With that, Dax shuts the door on me with a loud, purposeful slam, leaving me to gulp as I lift my hands and frown at the way my fingers tremble.
This meeting with Alpha Grant can't be good, and every rigorous scrub of the laundry sends my mind reeling further and further into the throes of self-loathing.
I regretted running away from my pack as soon as I set foot into Blood Claw territory and found out that I would never be allowed to leave the confines of the village. At least my old pack was better, more advanced in their mindset, even if they operated independently and off the government grid. Pack members were allowed to travel to human towns, as long as we kept our wolf identities a secret.
In Blood Claw, we're not allowed to leave.
At least, I'm not allowed to leave, because I'm the only wolfless werewolf around.
I'm as good as rubbish, worthless, considering that I have werewolf blood running through my veins, too weak to allow me to shapeshift into wolf form. This makes me an easy target to bepushed around, bullied, and used for whatever the pack needs me for if I want my head to remain attached.
Like handwashing the laundry, and then scampering to the kitchen to help Gloria with the communal lunch.
“Eggs…flour…oil…” she mutters a list of ingredients I need to get from the scullery without lifting her eyes to me. In some ways, I'm grateful that she hardly acknowledges my existence—I've never felt much kindness from her brown eyes. “Hurry up. We don't have all day,” Gloria adds her tagline whenever it's her turn to cook a meal for the pack, and I'm meant to help her out, as if I need the reminder.
Numbing myself to her hostility, I gather the things she asked for and stifle the tears threatening to spill out when I spare a moment to lament my life. A wave of regret washes over me when I remember my old pack—the one I was born into—and acknowledge that despite how much I didn't fit in back then, I was never subjected to the harsh conditions I'm facing now.
I shouldn't have left, but there's nothing I can do to escape this hellhole now. It's not as if there was much to look forward to, anyway, so I switch off again and return to my chores, serving lunch and washing dishes when the pack is done with their meals.
Gloria comes over to inspect the plates I've already washed, a current of dread crawling down my spine and settling at the base as I hold my breath.
“You missed a spot,” she mutters reproachfully, and I tentatively reach for the plate she's holding out.
Just as my fingers are about to clamp around the edge, Gloria releases the plate and lets it shatter on the ground.
Gasping in shock, I brace myself for the impact of her expected abuse as she spews bitter words at me.
“You useless bitch! Is there anything youcando properly?!” she accuses, the cruelty in her voice sending me to my knees as I instantly begin picking up the pieces of ceramic strewn across the floor.
I gnaw on the inside of my bottom lip, holding myself back from being defensive and arguing that this wasn't my fault. The last time I tried that, I'd been pushed around and ridiculed so much that it ended in me faceplanting with a power tool so sharp that it left a scar on my face as old as my time in Blood Claw. Though I keep quiet as I endure her verbal battering that leaves scars not visible on my face, Gloria only stops when she's drawn the crowd she was aiming to gather.
More words of ridicule are spat at me, keeping me cemented to the ground long after I've picked up the pieces of the plate.
“Idiot!” one snaps.
“Useless bitch!” another hisses at me.
“No wonder her old pack kicked her out! She can't even wash dishes properly, let alone shift like any normal wolf!” Gloria adds, followed by a roaring laugh.
“Normal?! Pfft! There's nothing normal about this one!” someone else scoffs.
“Yeah! This one's a reject!”
That last word burns like a hot branding iron against my chest, and I gulp as sensation wanders into my fingertips again, making me aware that I'm not as numb as I'd like to be.
One word becomes my biggest enemy, crueler than the mocking laughter from everyone gathered around for a chance to bully me.
Reject.
Rejection.
It's the only reason I'm here, within a pack that ridicules me for simply existing, worse off than I was in the pack I was born into.
I ran away only because I'd been rejected. My heart couldn't bear the torment of being shunned, but I'd only ended up suffering more when the greener pastures turned out to be an acidic bog.
Still, the acrid bile rising in my throat isn't brought on by the abuse I'm faced with, but rather the lingering aftertaste of a rejection five years old. Time should have healed me by now, but Seward isn’t a safe space meant for healing. Instead, salt is thrown on my open wounds, without the Blood Claw members even realizing it.
Mentally reeling into myself, into a shell built so that I could at least survive in an unforgiving society as a werewolf without a wolf, I go back to my work. Not entertaining the mockery earns me another jab, and I'm accused of not having a heart on top of everything else I lack.
