Sophia’s POV
I don’t know where I am or what is going on. All I know is that it is dark, but not a scary dark. I am warm and my body doesn’t hurt, nor am I hungry. It’s like I am just floating in this black abyss. The last thing I remember is Spencer on top of me and someone stopping him, and then blackness. I truly hope I am dead. I could spend all of eternity here. This is the most peace I have felt since my parents died.
As time ticked on, I enjoyed my time, until I suddenly felt like I was falling. I started to panic as I couldn’t see anything. I was falling, and I was going faster and faster. I closed my eyes so that whatever I landed on, I wouldn’t see it coming. Soon I landed on something, but it was soft like a big fluffy pillow. I was afraid to open my eyes and see where I was. I was so happy to be surrounded by blackness.
I felt someone touch my head. I quickly opened my eyes and tried to scream, but no sound came out. There was a woman staring at me. She had a light glow about her. She wore a beautiful white dress and had long golden hair. Her eyes were golden as well. She seemed peaceful and happy to see me. I didn’t speak. I just stared at her in awe, but I was not sure why. Something about her felt familiar, but I am not sure.
“Child, are you going to say hi, or just stare at me?”
“Oh, um hi. I am sorry, but who are you?”
“Don’t be silly child, I am the moon goddess. I have called you here to explain a few things to you.”
“Holy shit, you really are the moon goddess. Sorry, I didn’t mean that, but I never thought in my life I would be blessed to speak with you. Wait, am I dead?”
“No, you are not dead, unless that is what you really want. If you choose to continue your life on earth, I can tell you that it can be amazing. You will find love and your wolf will come back. The reason I am telling you this is that there are some people out there that know about you, and they aren’t good people. You can stop them if you choose to do so. You will have mates. While they may be rough around the edges, they will be good men for you. You will need to give them some time and they will come around.”
I sat there dumbfounded, not knowing what to say to her. The more I thought about it, the more I got angry. If she knew anything about my life, why did she let it continue? She could have stopped it.
Before I could even say anything, she cut in.
“Oh, my sweet child, I know what you are thinking, and you're wrong. I couldn’t have stopped it. While you are all my children and I love you all, I can’t control you and the choices you make. Everyone has free will and how they use that is up to them. While most of my children are good people, we do have those that aren’t, and they need to be stopped. That is why I have special wolves. They are the ones who stop them. They are the ones that I blessed with extra abilities. They are the ones who know the pain and refuse to let others suffer. You have a choice to make now. You can continue your life on earth, or you can end it all now.”
I sat there thinking about what she said. I wasn’t sure if she had meant that I was going to be a blessed wolf or not, but one thing is for sure if I could even stop one person’s pain and suffering, then I had to go back and do right by them.
“I would like to stay on earth. I don’t know where I am, but I trust that you got me out of that situation and that you wouldn’t send me back to that hellhole. Also, I would like to apologize for all the times I yelled at you. I was hurt and angry. I thought you didn’t love me, but I can see that is wrong.”
“As I said, I love all my children. Now it’s time for you to go to your new home. I will always be here when you need me.”
With that, she gave me a kiss like a mother would on my forehead and I was back to swimming in the blackness. This time it was different, though I could hear noises. I could hear people talking and an annoying beeping sound. I was trying really hard to listen to the people talking. If I really focused, I could hear someone asking when I was going to wake up. They weren’t happy that I wasn’t awake yet. The other person answered them and told them he didn’t know. He said he took me off sedation two days ago and I should be awake. Someone stormed out of the room, slamming the door.
I continued to lie there in the blackness, enjoying the quietness. As time went on, more of my senses were coming back. I think I was starting to wake up. I could smell someone sitting in the room, but not right next to me. I wasn’t sure who it was. People would come in and out and whisper.
I don’t know how long I had been in the blackness at this point, but suddenly I smelt it again. The same smell I smelt at the birthday party. It was calming and made me feel good. Rain showers and freshly cut grass. Whoever the smell belonged to had walked closer to my bed as it got stronger. I could hear them whispering again and they were talking about me and my injuries. I so desperately wanted to open my eyes and see who this stranger was. I fought hard to open them. I could tell it was daytime outside as the light was reflecting in the room, making it bright. The more I fought to open my eyes, the less blackness there was.
Suddenly, my eyes were on fire, and I had to squint my eyes because the light was so bright. They still hadn’t noticed that I was awake and continued to talk. The stranger that smelt so good looked as good as he smelt. He had to be over six foot four. He had dark brown hair, so dark it kind of looked black. He had dark brown eyes to match and a strong jawline. Don’t even get me started on his body. It looked hard and full of muscle. Wow, what was my problem? I never thought of men in this way. Men have only ever hurt me. I didn’t trust them.
“You’re awake. How are you feeling?” I am assuming that is the doctor asking me. He had on a white coat like a doctor. The goddess-like man looked at me with love in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by nothingness.
I tried to answer, but my throat was so dry that nothing came out. Also, I was in pain everywhere. I am pretty sure one of my eyes was swollen shut, my leg was throbbing and there was some weird tube coming out of my ribs.
I was handed a glass of water with a straw. I gulped the water down; the doctor told me to take it slow so that it didn’t upset my stomach.
“I finally answered the doctor and told him that my whole body hurt but that I would live.”
“I can give you some more pain meds to make you more comfortable.”
“Thank you.”
The goddess-like man stormed out of my room. I still had no clue who he was.
“Doctor, who was that?”
“That was Alpha Xander.”
“Where am I?”
