Unlovable but Unbroken

WARNING: THIS STORY DEPICTS THEMES OF MENTAL, PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL AND s****l ABUSE SOME PARTS MAY BE TRIGGERING READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND IF YOU OR ANYONE YOU KNOW NEEDS HELP ALWAYS REACH OUT TO SOMEONE! 18+ Laying there I could sense everything. The grass felt soft and moist beneath me, the sun felt warm and the air felt crisp on my skin. I could smell the early morning dew of the forest and hear all the animals waking up and beginning to chatter and the soft and gentle flow of the waterfall into the crystal-clear pool of water. There was a certain serenity to this perfect spot, after all that is why I came here. This was my own personal paradise, a small clearing in the forest just north of the pack house. It was off the beaten path and took a bit of a hike to get here, but that was how I knew no one would find me. I started coming here after the end of sixth grade, when I first came here. I would get up early before I had to do my daily chores. I craved the peace and comfortability of being here on my own. This was the only break I could get from the horror that was my life. My name is Anya. I am seventeen and I am part of the Shadow Bane pack. I have not always been. This pack became my home when I was twelve. Growing up I was a rogue. My mother was a criminal and a drug addict and was always on the run from the elder council. From birth to the age of ten my siblings and I were on the run with her. We were in and out of foster homes and for some reason each time she completed a month-long rehab program, child protective services thought that was a good enough reason to give us back to her. Not only was being on the run not a safe life for us but my mother and her many, many, rotating boyfriends were all abusive. I am the second oldest of five children. I have one older sister, two younger brothers and one younger sister. My older sister, and the eldest of my younger brothers and I were the ones born first. We three have the same father. My youngest brother and my younger sister were born to a different father. My eldest younger brother was adopted by my grandparents, who could not take all three of us but were hoping to spare my brother the trauma that my sister and I had been through. My mother went on to have my youngest brother and sister a few years later. The torment, abuse, and horror that the four of us have all experienced would be enough to make the devil's head spin. We were abused physically, mentally, and emotionally. We were neglected to the point that we were skin and bones and our hair and fingernails were falling off. We were sexually molested by men my mother would date and ones she would let “borrow” us so that she could use it as payment for her next fix. We would find hope when we were taken by child protective services and placed in foster homes. Although it was hard being separated from each other, and the homes were subpar in the eyes of normal children, we were happy to at least escape the beatings and have warm meals. That hope would be short lived and shattered each time the system would fail us and give us right back to her. We found strength in each other in the darkest times and my eldest sister and I would always take care of the younger ones. We were finally given a reprieve when we were taken from her for the last time when I was seven years old. We were adopted by one of our preschool teachers who had seen what we had been through in the brief time we spent in the preschool of a church when we were in foster care. That is when we found our home in the Ice Moon pack. We did not have much but were overjoyed to have a loving home with someone who cared for and loved us. Or so we thought. Our happy ending slowly turned sour when our foster mothers mate started doing drugs. They would fight... a lot. There were a couple of times when he came in and touched my siblings and I when he would come home blitzed out of his mind. At first our foster mother was in denial and wanted so badly to make her bond and marriage work. She even paid for him to go to rehab and had us visit him there. It eventually resulted in them getting a divorce and her rejecting him and breaking their bond. Losing a mate is the most terrible thing any wolf could go through and after that, things were never the same. She became careless and hateful. We were back to being neglected and abused. She was more concerned with finding boyfriends on dating sites and looking for a second chance mate. She even had my youngest sister who was at that time in first grade take nude photos of her for one of the wolves she was talking to. We were right back in the same situation, only this time we were stuck. There were many times when the pack teachers would report what they saw happening to child protective services, but she always was able to make an excuse or play it off when they would come to investigate. This hell went on for five years, until one day at a pack picnic, we met the Alpha. He noticed how my older sister and I were alone caring for our siblings and he noticed our appearance. Our tattered clothes, and hungry looking builds concerned him. He talked to us a bit and realized all that we were going through. A week after the picnic he stripped our foster mother of her right over us, revoked the monetary assistance she had been receiving for us but not spending on us, and ordered that we be given over to foster care once again. But little did I know, that wouldn't be the end of the nightmare. When they were looking for a foster home for us, my older sister and I were begging them to find someone who would take all four of us. In our minds, our younger siblings surely could not survive without us. During their search they contacted my grandparents who had adopted my younger