Page 1 of Nita's Redemption

Prologue

NITA DIDN’T FLINCH at the angry male’s voice raging behind the closed door. By now, she was not only used to it, she expected his wrath. She was almost ten, yet she felt much older. The first time she’d felt his anger, she’d been less than six months old. The memory was ingrained in her like it was yesterday, yet the bastard’s punishment didn’t have the power to make her react with anything other than a bored yawn.

“Where’s that worthless mutt?”

She got out from under the porch, ensuring she didn’t make a sound. The alpha was a real bastard, but it was she who was the bastard. He was her father, but he wasn’t her mother’s truemate, or whatever you wanted to call those who claimed to love the one they lay with. The alpha lay with, played with, brutalized whomever he chose, whenever he chose, however he chose. He didn’t care if they had a mate, or if they agreed. He took what he wanted. Females such as her mother were unique, in they were compatible with shifters because they had abilities of their own. Nita wasn’t sure what all her mama could do since she’d been beaten down to a shadow of her former self. Through her memories, Nita saw a beautiful female surrounded by an enormous family. Goddess, her mama’s family didn’t appear to be anything like those in the pack.

Nita shoved the memories to a secure little safe in the farthest recesses of her mind, then she built walls all around it. Alpha could get into anyone’s mind. What he dug out, you might want to keep.

“Mutt, get your ass in here and fix me something to eat, or I’ll go wolf and eat the first thing I come across.”

She stared up at the looming male with red eyes. He scared the entire pack with one little snarl. However, for whatever reason, she wasn’t quaking like males three times her size. Maybe she’d done lost her mind like her mama had?

The alpha grabbed her by the back of her hair, his strength lifting her off the ground so that she was near his face. Like a good little bitch, she shifted her gaze down. Although the others did so out of fear, she did so in order to live another day.

“I should just end your life here and now, mutt.” His spittle landed on her face.

Pain was nothing new to her. He’d ensured she was well versed in all forms of his torture. Still, she said nothing, allowing him to shake her like a sack of shit he hated, which he did. Why, she didn’t know, nor did she care. Hell, maybe it would be better if he would snap her neck one time.

He launched her across the living room. She bounced off the wall and slid to the floor. She didn’t let that keep her down. No way would she allow herself to be in a vulnerable position where Seamus enjoyed others to be.

Nita got to her feet, keeping her eyes downcast as she shuffled toward the kitchen. It didn’t matter what she made; he’d find fault in it. Already knowing what was in the fridge and cabinets, her choices were limited. Why he didn’t just go out and kill some... she cut off the thought.

In no time, Nita had enough meat to feed an army, or a selfish male. While she prepared his meal, she opened herself up to feel the surrounding air. What she did went against everything Alpha believed in. He’d taken her mother because he wanted her abilities, but he forbid Nita to tap into anything that wasn’t human or pack. He was the law, but he was preoccupied with bloodlust and getting worse every day.

“Are you done yet, mutt?” The lash to her cheek burned. They always did. The wound would scab over, then disappear in time.

She let the blood spill down her cheek, feeling the bone and tissue trying to heal. Nita used her innate ability to stop the fast healing so that Alpha wouldn’t feel the need to hit her again. With blurring speed, he flipped her over the counter. Nita hadn’t been prepared for the attack. His temper hadn’t even spiked. The oomph she couldn’t quell as she landed on the coffee table was like waving a red flag at a bull. Goddess, maybe he was going to kill her this time.

He blurred again. Or maybe it was her mind playing tricks on her as she blinked and found him looming over her with a grin.

“A mute mutt who can’t do anything for me or the pack except take up space and air. I should’ve killed you with that worthless female who birthed you,” he roared.

Red filled her vision. The female he spoke of was worth a million of him. He was lower than the lowest cretin to have ever crawled amongst them.

“Ah, I see that flash of hatred in those eyes of yours. That right there is the only thing that shows you’re mine. Let’s see how much of me is in you.”

She looked at his hands with the wolven claws sprouting from the tips. He wasn’t like a regular shifter, not like the rest of the pack. The male had made a pact with evil, and with each passing night, as he slunk off away from the others, he came back darker, twisted, more evil than before. It was only a matter of time before there was no semblance of the bastard they called Alpha left, leaving behind a male who wasn’t... one of them. She’d glimpsed the evil he’d been dancing with. Nobody danced with the likes of the devil and kept their soul, not even the Alpha.

When his claws came down, stripping her skin from her bones, she kept silent until she couldn’t any longer. That was when he grinned and licked his claws, tasting her blood dripping from them. Nita didn’t need to see to know she looked worse than a pile of hamburger humans bought at the supermarket. Her father, the alpha, was careful to not lash her face after his first hit in the kitchen. He’d said he hated when he couldn’t see her flinch and cry while he played.

Nita knew she should give him those tears before the last of her flesh was ripped from her, but she guessed she was too much like him. And that was why she hated herself. She wished she was more like the beautiful female who’d birthed her, even though her mama had hated her from the moment of conception.

Like every other time, Nita was tossed out of the trailer before any of her wounds healed. It was seven hundred and twenty-nine seconds, which was twelve minutes and nine seconds. He was getting slower.

The sound of the pack pacing several yards in the distance from the alpha’s trailer registered, but none of them would come close to his territory. If he’d tossed Nita into the center of the common ground, it would signal to the others that they too could beat her. Luckily, she’d landed inside his marked lines.

Her chest ached while the bones knitted together. Each blood vessel and artery he’d severed worked to reform. Every organ that had been lacerated, bruised, and punctured worked to reform better than before.

She could hear the murmurs, the fear ringing throughout the pack that she was an abomination. It didn’t matter that she’d been beaten and nearly killed, many times, by her own father, their alpha. It didn’t matter that she was only a child who was made to sleep outside with nothing and suffered worse than their greatest enemy, or that she was near death. And Goddess help her, but it was getting harder for her to want to live. Instead, her body healed, and she lived, and the same would be repeated far too soon.

One day, she’d get stronger. One day, she’d die on her own terms.

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