Tethered by Destiny:Riven by Devoir

“A bastard pup,” I said to myself as I scrubbed the bathroom floor. "That's all I am." That's all I'll ever be." I sat back on my heels. I wiped the sweat from my brow. Yet words I had heard years before came back to haunt me. “He gave you the gift of life,” I impersonated his cruel tone. But never forget your place. I had been ostracized with my mother since I was born. One word summed up my entire life: outcast. “Wolves need connection,” I whispered, the familiar ache of loneliness appearing. "But not me, apparently." Years of denying me pack bonds had grown the corrosive disease within me. I’d always be paying for my father’s sins — whoever he was. Mom wouldn’t even speak of him before she died when I was 10. “Seven years without you, Mom,” I told the empty room. "Seven years alone." I looked out the window at a group of girls my age, giggling together. "Look at them," I sighed. “Dreaming of mates and going to parties and wondering who the Moon chose for them." And here I’m cleaning toilets.’” Alpha had driven the point home in no uncertain terms: no one was allowed to befriend me. “Be friendly with the bastard, and regret it,” he’d declared to the pack. His words sealed my isolation. “He even said the Moon doesn’t give mates to abominations like me,” I reminded myself, my voice breaking. But I still had one hope. “There’s a chance tonight could be the night,” I whispered, a spark of excitement igniting in my chest, despite everything. “Tonight perhaps I will face my Wolf at last.” Fear immediately followed. What if Alpha was right? What if I wasn’t even a real wolf? “He always said the Moon wouldn’t punish any wolves by forcing them to spend their lives inside my body,” I said, drying my tears. But surely … surely the Moon doesn’t hate me that much. I pulled myself up, clearing my mind. “There will be no self-pity,” I told myself. "Four more suites to clean." After Alpha graduated from high school a year early and took twice as many classes as I had, there was more than usual to keep me busy. “Can’t have you get lazy,” he sneered. Ten hours a day, six days a week. That's your purpose." Next to it was the door in front of Alpha’s suite, and my stomach knotted up as I approached. “No, not again,” I said to myself, recalling what happened last month. I knocked hard, then harder when no one answered. "Hello? "Anyone in there?" I called out. I wasn’t taking chances after that incident. Hearing nothing, I slowly opened the door and peered through. “Thank the Moon,” I gasped, discovering it empty. I jumped on the bedsheets, grimacing at the stink. “Why are these women sleeping with him?” I choked, stuffing the dirty sheets into a bag. "Power? Really? That's worth... this?" By six that evening, I was slogging home to the shack I shared with Lena. “You’re late,” she said without looking up. “Sorry,” I muttered, but she didn’t care. "I finished all ten suites." My stomach growled loudly. “Your food’s in the fridge,” Lena said. "Same as always." I wolfed down my meager ration, still hungry when I was done eating. “I am not well,” I told myself in the bathroom mirror. My face appeared paler than normal, and my green eyes too big for my sunken face. After my shower, I collapsed on to my lumpy cot. “Not even a real bed,” I said to the ceiling, following the familiar cracks with my eyes. I gave up after an hour of restlessness. “I need air,” I thought, throwing on some yoga pants and a t-shirt. The paths in the woods felt like old friends. “Hi, Oak,” I said to my favorite tree. “I see you’re still hanging in there.” Heat barreled through my body all of a sudden. I stopped, hunching over. "What's happening to me?" I gasped, then it dawned on me. Could it be? My Wolf?" I whipped off my clothes and my heart began to race. “Please!” I was pleading with the Moon above. "Please let me have a Wolf!" I felt it at once, a pressure in my head — another consciousness forcing its way through. "You're there!" I wept in celebration, my heart racing with exhilaration. "I do have a Wolf!" For a brief moment, euphoria enveloped me — until pain stabbed my body like flames. Stinging, scalding pain raked through my arms and legs, sending me down on my knees. “Do not scream,” I told myself, clamping down on my lip as the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I found myself breathing in short, ragged gasps, my body quaking under surreal events. “I can’t have people see me like this.” Made a similar statement before heaps of burning pain, growing like wildfire and incinerating everything. My bones cracked and reformed, my muscles ripped apart before regrowing anew. All of my nerves were lit, burning so hot that I thought I would come apart. I forced my forehead against the cold earth, attempting to ground myself, attempting to maintain control. “It hurts,” I said, struggling to get the words out. "God, it hurts." But I couldn't stop. I wouldn't stop. Years of torment had shown me that being vulnerable was dangerous. Weakness invited cruelty. I had spent too much time as the outcast, the freak, the one who didn’t quite belong. The one who was always in the rear. No more. My fists clenched, nails biting into my palms as another wave of pain ripped through my body. My skin felt like it was shredding from the inside out. My ribs opened, my limbs lengthened, my whole self transforming into something new — something more. And yet, though it was torment, one thought steadied me. Worth it. “You’re all worth everything,” I whispered, my voice grainy but insistent. My vision was blurry with tears — not because they hurt. They were from relief. From the knowledge that this moment — this agony — was taking me somewhere bigger. I had been different my entire life, but now? Now I was becoming what I had always been and always meant to be. “You’re real,” I said, the presence of that within me moving too– vigorous and sure. I’m not imagining you. You’re real, and you’re here. The alteration was nearly all the way there. Raw power thrummed in my veins, it was a strength that settled in my bones. Never before, in my life, had I not been on my own. I wasn’t the last one. I had finally discovered where I belonged.