Page 18 of Kidnapped By the Alpha

I was ten years old, and my mother told me to bury the body.

He was lying in a pool of blood, which was getting larger by the minute.

I told her that I couldn’t do it alone. I should have known better than to talk back. She slapped my face so hard that the room spun.

“If you were any kind of man, you would be strong enough to carry him to the woods by now,” she said dismissively as she wiped the blood from the dagger that had cut his throat.

“Make sure you dig the hole deep enough that the sheriff’s dogs can’t smell him,” she added sharply. “If the police come knocking on my door because of you, the next dead body will be yours.”

“You deserve to die for how you treated your child,” I growled.

The woman’s eyes widened with fear and shock. She had thought she could get away with assaulting the girl, but I wouldn’t allow it.

“Jasper,” April said hesitantly from behind me, but I could barely hear her.

I took the sheet from my bed—the only bedding I had been allowed—and wrapped the man in the cloth. I tied one end so that he wouldn’t fall out and dragged him slowly and laboriously to the forest.

My back and legs screamed in agony at the exertion, but I kept going.

For hours, I dug in the light of the moon. My arms were on fire, burning with lactic acid as I ripped into the soil with my shovel. No matter how much it hurt, I knew I couldn’t stop. Mother hadn’t been kidding. If I didn’t take care of this, she would kill me.

My fist connected with the woman’s side, knocking the air from her lungs.

“You think you’re so strong?” I asked. “Does it make you feel like you’re worth something when you hit a child? Not so tough when you’re the one who’s trapped, though, huh?”

I was seven years old, and my mother had locked me in the attic.

“Your moaning and complaining is going to scare the customers away,” she said.

I was sick, although I wasn’t sure what the illness was. I had never been to a doctor before, and she wouldn’t take me to see one now. If I had the energy to walk to a clinic, I would, but I could barely raise a glass of water to my lips.

“If you’re still alive in the morning, you can come back downstairs to get some food,” she said. She tried to make her tone sound loving and benevolent, but there was no warmth in it.

“No, please,” the woman begged. “I didn’t mean it, I was just angry! I won’t do it again.”

“There’s only one way to make sure of that,” I said menacingly. I hit her again, and the girl inside the car began to cry.

“I’m scared,” I sobbed. “I don’t want to die, Mama.”

“I told you not to call me that,” she hissed.

She didn’t want to be my mother.

She didn’t want me to live to see morning.

“Jasper,” April said more sternly than before. “You’re scaring the girl. We’re in public. You need to let this woman go.”

I turned my face toward April, who was now standing at my side. She placed one hand on my shoulder, and I shook my head as I tried to clear my thoughts. There was no pressure in her touch; she was merely letting me know that she was with me.

“It’s okay,” she said quietly, almost in a whisper. “Just let her go.”

I was three years old, and my mother told me I was worthless.

“What good are you?” she said. “If you’d been born a girl, I could have made use of you when you grew up, but I have no use for boys.”

The skin on my hands was red and raw from scrubbing the wooden floors of the brothel. I begged to be allowed to rest, but if I didn’t work, I didn’t eat. And I was so hungry.

“Finish your chores, and then maybe you can have whatever’s left from dinner,” my mother said. “You should be grateful, you know. I could always just feed you to the dogs. At least they stand guard at night and keep the scum away.”

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