“You are in the Red Moon pack. You were saved by the Alpha and his Beta Kane. Currently, the gamma is watching your door. We are not sure what was going on in your old pack, but we didn’t want to take any chances."
I had heard stories of the Red Moon pack, and how aggressive they could be. They were not known for taking in strangers and they were also large and have grown quickly in the last four years, but I never heard how they did that. I don’t think I want to know either.
“Those pain meds should be kicking in soon. They may make you sleepy, but I will get you some broth to eat. You need to start eating to get your strength back up. We have to start slow, as you are malnourished. I will give a quick rundown of your injuries later. I would also like to talk about some old injuries that you have sustained.”
With that, the doctor turned on his heel and left my room. He was right. I did feel sleepy from the meds. I, however, was very anxious to know what he wanted to know about my old injuries. I didn’t want to talk about them and, well, quite frankly, I wasn’t going to. I laid there thinking about being safe from the Yellow Moon pack, which I was so grateful for, but it also made me wonder if I was safe in the Red Moon pack.
The doctor quickly returned with some broth for me. It smelled delicious. His comment about discussing my old injuries had me on edge, and I don’t know if I could eat right now.
“So, as you can tell, you have a broken leg. It is set and is in a cast. I am not sure how long you will need a cast. It seems your wolf is not healing you as we expected. You also have a broken eye socket that is starting to show signs of improvement. Your face isn’t so swollen. I suspect in a few days’ time you will be able to open your eye. That is when we will know if you lost your vision in that eye. You also have several broken ribs. One of the ribs punctured your lung. That is the tube you feel coming out of your side. It was put in since your lung collapsed. It helped re-inflate your lung. We can actually take that out later today. You also have cuts and bruises covering your body. If you have any questions regarding those, please feel free to ask. I would also like you to explain the scars on your body, if you will.”
I sat there looking at him, trying to come up with something to say. Finally, I told him that I didn’t have a wolf, and that is why I didn’t heal fast. I had no questions about my current injuries.
“Would you like to talk about your scars and old injuries?”
“No.”
“OK, we don’t have to yet. I can see that they are extensive. I would also like you to know that you have a wolf. The Yellow Moon pack was feeding you low doses of wolfs bane. The only reason I can assume they did this was to keep your wolf at bay and to keep you weak. Did you ever get your wolf and did anyone know?”
“I got her on my 16th birthday just like everyone else. Alpha Wayne saw me talking to her. He didn’t say anything to me, just kept doing what he was doing. The next day, I had my breakfast, and she never returned.”
“I am sure once all the wolf’s bane is out of your system, I am confident that she will return.”
“Why would they do that?”
“I am not sure, but I can guarantee you that our Alpha will look into it. I will leave you to rest. If you need anything at all, just press the call button and either me or the nurse will be right in.”
He left, and I was ready to close my eyes. Sleep came easily and for once in my life, I didn’t have nightmares. I was dreaming of my parents. It was my tenth birthday, and we were sitting down having my favorite dinner, pizza. My parents were smiling and happy. My mom handed me a small box. It was wrapped in beautiful pink paper with a silver ribbon tied around it. “Mom, you have already given me my present. What is this?”
“Well, it’s your tenth birthday. It’s special. You are now in the double digits.”
I slowly unwrapped the paper and revealed a dark blue box. I took the lid off and inside was the most beautiful necklace I have ever seen. It had a slim silver chain and a small wolf charm. The wolf had green eyes, just like mine. It looked like it was sitting down with its head tilted up, like it was looking at the moon. My mom helped place it around my neck. She was telling me how special I was and when my wolf came, it would be the most magical day of my life.
“My beautiful Sophia, you are more special than you think. Remember that whatever happens, your dad and I love you very much and everything we do, we do it to protect you.”
I woke up with tears coming down my face. Those tears slowly turned into sobs. I hadn’t cried about my parents since the day that they were buried, not that I was allowed to attend. Alpha Wayne said I was a traitor and didn’t deserve to tell them one last time how much I loved them.
I tried to sneak out of the pack house and attend their funeral, but I was caught by the Luna. She took me to a room and left me until the Alpha came and got me. He took me to his office at that time. He told me that I would now be known as the pack slave and what was expected of me. He then produced a large leather belt and told me that I would get 10 lashes for disobeying him. I had put on my nicest dress to try to attend their funeral, so I had nothing covering my legs. He ripped the dress up and rained down the first set of lashes. I was crying so hard and screaming for him to stop. He told me that if I didn’t shut up, that he would give me an extra five lashes, but I couldn’t stop it no matter how hard I tried. He finished his punishment, and that is when he noticed my necklace. He quickly ripped it off me and shoved it in his pocket. He told me I didn’t deserve anything nice. He left me lying on the ground crying and curling into myself. He walked over to his beta and told him to take me to my new room. I was forced up by the beta and he grabbed my hair and dragged me to my new room, which wasn’t a room but more like a closet that had an old mattress on the floor and a blanket that was so worn out it was more like a rag.
I suddenly realized I wasn’t alone in the room. Nighttime had come, and it was dark in here, but there was a figure in the corner just standing there staring at me.
“Who is here?”
I got no reply, but the figure stepped forward, and that was when the smell hit me. Rain showers and freshly cut grass. He came all the way to my bed. The look on his face held pity, and I didn’t want any of his pity. He reached down and wiped the tears from my face. He didn’t say one word to me, just continued to give me pity with the look in his eyes. After my tears were wiped from my face, he turned and left. Sleep wouldn’t come the rest of the night. I lay in bed watching the moon and stars and eventually the sunrise.