brother and they were still not able to take us. But, my aunt, my mother's younger sister, volunteered. She was only twenty-one and my uncle and her had only been together for a year but they were glad to take us in and try to give us the family and stability that we had never had before. That is when we moved to the Shadow Bane pack, my mother’s original pack, my family’s pack. After moving around so often it was nice to finally have somewhere to belong. The pack lands were gorgeous nestled far in the mountains near Pinetop, Arizona. The weather was amazing and there was plenty of room and cover from the woods for everyone’s wolves to roam without interfering with the humans. The pack grounds were made up of a village with fairytale like cottages for the families, the high school, the middle school, the elementary school, the preschool, the pack hospital, the college, the ranked house, and the pack house. The ranked house is the house where all the ranked members of the pack and their families live, it was about twice the size of the pack house which was huge already. The packhouse was a mansion where unmated wolves lived on the top three floors and downstairs was open to the entire pack. Downstairs had a rec room, a movie theatre, a gym, a huge kitchen, a dining hall, conference rooms, two living rooms, a lounge with a bar counter, and the office where ranked members would work. But, if the packhouse was a mansion, the ranked house was a castle! The ranked house was 5 stories high. The top floor was for the alpha and his mate only, the 4th floor was for the alpha's family, the 3rd floor was for the beta and his family, the 2nd floor was for the gamma and his family and the first floor was a common space with all the amenities of the pack house, just scaled down a bit. With 1300 members, the Shadow Bane Pack was the second largest in the states. We had found our home finally, although my aunt was young, she did her best at every turn. We were cared for, and loved. We built a relationship with my grandparents, and we finally felt like we belonged and had a true family. This went on for a few years, my aunt and uncle got married, we moved houses to accommodate all of us growing, and we got to stay in school and make friends. As time went on and we got older we became too much of a strain on my aunt. It was so much for her to take on and at such an early age. I was fifteen when she relinquished her rights. My older sister and I were old enough to become emancipated and move to the packhouse with the other unmated young adults, my younger brother and sister were adopted by an older woman who fostered and adopted children in the pack. My sister and I ended up being put in different rooms in the packhouse but still went to high school together so we still got to see each other. To say that my high school days have not been the best would be an understatement. My sister has always been the pretty one. She is thin, athletic, and gorgeous with bright green and blue swirled eyes, medium length dirty blonde hair and a smile that could steal any one's breath. Me, I have always been a few inches shorter than her, I would not say I am fat but I definitely have curves and thick thighs. I have waist length black hair, and boring brown eyes, and I do not ever smile with my teeth because I had to have braces and was made fun of so much, I just trained myself not to. In school she has always been the popular one. She made the varsity basketball team as a freshman and was in track and field. I have never been athletic; the arts were always my thing. I stuck to musical theatre, drama, and choir. Let’s just say there are not many friend options out there for performance geeks who would rather be reading than partying. I tried to venture out and make friends once or twice, but it was hard. It was hard enough that my sister and I drifted apart. But it was even harder that I was always seen as a disappointment in my family. Constantly compared to her. Whenever I would have a performance no one would show because my sister would have a game. When I would get academic awards, it would always be overshadowed by my sister's athletic accomplishments. I could never be as thin or beautiful as her. I could never be as outgoing or charismatic as her. I was just the weird little sister that would forever live in her shadow. I developed early as far as curves go and my sister did not like the way her guy friends looked at me. She didn’t like how they would always smile and wave when she would be spending time together in the pack house with them. One day I was wearing some jean cut off shorts and they thought it would be a clever idea to call me “booty shorts.” My sister did not want me anywhere near them so she told me to make myself scarce whenever they were around, which was always. So, I would sit up in the little attic that was converted into a library, in my little comfy corner and read. I never really had many friends, but I met my best friend Sara in musical theatre and we hit it off quickly. She was the opposite of me. She was tall, and very thin with a stunning smile and shoulder length medium brown hair. She was very sociable and would try any chance she could to break me out of my shell. She would try all the time to get me to go to parties and eventually I agreed and started going to them. Turns out I was the life of the party, and I was pretty darn good at beer pong. This did not sit well with my sister and she decided at one party to yell at me and tell me to go home and read like I should. We were never very close again after that. But Sara and I were and we did everything together. We would even ditch a couple of classes together and go on adventures, we would always go to the park right behind the school to hang out before musical theatre rehearsals. That is how I met him.