I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move and releasing me I was then passed to one of the others who gripped my arms so tightly I was certain the bone was going to start cracking.

"Kill you?" I hated how dumb I sounded; like they were the first words I'd ever learned to speak. It wasn't just my body that wanted to shut down, but my mind too. Why would I have ever want to kill him? Sure I didn't know him, but he was mine. What ever he was missing, I'd make up for - he was my other half. 

Mates don't kill mates.

"After managing to work out who actually were, I made sure there would be no way for you or your pack to succeed. You don't wait for the predator to hunt you down. You make them the prey!"

Regret seemed to appear on his face as he hesitated, this wasn't right and he knew it. My eyes couldn't leave him as he came closer, the pull he had over me threatened to take over what was left of my senses and as awkward as it would be, I wanted to be held by him again.

Just for a moment.

So did my wolf and I recognise that was where this feeling was coming from. If we never connected, how was this even possible? She shouldn't be able to influence me like this, she shouldn't be there at all. I wanted my Dad back to explain it to me, I needed someone to explain this part to me, but clearly it wasn't going to happen anytime soon. The more obsessed I became thinking about her, the more she turned away and I was left fending for myself.

"No hard feelings mate, but I'd rather you than me." He snapped, turning to leave.

"Please, please don't leave me. We can sort this out!" There wasn't a second of hesitation and instead he laughed at my misery as he walked away - leaving me with his men.

He couldn't kill his mate, but his pack could.

Coward.

My wolf was back, her hatred for him now spreading through me in the same way a vine can take over a wall. Her determination was almost admirable, but I just didn't possess the ability to process it all. Maybe that was why she had managed to take control of me so easily?

"Such a shame, pretty little thing aren't you?" Something was slipped over my head, blocking the four men out of sight as my senses tried to work out what was going on around me. With no hope of that happening, fear and panic took over and instinctively I started to kick out to try and get free of the iron like grip holding me in place.

It was no use and once the first punch landed, the kicks soon followed and my body was beaten like a punching bag, tossed without mercy around in the dirt. By the end I was going in and out of consciousness. Even my wolf deserted me, or maybe she was still there; I couldn't tell.

The bag over my head was cotton, making it hard to breath with each forced gasp that my lungs weren't willing to process and a mixture of sweat and blood covered my face and filled my mouth.

I doubt there was a part of me not broken.

"Throw her over the ledge. If anyone finds her body at least the damage can be blamed on the fall." One commanded.

"Let the wild animals out there have at her, maybe an eagle or something will finish ripping her apart and destroy the evidence." They all liked that comment, their murms of agreement surronding me. In my mind I wanted to roll over, try and release the ache in my side only that was impossible. I was paralysed.

"She's barely breathing as it is, the fall will finish her off. Let's go clean up the mess of the others." They all joked around, soon talking about getting back home and wanting to forget this.

If only I had the luxury to do the same.

I will save us.

I wish I knew just how she planned on doing that as right now it only seemed impossible. There was something about hearing her again that soothed me and as the bag was removed off my head, I couldn't even manage to enjoy the fresh air. or spit out the grit in my mouth. Then feeling of the earth beneath me seemed to disappear and was instead replaced with the feeling of floating, of flying.

The peace that came with it was short lived as instead every fibre of my body felt as if it was on fire, being shredded by an invisible force and I couldn't even cry out as my voice was gone. I never even got the chance to feel the impact of hitting the ground or maybe I did and it just never compared to the agony I was already in.

None of that mattered though as I slipped into the darkness of my mind, and it was there I caught a fleeting glimpse of my wolf greeting me. Even that didn't help me hold on until there was just nothing. 

-

The first time I regained consciousness my wolf had already moved us from the remains of my family. I dont know how I managed to shift, I couldn't remember any of it apart from the pain of being beaten. She was in control and with no guidance from my Dad or any Alpha figure I had no hope in getting it back.

I didn't really want it anyway.

