PAISLEY STAMPS POV

When I was little my mom always told me wonderful, mind blowing, and enchanting stories about mates. Like every other girl, I would grasp the stories like my life depended on it and in that time of my life, it did. I thought that once I met my mate that we would instantly fall in love with each other and have a big, over the top, beautiful wedding, and right after that have babies.

Things changed after my toddler, I became a teen and reality hit me not everything is a fairytale. I would hear about some werewolves rejecting their mate to be free from being bounded to one person their whole lives. Growing up and always being told tales of how magical having a mate was, I obviously thought that this was absurd.

When I turned fifteen the best thing happened, the Alpha found his mate everyone was happy because of that. We had celebrations and a welcoming party. Even though that the Alpha was thirty years old we thought that it was a miracle to finally have an Alpha female around to put him in his place.

Everything changed though taking twists and turns, everything that was once bright became dull. Rebecca, the Alpha female was found covered in dry blood, she was dead, long gone, pale, her veins changed colors to blue and violet showing that there was no blood flow.

That was the day that Miles changed, he was the best Alpha ever, until Rebecca died and then like ice he became cold blooded and terrifying.

The pack changed soon after that everyone that was once free seemed to be chained to the something awful. We became Miles servants, his personal minions, and prisoners, the high that was once here was replaced with the after effect. The day that Rebecca died was the day that Miles became bitter towards everyone. We were no longer a pack everyday we would serve him only to be abused.

Many people in the pack were dieing from the physical and emotion abuse he put people through. One day my mom was beaten by Miles and my dad obviously being her mate got angry and attacked him, both of my parents ended up dieing. Miles chained my dad to the wall forcing him to watch my mom being cut by every gruesome drop of fresh blood falling from my mom's body. After that he shot my dad and he died afterwards.

I soon turned sixteen a month later I got sick and fed up of watching Miles beat people and torture them, by keeping someone's mate away from them. I realized that now it was only me and my brother, Mark, and I wasn't planning on loosing him to Miles or anyone. Even though he was older than me I was starting to get really protective of him because he was my only relative that I had left.

Mark felt the same and soon we realized that if we had to die we wouldn't want to die like this. I wanted to die knowing that I have accomplished something in my life I want to die having no regrets. I wanted to die proud of myself...and so far I'm not proud of myself.

Mark and I ended up coming with a promising plan, it was something that would solve all of our solutions. We did the unthinkable, we ran away. We found a place to stay and transferred into a new school and we both got jobs living the life we hopped for. We felt free I could laugh again knowing that a whip wouldn't be brought to my back.

You know that one saying "Running away will not solve your problems, but only bring them with you" that's what happened to us. We came home one day to find Miles standing in our living room with five other wolves with him. He looked like a robot, like someone had taken over his body and was forcing him to look cruel. Mark and I never thought of Miles would come to look for us, because he had many other people at the pack house to use, so why bother looking for two teens?

Asking him this we found out the reason, he was as scared as we were when we were living with him. If the Alpha King ever found out what Miles was doing to his pack then the worst would happen it was unspeakable. We all knew that it would be a brutal punishment for anyone and a disgrace for any family members and friends to know him.

He expected us to tell everyone what he was doing he underestimated us thinking that we were naive kids living in a harsh world. The funny thing is that the harsh world killed our naive and innocent minds we were teens on the outside, but grown up adults on the inside.

After getting the answers that Mark and I both needed we bolted out of the apartment as fast as we could making sure that we left them for good this time. We learned fast, being put through certain situations we made a mistake and we quickly adapted knowing what we needed to do next time. We stayed in the environment to long of a time, now since we have the been through the trouble we started moving every two weeks to a month at the most.

Adjusting to this new way of life seemed worth all the hassle sure we weren't the same, but we were not bruised and beaten daily. We could both breathe without being sore, we could eat food that was healthy and well cooked, we were much more stable.

It is a hard way of living knowing that something might come up, that one day Mark could be going to work and next thing is that he was kidnapped by Miles and Red Wood pack wolves. I shuddered just thinking of the name of my old pack knowing that I was not completely free.

As more days passed by I soon realized that much more could happen Mark could find his mate or I would find my mate. To be honest having a mate frightens me, seeing other people struggle having them. When Miles lost Rebecca everything turned upside down what if I lost my mate and ended up killing everyone that I loved, most people that have lost their mates didn't result to this type of behavior. Many of them grew old and alone if not some moved on not nearly as happy as before, but the one you hear about the most is suicide.

I don't know if I was willing to risk everything for my mate I know I would be putting him in danger also by being wanted from Miles who was a serious threat. I would sit and ponder about this for what seemed like decades until I came with the right solution I would not have a mate.

Now before you get the wrong idea I am not rejecting my mate I could never do that I would simply stay away from him. He might not even realize that we are mates if I notice him first and keep my distance, then I would be his rightful mate when I resolved everything.

That was the thing that I questioned the most. When was everything going to be fine? I wanted this life style to end the strange thing is knowing that it could have it worse right now living in the Red Wood pack. It make my mind wonder over to the people that were still living there trapped not being able to smell a small simple breeze.

I was confused and I still am learning the world without being guided and I'm scared that maybe the little taste of freedom that Mark and I have will soon be gone.

Truth is I'm scared inside.