Page 2 of Broken Chains

I had carried that thought with me from that moment on. Was she right? Was I some sort of monster not worth loving?

She'd run to the police that night and told them everything, but she'd been so high they'd just laughed it off and threw her in jail for the night to sleep it off. Once they released her, she left town, never to be heard from again, and I was eleven years old and left to raise three small boys.

I’d done my best with them for the last fifteen years. Brady's wolf had come in a little on the late side, but he was nineteen now and had been fully accepted into the pack. He was struggling to find his place in the world, always wanting to fit in with the other shifters. I feared there wasn't much he wouldn't do to make that happen.

Timmy was about to turn seventeen. He was so smart and had already been issued a full ride to the state college. I couldn't be prouder of him. Even while the others in his class suffered from senioritis and began to slack, he continued to push on. My fear with him was that once he left this place, he'd never return. He hadn't shown any signs of his wolf coming in. I secretly hoped for his sake it never would. He would thrive in the human world but being stuck here in this pack would kill everything good about him.

It had helped that our pack was too small to support itself, so the kids attended the local human schools. I had, too, and it had sucked. We were the dirt-poor kids from the tracks. We lived in a rundown trailer park, and even though the other pack kids banned together, being half-breeds, we were looked down upon even by them. I had wanted so much more for my brothers and had tried to give them everything I never had in life, but hardly more than a kid myself, there was only so much I could do.

Kenneth was my main reason for still sticking around. He had struggled in school early on. We'd spent night after night up late as I tried to teach him to read. It had taken a few years, but he eventually got it. Not before it set him back a grade in school, though. It made him the oldest kid in his class and that was hard enough. He still had a few years to go of high school, but it was my life's mission to see that kid graduate. I knew he could do it.

I never gave up on my brothers. I'd worked two, sometimes three, jobs and picked up odds-and-ends work wherever I could elsewhere to support us. It wasn't like our father cared enough to bother. He worked just hard enough to afford his beer and keep a roof over our heads, and I used that term loosely. I had patched that roof more times than I could count over the years.

I used to be a dreamer, hoping for something bigger and better to come our way. I knew this couldn't possibly be the life I was destined to live, but those dreams had been squashed and all that was left was an empty shell trying to survive. The boys were always thanking me and saying they didn't know where they'd be if it wasn't for me, but in truth, I think it was them that saved me, not the other way around. They gave my life purpose where there was none.

Tonight I wasn't thinking about them, though. Tonight I had bigger problems to deal with, problems that not even my brothers knew about.

I knocked on the door to my girlfriend's house. I could hear the baby crying in the background.

"Thank God, you're finally here! I can't take this anymore. She won't stop crying," Melina whined. She tended to be a bit on the dramatic side, and always talked about going to Hollywood to become a star.

She passed the baby to me and without another word she ran out of the house. Eve stopped crying the second she was in my arms. I kissed the soft blonde curls on the top of her head and breathed in the sweet baby smell.

"How's Daddy's girl today?" I asked.

Melina and I had been dating off and on since high school. She was human, just like my mother. She had no idea what I was, and I wasn't stupid enough to tell her. I knew how that story ended.

We hadn't meant for this to happen. I'm not even sure how it did, to be honest. She was supposedly on the pill and I never had sex without a condom, yet Eve had found her way into the world anyway.

Most of the time Melina acted as though she was a burden, but that child was the one true shining light in my life. She gave me hope for a better future, and I would do anything in my power to ensure she got it.

The last two months since her birth hadn't been easy. I'd kept her secret from the pack, not wanting the stigmatisms that hung over me and my brothers to carry on to my daughter. She was better off in the human world, at least for now.

I snuggled her close as she cooed and wrapped her tiny hands around my finger. Looking down at her, I couldn't imagine never having experienced moments like this.

When we'd first found out we were pregnant, Melina had immediately wanted to get an abortion. She'd gotten sick and put it off as she wallowed in self-pity until it was simply too late. I was glad for it. I wasn't a fan of abortion. I believed in facing problems head on, and never took the easy way out. I still worried about what our future held for us, though. Melina often talked about moving to California. She could take the baby and disappear on me the same way my mother had. She knew I wouldn't leave before Kenneth graduated high school, yet she still talked about it like it was already in the plans.

Sometimes I wished she'd just do it. Leave Eve with me and just go. I had raised three boys, one almost from infancy. I could certainly do it again for my daughter.

I bathed Eve, fed her the last bottle for the night, and laid down on the couch with her on my chest. It was a rare treat that both of us slept through the night.

"Dammit, Oliver!" Melina said, startling me awake.

I looked down on my chest to find the baby still sleeping soundly.

"Shh, you're going to wake her," I said.

"We've talked about this. I need her to sleep in her crib, not on you. You spoil her too much. You hold her too much, and then you leave and I'm stuck listening to her cry all day long. I need sleep, too, you know. I work all night long because we can't afford a babysitter, but I need a break, too."

It was a common argument between us, and lately all we did was fight.

"I’m off work tomorrow. I'll come by and take her for the day so you can get some rest," I offered.

"Don't bother. I’m dropping her off with my mom for the next three days. You can stay home. I'll need you on Friday night, though."

"Melina, there's no reason to take her to your mom's. I'm perfectly capable of caring for my daughter."

"So you keep reminding me. And I'm grateful you come over and stay with her at nights, Oliver. I really am, but it's not enough."

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