The Human in The Wolf's Den

Chapter 5: Xander’s Past

"What!? No! R-reject... I have no right. I just want to go back to when things were... I don't even know...obvious? It was so easy. The guards would give us our jobs, I would do them. Tuesday is always laundry day. It's Tuesday, I didn't do any laundry today! Tuesday has been laundry day for eighteen years, I just want to be in the basement doing the packs laundry all day. Instead, I've been in my cage waiting for you to look at me once in a while. I just want to do some laundry. I love my cage and mattress. I especially love the food, but I would gladly go back to the hard crowded slave shed floor with my two cold bowls of oatmeal a day." Cassian was getting hysterical now. He spewed the words out as if it were impossible to stop. He didn't even know what came over him. 

Xander was shocked. Would his mate rather be a slave than be with him? How could he let this happen? Was he that bad? The pack, his wolf and now even Cassian seemed to think so. The Alpha knew he hadn't been doing well with his human mate, he had really tried not to physically hurt Cassian this time, his past was haunting him and he was finding it very difficult. When Xander had first come into the room he had thought about beating the boy but stopped himself. 

Any other pack member would handle him much better than Xander could. He still had serious anger issues from his childhood. Would he ever be able to get over them and be a good mate to Cassian? Xander really wasn't sure and that scared him. He didn't want to lose his mate to an angry rage. 

Cassian was still crying and looking to his mate for an answer. Of course Xander wouldn't let him go back to slave work but he felt so guilty, he needed Cassian to understand! Understand what that human had put him through. To make matters worse his mate had 

to look like her mirror image. Xander guessed that was to be expected. 

With a last deep breath, Xander sat on the floor in front of the cage bars to be at Cassian's eye level, folding his hands onto his crossed lap and not looking at the boy he began the most difficult story he had ever told. One that only three pack members new the entirety of. "I am terrified of humans. Even you. Your so small and fragile, yet I'm actually scared of you. The problem is, I'm the alpha, I can't be scared. I'm supposed to be the big tough protector, so instead of being scared, I decided to be angry. Now when humans get too close or do something I wasn't expecting... I don't cower away like I used to as a child, instead I lash out." 

Cassian looked at Xander's face in shock. How could the giant alpha be scared of Cassian? Small, weak, malnourished, slave boy. 

Xander took a deep breath and decided to continue. He could stop at that but for some reason he wanted his mate to know everything. "When I was five a human woman had found me wandering the forest as a pup." 

It was very hard for Xander to relive the whole thing, he could barely get the first line out without stopping. After several more deep breaths to fight off a panic attack he continued. 

"When she saw me I was all alone stumbling along the forest path as fast as my puppy legs could take me. My dad had run off to an emergency and told me to go straight home. I tried to make it home but before I even got close I was being scooped up into cold human hands. She took me back to her camp and showed me to her friends, there were three of them, I was passed around and pet like a dog. They discussed taking me home and giggled about how cute I was. Only one of them was against taking me, she argued with them for a while but in the end, it was futile. I was so scared. I did everything I could to get away but nothing worked, I was 

simply too small and weak. We didn't stay at the camp much longer, certainly not long enough for the pack to find me. They were held up with some emergency after all. They put me in a van and drove for hours before hitting a small town. When we got back into the human world her first stop-" Xander shivered at the thought. "Was to get me a collar..it was dark blue..." Xander’s eyes seemed very far away to Cassian now as if he were back in that time and place. Cassian didn't like the misty look in Xander's eyes and wished that he could comfort him. "Something broke within me the day she put that collar on me, I wasn't the same afterward. For a week straight she spent her time training me like some animal, hitting me when I did something she decided was 'wrong'... She even named me!" Xander stopped once more at the sound of his pet name pounding through his head. "Mr. Wolf, can you believe it? 'I have a name, I have a name, my name is Xander!' I tried to tell her over and over but she couldn't understand me, I couldn't shift yet. That was both a good and bad thing since I probably would be in a lab being studied right now if she had seen me shift. I was so broken and scared by the time my dad found me... of course he figured the best punishment for her was to be a slave to the pack. That only lasted a day since when she got here she found a mate. You know him actually, care to guess....? No? It was Felix, the poor man hasn't been the same since. That b***h couldn't have cared less about him other than using him as a get out of jail free card. I hated seeing her every day, I would even have occasional panic attacks but my dad kept me safe. He was always there to reassure me and make me feel secure. It was only a year later that you were born and she was put to death. In a way I should be grateful, you got rid of my biggest demon for me." 

Felix was the pack's fighting instructor. He had always given Cassian sad looks when it was his day to clean the training room. Felix always seemed on the verge of speaking to Cassian but Cassian never acknowledged it. Just went about his business. 

"Why was she put to death?" Cassian asked confused. 

"Don't you understand? She was the human that had you." Xander explained. 

Cassian went pale. The woman who had basically put his master through hell was the same human w***e who had given birth to him? The one whose story had been implanted into his head since birth? The reason he was born a slave instead of the son of a respected pack member? And Cassian didn't get it. If Cassian was the product of that cheating w***e wouldn't Felix punish Cassian for it? Instead, Cassian received Felix's pitying looks. 

"So not only did my parents commit the ultimate crime against their mates... the human woman hurt you personally?" Cassian wanted to throw up at the news. How could one woman be so full of evil? "And Felix... I should apologize to him!" 

"Yes. Anyways, I'm not letting you go back to slave work so you better get used to it. You are my mate, sorry if you don't like it here but I can't let you go that easily. Please try to bear with me." Xander tried to sound flippant about the story as if it didn't matter but the truth was only three people knew what exactly happened to Xander. Two of those people were dead. 

"That's fine master. I see now I'm needed by your side much more." Cassian announced with such conviction it had Xander raising a brow. 

Two minutes ago his mate had been a sobbing mess. Now the tears were gone, replaces by a determination Xander had never seen on the usually meek boy. 

"Oh? And why is that?" Xander asked slightly amused by the Chuaua turned pit bull act. 

"You shouldn't fear me. Firstly, I'm your mate. I've seen the way wolves treat their mate. I want that, the devotion and the love... 

Secondly, I'm human. You are stronger than me in every way. I couldn't possibly hurt you. The fact that you think I will and that it makes you hurt me hurts me more than you ever could physically. I want to help you get over your fear." Cassian told Xander confidently. 

Xander was taken aback and honestly touched by his mate's words. After all he'd done Cassian still wanted to help. Xander shook his head at the boy's proclamation and decided to ignore the whole thing. How could he possibly help? He was what Xander feared most. 

"Come out and wash up." Xander replied dismissively. 

Xander unlocked the cage and stepped aside as the boy crawled out. Once standing Cassian looked up into the big man's eyes. "I will help you. Just wait and see."