I Was A Donor, I’m A Wolf Princess

When I left Wolf Valley two weeks ago, the whole town came to see me off. Maggie stuffed three boxes of cookies into my backpack. Wrench spent half the morning polishing his motorcycle because he insisted on driving me to the station. Old Blade turned his face away and cursed everyone for crying. They all thought I was heading toward a better life. So did I. The night before I left, the Chairman called me behind the bar. He handed me an old envelope filled with wrinkled bills and loose change he'd been saving for years. "Don't shortchange yourself out there," he said awkwardly. "And if you ever want to come home, just come home." I thought he was being overly sentimental. Looking back now, that was the only time he didn't finish what he really wanted to say. What he meant was: No matter who your biological parents are, you're one of ours. Now the car had stopped. The black hood still covered my head. I could smell the leather seats and my father's expensive cologne. "We're here," he said lightly. "Last chance." I didn't move. Not happening. My mother sighed from the other side. The sigh was fake. I knew her too well by now. "Vivian, sign the paperwork and donate the marrow, and you'll still be an Osborne." She paused. "Out here, though... I can't promise you'll stay alive." I shook my head. The car door flew open. Someone grabbed my hair and yanked me out. My knees slammed onto the gravel road, and pain exploded through my body. A groan escaped my lips. Nothing else could. My throat felt like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper. The injection they'd given me three days ago still had my vocal cords locked down. The drug. I laughed bitterly inside. Richard Osborne. Pharmaceutical king. Inventor of a custom-made muting drug for his own daughter. They had tried drugs. They had tried dragging me to a hospital. Every time, I fought back. They weren't like me. They were important people. People with reputations to protect. I had nothing to lose. Anyone who pushed me got pushed right back. When none of that worked, they came up with this. My father crouched down and patted my cheek through the hood. "The people here?" he said with a grin. "They chew up pretty little girls like you." "You won't last three days." "They'll pick your bones clean." I raised my middle finger. His smile vanished. He reached into the trunk. The cold metal gleamed beneath the streetlight. A tire iron. My mother checked her watch and tugged on his sleeve. "Hurry up. Our baby needs her medication tonight. She'll throw a fit if we're not home." My father nodded. Then he swung. The tire iron crashed into my right leg. I heard the bone c***k. White flashed across my vision. I bit through my tongue. I didn't scream. Who would I scream for? He lifted the tire iron again. I planted both hands on the gravel and dragged my ruined leg forward. One inch at a time. Toward the man standing beneath the streetlight. His shadow stretched long across the road. My father's arm froze mid-swing. The man spoke. His voice was rough and steady. "This the package you want gone?" My entire body went rigid. That voice. I'd recognize that voice even in my sleep. He stepped forward. His boots crushed gravel beneath them. My father immediately tossed a bag of cash at his feet. "This one's different," he said with a fake smile. "We're staying to watch." My mother had been ready to leave. But the moment she thought of my sister, she nodded without hesitation. "Right. We can't afford any mistakes with the donor." The donor. Not daughter. Not even a person. Just a donor. The hood still covered my face. But I already knew where I was. Thirty steps to the left stood the repair shop where I fell off my bike and knocked out my front tooth when I was six. A little farther ahead was the bar that always smelled like barbecue smoke. And at the intersection stood that faded wooden sign. A wolf carved into the wood. Gray Wolf. Home. And the "criminal mastermind" my father feared so much? He was the Chairman. The man who found me abandoned in a cardboard box and raised me for nineteen years. My face was swollen beyond recognition. Blood covered everything. I couldn't speak. And the man who would have gone to war against the entire world for me... was about to dispose of me himself.