Marissa
I walked toward the corridor of Hunter's pack house alone. I felt a bit awkward walking through here. It's been a while since the last time I strolled through this pack. It was always with Abbie and Lily in hand as they would invite me to play with them when we were small.
I miss those days, just as bad as I miss seeing my parents so bad. I've been wanting to go see them since the minute I heard Felicity asking for us to accompany them to this party. But if I see them and a certain someone finds out, I won't hear the end of it.
I'm troubled though. A big guilt hasn't stopped me from making me feel like the lowest scum in the universe. No... the lowest scum of all existence.
I have been debating for days on the need to tell Abbie the truth. But how do I talk to Abbie, where do I start? if I tell Abbie, I just know she's going to hate me. I deserve for her to hate me though. I don't deserve Abbie to be my friend. I hate myself right now.
I'm tired of being Tara's punching bag. I'm a strong warrior for fucks sake! But... somehow, I can't stop being scared of her. Maybe it's because she had always secretly bullied me. I never told Abbie about this. She already had so much on her plate when we were small; having to deal with her abusive dad and narcissistic sister, Tara. The last she needed to know was that her sister Tara was bullying me too.
Abbie would have wanted to look out for me too, because that's just how she was; and I was not about to add to her load.
When I first heard Abbie had left our pack, I was so crushed. My only friend had left; I was alone, and defenseless. With Abbie out of the way, Tara had more anger in her that needed venting. And who did she take it out on? That's right... me.
I only acted strong in front of Abbie and acted as if I had it all figured out, I had it all together, but inside I was a broken mess. Tara has a way of making you feel so insignificant, worthless, a measly scum under her shoe. When Tara confessed to me what had really happened to Abbie, I almost lost it. She made me believe Abbie had died after she had left with a boy.
But I knew she had to been lying about the boy, I knew Abbie didn't have a special guy because the only guy Abbie had ever loved was Hunter.
I know Abbie used to think I was stronger than her because of everything she went through with her real dad, but she was wrong. She was the tough one of us two. She was braver than me. I admired her so much. I especially admired that she never let Tara intimidate her.
She stood up to Tara, and that's why Tara hated her the most. Abbie was the only one willing to talk back to her, the only one willing to fight back. The only one not willing to let Tara make her feel inferior and intimidated.
I sigh, coming to stand in front of a tree, far away from everyone else's view, looking at everyone practicing battle training. Boy, how I missed being able to practice with my pack.
When I found out I was mated to the new alpha of her pack, I was over the moon. I thought... finally, I Little bit of luck for me. I slept with him, giving myself to him entirely, because the mating bond was so strong I was sure it had to be love. He made me believe he was in love with me and wanted me in his life as his mate, and Luna.
But it was all fake. It was a farce to get me in bed just to reject me the next day.
I asked myself countless nights why? I felt our connection, I felt his wolf... he loved me. Just as I loved him.
But Tara had asked him to reject me. She didn't have a mate yet, even though she was older by a few months. She made him believe that she wanted the Luna position and she was willing to do anything to get it. She promised him to love him and all kinds of shit, seducing my mate to the point where he was willing to put us through the pain of rejection.
After he rejected me, he fell ill, and I was so broken I had isolated myself in my room for nearly a month.
The last I heard, he had asked her to be his chosen Luna, but she denied the offer. The only thing she wanted was to see me get rejected by him. After he rejected me to be with her, a rumor spread, we had heard it before, two years prior, but this time, it was true.
Hunter had turned eighteen two years before Abbie and me. Luna Mandy was excited by the thought her pack would soon have a new Luna when he first turned of age; but as the months went by and no sign of Hunter finding a mate, Luna Mandy became desperate and wanted him to take a chosen Luna and mate. Technically at the time it had only been one year, he was nineteen, and I was barely going to turn seventeen. The thought of Abbie soon turning eighteen too had made me sad. What if she was his mate? But she's not here to find out.
It's now been four years since his eighteenth birthday and it all makes sense.
I can't begin to explain to you how crazy things got really fast after that first year after his eighteenth. Everyone in his pack was respectful. They knew he would not accept the idea of a chosen mate, and for the first year after he was eighteen, things were pretty calm. That was until six months after that one year passed, and Luna Mandy again told him if he didn't find his mate, he needed to take a chosen mate. The girls in my pack, surrounding packs, and Tara's pack went crazy. They'd surround him everywhere he went and tried so many ways to seduce him, including Tara. Or should I say, especially Tara.
