Page 1 of Heart Broken Mate

Chapter one (Hayley)

“Don’t look at him, Hayley,” my mother said, and she shifted my eyes away as she lifted me up. She carried me with my head resting against her shoulder blade. The goriness surrounding my father’s death kept pulling my attention back. Something about it was sickly fascinating.

He laid on the floor, half of his face caved in and his hands reaching for me but falling.

An hour ago, we were having dinner. It was one of my favorites; Spaghetti made with hotdogs and cheese. I loved the world out of it, but that night it tasted different, almost like a harbinger of the evil to come.

As my mother carried me out of the house, I kept my eyes on my father. I was a kid and understood what had just happened, but my mind was blank. It was like from the moment the door was broken down, my mind was wiped clean like a tabula rasa, and no one had bothered to write anything new in there.

My father stood up immediately and made me and my mother stay behind him.

“Who are you people?” he asked them, but they didn’t answer his questions. I will never forget the cold look in their eyes. The way their eyes glowed in the dark, I knew they were werewolves. Their fangs were extended, and their claws were ready to kill.

“Are you Alex Jones?” one of them asked. He had a long scar along the side of his face that made him look formidable, like he had been attacked by a pack of jackals and survived.

Since he didn’t answer my father’s question, my father didn’t answer his. But he is Alex; my mother calls him that all day.

“Where is it?” the man asked.

My father said nothing but spread his hand around to keep his family safe. He made his eyes glow, too, extending his fangs and claws, and was ready to fight should it lead to that. The chances that would happen were tremendous. He was outnumbered, four to one.

“Are you going to fight us all by yourself?” the man who now seemed like the leader asked.

“You’re a threat to my family. I don’t like things that are a threat to my family,” my father said without a hint of fear in his voice. He was worried about his family, not about the man with the scar. He’d faced worse things in his life.

“I won’t touch your family, I promise you. I have a question for you. Where is the stone?”

“We don’t have it,” my father said.

“But you know where it is.”

“No, I don’t.”

The man with the scar growled. He was beginning to get irritated with my father.

“There is only one way this ends, little man. I leave with the location of the moonstone.”

My father held his resolve, and I sneaked out from behind my mother to see what was happening. I looked from the man with the scar to the other three strangers in our living room. For a girl of eight years old, I knew all too well that these people weren’t from the council, so they wouldn’t hesitate to kill us all.I looked at my father with his glowing brown eyes, and my mother’s blue eyes were so cold and damning that they sent chills down my spine. The two of them were ready to fight to protect me and whatever the moonstone was.

I knew I had to be ready too. That is what it means to be a werewolf. To never be scared of the fight should it come to you. I made my eyes glow too. They were a pretty shade of green, as my mother has always said. I extended my fangs and claws and growled like the others, but it came off more like a yap.

I stepped forward, facing the scarred man. “Leave my daddy alone.”

The scarred man chuckled at me but paid me no mind. He looked at my father instead. “I think I know just what to do,” he said. “You’ll watch your pretty little girl die bit by bit. Then you’ll tell me where the stone is.”

“You won’t harm a hair on her head,” my father said, growling more menacingly now.

The scarred man seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Stop me,” he said and started towards me. I squealed and moved back behind my mother, the juvenile burst of courage I had earlier was gone.

My father got in his way and placed his palm spread on his scarred man’s chest. “Don’t move any further,” my father said and looked at my mother and me. He looked particularly at my mother. “Stay with her. I’ve got this. Do not leave her.”

The scarred man grinned and moved to slash my father, but my father was fast. He ducked so fast that it seemed he was just a blur. He grabbed the scarred man by the shoulder and threw him to the far end of the living room, making him collapse against the wall.

My father’s eyes glowed brighter and dared the remaining three to come at him. He made sure we were still safe behind him. My mother held on tightly to me, but I could see that she wanted to help my father. She was conflicted, but she held on, trusting my father.

The other three wolves hesitated before they charged. It was obvious that they hadn’t seen anyone deal with the scarred man in that manner. My father tossed him away like he was a doll.

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