Sapphire’s Second Chance

Sapphire lay dying on the hospital bed in the small side room. There was nothing more they could do. The cancer was everywhere. It was just a matter of time. She was on her own with only the sound of hospital machines beeping faintly to keep her company. It seemed as if she had been there forever. She slipped in and out of consciousness. As she briefly awoke her thoughts wandered and she looked down at the silver bracelet encircling her wrist. The bracelet her chosen mate had put on her the day after their marriage to stop her shifting into her werewolf. It was meant to be such a perfect marriage. She was the only child of the Alpha of the Blue Star pack, one of the strongest packs in the Western Kingdom, the other strong pack was the North Sea pack. Her chosen mate was Darin, the Alpha of the North Sea pack. Their fathers had planned the marriage when she and Darin were young pups, to cement the relationship between those two packs and to bring the packs together as one of the strongest packs in the world. She had known since she was little that she was promised to Darin, that she would be the Luna of one of the strongest packs in the world. She had worked hard, in training and in school to be worthy of this title and she had excelled at everything. She didn’t love Darin, she didn’t expect to, but she admired him for his strength. He was beautiful in a chiseled type of way, his grey eyes and thin mouth never smiled, but he had the biggest wolf of anyone she knew and he was always brave in warfare. Her father had always told her that soulmates were a weakness and Darin’s father had told him the same too. All that mattered was creating a big strong pack and she knew that with her intelligence, passion and kindness and Darin’s strength and determination, they would be able to do that. So, that day, shortly after her 18th birthday, when she married her chosen mate, she was full of hope for her future and for her pack’s future. She looked truly beautiful that day, her sapphire blue eyes gleaming with hope and anticipation, her raven black hair cascading down her back, like an inky river. Although she was not tall, she had the presence of a true queen, poised and elegant. Her mouth was quick to smile and there was kindness in her eyes. She had been spoilt by her father, as her mother had died when she was very young and she was his only child. She had known nothing but love and kindness as a small child and had no idea that life could, or would, change so dramatically. The wedding had passed in a blur and yet when the time came in the evening for her husband to mark her as his chosen mate he did so roughly. He was not gentle with her but she assumed this was because he just needed time to learn, how wrong she was. Tears trickled down her face as she remembered her confusion all those years ago. The next day after the wedding when husband padlocked the silver bracelet on her wrist and told her it was for her protection, that she never needed to change into a werewolf again because he would always protect her. She tried to protest, to say that she needed to be one with her wolf, he asked her why she didn’t trust him to protect her. At that stage she did not know or understand how cruel he really was and so she accepted it, thinking that he meant it all kindly and well and that she would be able to change his mind soon. It was only a much later that she realized he had done it to make her weak, to ensure that she would never be able to challenge him in anything he did. Even now, years later, the bracelet was still padlocked to her wrist. The skin underneath it was red, raw and very heavily calloused. That was just the start of everything going wrong. A door banged in the distance, interrupting her thoughts, there was the noise of quick urgent footsteps coming closer. A nurse came in, looked at the machines monitoring Sapphire, and walked out, as the door swung closed she heard the familiar voice “ Is she dead yet?”. Then the door shut, she heard the nurse’s muffled “no, not yet” and was sure she heard that familiar voice ask to let him know as soon as she’s gone. Footsteps receded. All was quiet once more. The tears fell more freely, after all these years, after the children she had borne him and all she had gone through, he couldn’t wait for her to die. What had she ever done to him? Her thoughts grew angry, if only she hadn’t given in to him, let him treat her as a slave, as a possession, surely her life wouldn’t have ended like this. She had thought she would rule over a large and happy pack with Darin by her side, and instead he had conquered the Western Kingdom with her locked inside the packhouse. They had had four children, three beautiful daughters and a son. None of their daughters had survived, only their son survived, raised by Darin to be just as uncaring and power hungry as him. He had no time for his mother. Sapphire’s agony was overwhelming, she had such a beautiful wolf, so much potential and all she had to show for it was a body full of scars and no-one to care about her death. Her wolf would not even talk to her. “Oh Moon Goddess” she murmured “I am so sorry for all I have done wrong and if I offended you, but why did you give me this life? Why? What did I do wrong?” She looked out the window, night had fallen and the blinds were open, the stars were shining brightly in the sky, one in particular seemed unnaturally bright. She stared briefly, then closed her eyes for the final time, her life was slowly ebbing away in that bleak room of the Western Kingdom Hospital. As her life ebbed away, it seemed the bright star got brighter still, its light reaching her even though her eyes were closed. She felt as if the light from the star was pulling her away from her body … Her perspective suddenly changed. The pain that had consumed her was gone and she was looking down at small frail figure in a bed, attached to monitors by wires… Machines started to beep then stopped… was that really her? The light grew brighter, obscuring the scene from her vision…what was happening?