She had always known of the love Hunter had for Abbie and all for the better reasons she wants him. I am over the moon happy to find out that in fact, Abbie is his mate. She deserves a happy ending, just as he deserves a mate who won't take advantage of him.
When Abbie first contacted me years ago, Tara forced me into playing along and telling her everything Abbie and I talked about. I had to tell her everything or it was a sure beat down if she even thought I was leaving something out. She and her friends would beat me so badly that I would be left unconscious for hours. I feared for my life. Then the day of my rejection came.
I was rejected by my mate because he saw me as weak, and that was my final breaking point.
I left my pack and wandered around as a rogue for nearly half a year until I finally dared to reach out to Abbie. Her adoptive family and her have been nothing but loving to me. I can't help but feel so guilty for allowing Tara to force me into making Abbie believe that Hunter was this no-good scoundrel who's slept with countless women so that she would have a bad image of him. Tara has been trying to get into Hunter's bed failing miserably. Sure, she's a very pretty woman, but she has an evil heart.
And I... I hate myself for going along. I need to tell Abbie the truth. Especially now that my suspicions were correct and she is Hunter's mate. Just the thought of Abbie and Hunter being together makes me so happy for them that I want to cry. I need to tell Abbie everything, I need to come clean! even if it means I am risking losing my best friend in the process.
I'm done with all this. I'm tired of Tara and her manipulations. I need to be brave just once and do what's right.
I turn, and my heart sinks; I'm sure I look pale as fuck as I see Tara standing behind me. Her hands are crossed over her chest and a big annoying smile is plastered on her face. "T...Tara," I stutter out before she slaps me across my face and I am dragged by two men. I fear what's coming. These men are guards to Hunter's pack, and I bet he has no clue they are working with her.
"Hello, wench!" she grits her teeth, gesturing to the men behind her to follow her.
No one is in sight where I am. I had made sure I was standing somewhere no one would see me so I could enjoy some peace. Bad idea. She had found me, and Goddess knows what she wants from me this time.
I'm thrown into a car and driven away, far out into an area closer to her pack when the car comes to a halt. They grab my hand harshly, pull me out of the car, and throw me, making my body fall with a thud onto the gravel floor. I instantly shriek feeling the small sharp rocks perforating my palms and knees.
"Marissa, dear. I thought I told you from last time you came to visit Mommy and Daddy. I DONT. Want to see you here again!" she says, right before I feel one of the guys kick me in my ribs with force making me cough. I'm sure that broke one of my ribs as I feel intense pain, making me gasp for air painfully.
He kicks me again, making me fall on my back; my head hits a rock under me, making me feel warm blood dripping down the back of my neck almost instantly. My vision blurs and I can hear a piercing sound in my left ear as the pain in the back of my head intensifies.
"I... I was invited. I had to... I had to come." I stuttered, making the other guy punch me in the jaw. I hear a cracking sound of my jaw as he dislocated it from the impact, making me yell in pain.
I involuntarily mind-link Abbie, regretting it soon after. If she finds Tara and these men beating me, Tara will know she's here. And that means bad news for all of us. Not only for Abbie and me but for Luke's pack. Tara has a special place in her hate list for Luke's pack because they were the ones responsible for Abbie being alive.
Those men who were sent to kill her back when they first kidnapped her were not sent by her dad but by Tara and the guy she was messing with at the time. Abbie was supposed to be dead. Tara thought she was dead... until she contacted me. Tara had been spying on me and knew that Abbie had contacted me. If only my parents weren't so naive, thinking Tara and I were friends... they were the ones who had told her Abbie had contacted me because Tara had lied to everyone, telling them she left with a boy to be with him.
It crushed Hunter until I told him it was not true. From there, she and her dad made dozens of excuses.
"Marissa! What's wrong? Where are you?" I hear Abbie's mind link back, making me groan in guilt. "No worries. Just wanted to say hi." I say before I block her from my mind and pass out as I get hit again in the back of my head.
Please goddess, for all that's good in this pathetic life... don't let Abbie come. Don't let her see me like this. She... she can't find out I've been lying to her. Not yet. Not like this at least.