I know as a wolf we heal faster, whatever magic that lets us exists is magnified as the beast, but even that left room for questioning as we'd clearly gone some distance. I also knew she wouldn't be able to heal all of my aches, the majority were not physical and I was certain my heart was beating at a new, broken pace. 

My family.

My mate.

I felt hazy with the pain all over again.

I will look after us.

With those words I let go, happy in the nothingness that waited for me. The second time I woke, she was resting by a river, the water was still like a glass - peaceful. The longer I had control of my mind the darker my thoughts got, like how I wanted to die.

No.

If I die, she dies and my wolf wasn't wanting another second of those thoughts in our mind and she took over, pushing me out of our being by force. One thing you can't really learn was how to share one body when two souls inhabited it. We get told what to expect, we see our family living at peace with theirs and it's all part of the process of becoming a new shifter.

There was no one here to guide me now, and I was at her mercy.

The third time it was on her conditions and she finally permitted me to have some say in our movements. I had no idea where we actually were or what to do so it was easier for both of us if I merely went along for the ride. She was happy with this, it suited her plans better.

Along the way she spoke to me, trying to comfort me as I struggled with the loss left behind. It helped she was hurting too. She understood the meaning of mates more than I ever could and the longer I let her control us, the better for my human form as she explained to me the injuries inflicted were not passed onto the wolf.

She had been able to anticipate the attack and she held off from completing the ritual for that very reason.

She was smart, a survivor. I had wondered if I was worthy of a wolf like her and I now knew I wasn't.

-

Her instincts were to seek out her own kind, not shifters as I thought, but actual wolves. She didn't trust my kind; she didn't trust humans. The animals were all that was left and it felt like days before we had gone far enough to locate them. Imagine being in your body, but unable to control your movements. Looking out into the world like you were watching a movie in real time, unable to speak or communicate with those around you as you have no voice. Her mind was set on survival and as the first wolf spotted her, spotted us, she froze in her tracks.

One turned into three, who turned in seven. The line of wolves were intimidating, shifters rarely interacted with their animal counterparts. Typically they were scared of us; their senses told them of danger and to be cautious. 

Being human, what reason did we have to take the time to mess around with these wild animals? It wasn't like we were suddenly Doctor Doolittle and could talk to them; understand their language any better than our own. Sure we understood body language, but even when we ran as a pack it was all rather - human.

Civilised.

I had only watched my pack together, not being a shifter yet I wasn't able to run with them though I know it wasn't anything like what I was about to experience. This could turn nasty, wolves were territorial and we were as Leanna would say, 'all up in their grill' right now.

The world disappeared as she closed her eyes, her muzzle pointed to the sky she called out to them. Her howl was hypnotic, beautiful and looking back, they hadn't moved.They just stood there, staring with that curious judging look all wolves managed to perfect.

And then they all came sprinting towards us.

The growls and whines met our ears when they were still a few meters away and the closer the got the more nervous I became. I wanted to run the other way, then I realised they did too. They could sense it now; her smell was different to what they would have known.

The second my confidence began to grow, that maybe we could do this the brown wolf charged, the snapping of her jaws mostly in show and my wolf wasn't intimidated at the display of dominance. My Dad once told me, you born to be an alpha or you were born to be one of the pack; it was born not learnt. This wolf in front of us would have been more dominant than her litter mates, not necassarily meaner, but she would know how to throw her weight around and the weaker ones would have followed her like they do now.

The one identified as Alpha stood side by side againt my wolf, curious more than alarmed. Her tail was curled in dominance as her bulk seemed to grow in size as she laid down the law. We offered her no physical challenge, instead a weird aura of calm seemed to be generated from us, setting the others at ease. It was more commanding than any of the others were capable of, so not understanding it - they submitted to it. 

Despite the effect it had on her pack, the Alpha's stance never altered and planning her next move carefully, my wolf lowered her ears against her skull as her tag wagged low against the dirt, licking around the muzzles of the most dominant, almost begging.

Not begging, submitting.

