed. They asked me about the truth and I told them. They are the only ones who know what I have gone through."

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Third person's pov

Hope continued her story while sobbing as she reached the most frightening part of her past.

"When I turned twelve, it became worse. He wouldn't care who was watching and whipped me everrytime I made a mistake. I once endured 50 lashes because I spilled coffee over him." Hope says and her friends clench their fists, ready to kill that bastard who did this to their Hope.

"He found his mate when he was whipping me in middle of the town's market and stopped but his mate had seen him beating an innocent twelve year old. She rejected him and he blamed me for the rejection. That night when he came home, he was more angry than I had ever seen him and I felt like he was going to kill me. But he did something else which was worse than death. He raped me. He took something which wasn't even his. I didn't even know what he had done until I watched a news on Television about a girl being raped. After that day it became his habit. He will come at night and use me while whipping me. I begged him for mercy but who was I joking with. I dreaded the night. I dreaded the dark. It was the time he came in my room. The fear of darkness increased day by day. Now I was not afraid of death. I wanted to die but if I killed myself then he would have won. And I couldn't let that happen. I wanted to kill him but he was stronger. Much stronger. I started having nightmares. They weren't just nightmares. They were my memories of the past. The bad ones. Me in the basement with snakes. My dad and mom being killed by Cyrus and I watching them die. My birth parents in an accident. I being raped for the first time. The pack's gossiping about me. The nightmares were terrifying. I used to scream at night to make them stop but no one helped me. No one ever came. This continued for four years. I still didn't let myself break. I couldn't give a killer the satisfaction of breaking me. I never bowed in front of him. He wasn't my king." Hope says and gives both of her friends a teary smile and they both give her a proud smile.

They hadn't spoken a word since Hope had started talking and were quietly listening. They hadn't thought that Hope had such a scary past. They were always amazed when Hope smiled at them even after being abused by a pack member. Now, they knew how Hipe was able to do that. She had gone through a horrible experience that those small beatings were nothing to her. Hope would never cry in front of her tormentor even if it pains her. She will never give someone satisfaction of breaking her. Their Hope was really a ray of sunshine in this dark world filled with rapists and murderers.

Hope smiled when she reached her favorite part and started speaking again.

"I was sixteen when rouges attacked the pack. The pack in his leadership was facing more attacks from other packs and the business was declining too. Their was blood everywhere. The rouges were more powerful this time as Cyrus had not been scheduling training sessions at all. I passed the field in which the wolves were fighting easily as no one paid attention to me. When I hadi reached the house where I had spent the most fearsome years of my life I saw Cyrus fighting with a man in human form. The man was winning. I stood there and watched that man crushing Cyrus's heart in his hand. I had never been so happy in my whole life. The euphoria and contentment I felt when that man killed Cyrus was exhilarating. The man then turned to me. I took two steps towards him and he smiled at me.

"I didn't attack this pack because I wanted it's wealth, I did it because one day when I was passing through this town, I saw you being used and whipped by him through a window. I was walking near this house when I heard your screams and I looked from the window to check. You were screaming and begging him to stop but he didn't. He was a monster and I don't have any remorse for killing him." He had said that day.

"You did this for me?"I had asked him not letting myself believe it.

"I wanted to save you. And yes I did it for you. I couldn't let a fucker like him ruin a beautiful lovely girl like you. I did it for another reason too. My sister, Aurora was raped by my previous pack's alpha and she killed herself after her mate rejected her because of the rape. I tried to kill him and he exiled me. That day when I saw you being used by him, I saw my sister in you. I couldn't let the past repeat itself." He had replied.

After that day, I never saw him again. A rouge took over the pack and I was transferred. I didn't even had any means to look for him. And now two years after here I am." Hope finished her talking and her two friends attacked her with hugs.

When they pulled back, Sarah said softly ," You are so brave Hope. We both are so proud of you. You are stronger than any other girl we've ever seen."

Hope was so glad when her friends didn't pity her and praised her. Hope smiled at both of them and thanked the god for giving her friends like them.

"Yeah, our hope is the b~e~s~t." Marina sang and Sarah slapped her forehead.

"Please stop her Hope. She sounds like an old horse dying.“says Sarah and Hope laughs while Marina pouts angrily at them.

"Hey, she was joking, don't be like that now." Hope says to Marina and Sarah mumbles, 'Like heck I was joking.' and laughs quietly making Marina glare at Sarah.

"I will forgive her on only one condition, you will have to sing for us. It's been a week." Says Marina and Sarah smiles.

"Okay, I will. Happy?" Hope says smiling at Marina.

"Very." Marina says clapping in delight.

Hope then stands up and brings her music keyboard and sits in front of them on the other bed. She knows which song will be perfect.

She starts playing the songs opening and the room fills with the melodious music and Hope starts singing.

Thought I found a way

Thought I found a way, yeah

But you never go away

So I guess I gotta stay now

Oh I hope someday I will make it out of here.

Even if it takes all night or a hundred years

Need a place to hide but I can't found one near

Wanna feel alive outside I can fight my fear

Isn't it lovely. All alone.

Heart made of glass. My mind of stone

Tear me to pieces. Skin to bone.

Hello. Welcome home.