The Tragic Mate

The House

Sunday dawned with classic Scottish sunshine: if you looked through the drizzle, the sunshine was definitely there. Seth decided to start his day with a run through the trees and shrubs close to the steep, narrow, rocky pathways that crossed the way up to the summit to his favourite spot. He used to bring Bell up here to run when they snuck away from their homes just after they met. The way back to the main Pack House was perilous, but it passed right behind her parents' house. He'd sneak her out in the early hours just before dawn started its appearance and have her back before the birds got up. He felt her terror at this disobedience and never pushed her beyond the point where she might get caught.

He hadn't run back to the pack house this way since the last time he took her back. It was like an unspoken agreement, but since he had broken one agreement with her already in sending Damon after her brother, he felt compelled to break another. After all, he was going to break a very big one and for the most excellent reason of all - he was going to free her again.

Approaching the 'home' in which she had grown up - long since abandoned - he slowed to a stop before breaking cover of the trees. He sat back on his haunches and surveyed the building, shocked to see that someone had been doing it up. It stunned him momentarily, causing his memory to flash back to how it looked before on that fateful day.

*************

Seth gave Bell a leg up back through the window of her bedroom. She could do it herself, but she was at the very top of the house in what must have been the attic before it had been turned into a bedroom. Bell had done the best that she could with it, but it was still clear to see that it had never been lovingly turned into a bedroom. It was a makeshift bedroom fit into a storage area. The blessing was that Bell was able to clear herself a space behind all the stored items to create some privacy for herself, but the bed was still the main feature amongst all the family ditritus.

Once she was in, she turned around and leaned out to give Seth a long, sweet kiss. These were the only moments that she seemed to feel relaxed and free, other than a few stolen moments when she was safely free of her family on some erand that he would send Damon on to carry out for her so that they could be together.

"I love you Bell. Tonight, after the pack meeting, we'll be together properly and you'll be free. Just us, safe and sound with future all spread out for us." He kissed her one more time.

A tear slipped down her cheek. "I'm so scared." She grabbed at Seth's hand. "Promise me that you won't get hurt."

Seth pulled back from her one more time, kissing his own finger and then placing it on her lips. "I promise you I will take care of you and give you the life that you deserve. We are going to do it right. You have nothing to fear. Get some sleep now."

He dropped back to the ground and took one more look at her as she slipped down the window. He turned back to head into the woods, to take the long way back to the pack house so that he wasn't seen leaving, but a muffled shout stopped him dead. A heartbeat later and he was silently peering into her bedroom window where he saw her oldest brother with one hand over her mouth and the other hand grabbing one of her breasts. Her brother hadn't seen him, but Bell had. Her eyes were wide with shock at seeing him there, watching her brother grope her.

Seth's immediate instinct was to force himself inot her room and stop it all. As he grabbed the windowsill, she wrenched an arm free, wedged her hand against the window and used the momentum to ram her head back into her brother's face. Seth heard the unmistakable c***k of skull meeting weaker flesh, then a howl of pain. Lights suddenly flared in the house, shocking Seth's attention away for a second and when he looked back into Bell's room, he realised that she was at her door, locking it against whatever was now going on outside the door. He heard her mother's frightened cry as she called out at the sounds, followed by her husband's bellow.

Bell ran to the window, opened it and shooed Seth away. "It's okay. Dad's got him and they are fighting downstairs. Nothing will happen to me now that everyone is awake. Go! I'll see you later."

Seth ran home, just as she had instructed her to. He didn't know how else to handle the situation. He hadn't told his parents what was going on and he knew that he should have the moment that he first found out what was going on in that home. He would do anything for her and knowing that she was being hurt by her own father was killing him, but to know how he was hurting her was another thing altogether. Now that he knew that it wasn't just her father, he knew that he couldn't control himself. The entire run home, all that he could see in his head was her brother's hands on her breasts. Images of Bell being defiled repeated over and over on a loop. He had protected her misplaced shame but this was so raw. His job was to protect his mate and somehow he was going to have make that right. Everything in him screamed to go back and rip every single member of her family into unrecognisable pieces.

With tears streaming down his eyes, horror playing on behind them, Seth did exactly what she asked of him and ran, despite instinct telling him that he was a coward, and perhaps worse. How could he ever deserve her?

************

The horror of the replayed scene was shocked away by a loud bang. As his vision sharpened on the reality of the present-day house in front of him, Seth realised that a door had been slammed somewhere near. Cautiously, he lowered himself out of the tree-line and made his way around to the front of the building. Peering around what had once been a giant log store, he saw that it was the gate of a skip that had been slammed and a tipper driver was in the process of raising it up on his truck bed. There were no other signs of life. With a sigh of relief, Seth stepped back, changed back into his wolf and paced along the tree line until he was far enough away to cross the road on the other side of the house and head down to the Pack House.

He needed to know right now what was going on with that house. He'd have to know it would be okay for when he brought Bell back to the Pack.