They didn't treat us like the others who all seemed to accept us instantly now the initial threat was over. A few warning growls and another warning snap of those powerful jaws had us practically crawling in the dirt until finally they licked us back, returning to normal. They took off back in the direction we found them in and sure enough, we ran with them.

We are safe here.

I wanted to believe her.

Would he, whoever he even was, know I was still alive? Wasn't that part of the mate bonding process? Only we never bonded, he didn't even know I had the ability to shift. The more I thought of him the more worried I became. Hiding in the wildness was not how I planned my life and for just how long we would be out here was a mystery. My wolf hadn't been trained in the ways of the human world, as we lived they bonded to us - understanding the human way while their own was forgotten. Humans were the dominant species in the shifters, not the animals we could become. They came to us as wolves and the wilderness was worn out of them.

I'd never heard of a shifter letting their creature have control like this, some had rituals of staying changed under a full moon, while others had their own theories on how to better their wolves or weaken them like the vegatarians. I was certain it would have happened before; it was just never spoken of or known about. 

Instantly I looked at each of the wolves around me, looking for some sign they were not what they appeared to be while my wolf scolded me for being stupid. If there were other shifters - she would know.

-

For days we ran with them, her fitness improving. We once lagged behind them, but now kept up with eldest and after their first kill my wolf didn't hesitate in ripping apart the deer alongside them, ignoring how somewhere I still felt like I wanted to hurl.

I lost track of days, weeks, months. I had no idea how long I had been out of it for and tried to work out where the wolves even roamed near my home. The truth was, they didn't. Where she had taken us was a complete mystery and I even wondered if I had been found, left in a hospital as an unknown in a coma. At night I would listen for sounds to give this theory some reality, a distant voice of a kind old nurse talking to me to keep my company.

It never came.

My wolf didn't help; she had no reason to keep track of time. She knew night and day with no concept of human time and after three nights I found myself the same way. I had no way of checking a calendar, the only thing that could help me was the moon.

It was a full moon when it happened and I counted forty nine, or maybe it was fifty nights before I saw another one. It had to be over a month since my birthday then and I wish I hadn't known just how long it had been.

Did my parents get a funeral?

Did people look for me?

What happened to our pack?

Did Leanna really die?

I was pushed out of the front seat when I started sinking in that kind of depression, my wolf taking over and all the others sensed my pain making them all wary and stay away. Those thoughts led to why me?

It only got worse from there.

The next full moon my wolf let me shift back to me. I was curious to inspect the damage, oddly struggling to remember what walking upright on two legs felt like. My legs ached and my bones didn't adjust to the shift well at all in their weakened state, but her voice was ever present in my mind in a bid to sooth me.

Things had changed, apart from the aches - I was healed.

And I had muscles where before my arms had been thin, typical of a girl my age. Just because we're shifters, doesn't mean we are blessed with instamuscle or good looks. You want to be muscular? You work out. We were after all human.

Free to do what I wanted, I sat down naked on the grass while the wolves all eyed me up suspiciously, unsure of what they saw - only knowing that there was now a human amongst them. Their nose quivered with curiousity, I smelt like the wolf. My screams of agony as I shifted had spooked them, yet being a predator - drew them back in too.

I didn't care what they did. They were not a threat to me.

The first thing I did after discovering I was in one piece was cry. Then I screamed, ripping up chunks of the grass and threw it around me - totally loosing control until exhausted, I curled up into a ball sobbing.

I'd lost my family, my parents and my best friend.

Despite being alive, I lost my life.

I didn't want to be here, I didn't want to be alive if they weren't.

So I gave into my wolf, retreating into that furthest corner of her mind as she had done to me that night when she didn't want to be found, because that was exactly what I wanted to happen to me.

I wanted to disappear.

--

Ok, so a bit of a dull chapter, not a lot happening but I wanted a clear break between the night and the future so from now on, things will be getting more interesting! Well, I hope you think so :)

Pic is of her mate. >>>>