Isla: Owned By Four Savage Alpha Brothers

Isla's POV

"Papa... my head is bleeding. It's dripping on the floor. I need a towel. Please, I'm making a mess... I'm sorry I'm shaking. Please don't be mad that I'm shaking. I'll stand still, look, I'm trying..."

I knew I shouldn't have spoken. The second the words left my lips, the air in the room changed. I saw his hand move, but I was too slow to duck. I am always too slow.

The blow rattled my teeth. His ring caught the corner of my mouth. It didn't even hurt at first. It just felt hot. Then my legs gave up, and the hardwood floor rushed up to meet me.

I lay there and stared at a dusty scratch on the floorboard. I focused on it, because if I looked at him, I would fall apart.

I have spent so many nights on this floor praying. I asked for small things: a full stomach, a warm blanket. Sometimes I asked for it all to end. But the universe never answers.

"You," he said. He didn't shout. He sounded tired, and that was worse. "You think you're special? You think you're a person?"

He paced around me. I heard his dress shoes on the wood. "I wanted a son. I needed an heir, and what did I get? A weak, whining girl who can't even shift. Your mother ran off and left me with you. You've been nothing but a burden since the day you were born."

Then I heard the sound of his belt.

He had a silver-lined belt, treated with wolfsbane. He never used plain leather. It never gave him the lesson he wanted. He wanted me to remember.

When it came down across my back, I cried out. I didn't want to, but my body took over. Wolfsbane stings in a way nothing else does, and I felt my wolf, the one I had never once met, flinch somewhere deep inside me, frightened and far away.

He didn't stop until he was satisfied. Then silence rushed back into the room.

I was shaking and couldn't stop. My back burned. I knew there would be marks, just like always.

I looked at my hands. They were soft and unmarked. I looked at my face in the dark glass of the window. Smooth. That was no accident. He never touches the places people can see. He wants me to look like a normal girl, because a pretty face is a useful thing to bargain with.

"Get up."

His Alpha command bypassed my brain and went straight to my nervous system. My muscles locked, spasming with the need to obey. I hated that my body betrayed me even when my mind was screaming to stay down.

"Do you know why I keep your face pretty, Isla?"

I nodded. I couldn't speak.

"Say it."

A tear stung the cut on my cheek. "Because... because I'm only useful if I'm beautiful."

A slow, cruel smile crossed his face. "Smart girl."

He wound a lock of my hair around his finger. "You're a defective wolf. But you have your mother's face. An Alpha's daughter who can't shift is worthless to a pack, but a pretty face can still close a deal. Tomorrow is your birthday. You will shift. And if you don't, I have a few business partners who would be glad to take you off my hands."

He let go, dusting off his fingers as if I were dirty. "And if your wolf does come, nothing changes. I'm an Alpha. You will live under my authority. Or I will put you out like a stray. Now clean yourself up. And make sure no one ever sees what's under your clothes."

The door slammed. The lock clicked.

I dragged myself to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My lip was split, my eye swollen. I looked like a stranger.

I pressed a healing cream to the burns on my ribs, the only thing that helps against wolfsbane, and I thought of the last time I saw my mother. I was eight. She was packing in the dark, moving with that silence only werewolves have.

"Mommy?" I whispered from the doorway.

She froze. When she turned, her face was a mess of bruises, her wolf golden and desperate in her eyes.

"Baby, go back to bed."

I asked if I could come with her. She looked at me for a long, terrible moment and said no. I hadn't shifted yet. I couldn't keep up.

Then she ran. She shifted mid-leap into a beautiful wolf and crashed through the window, vanishing into the forest. I stood there for hours, my wolfless nose unable to follow her scent as it faded.

She got away. She found a new pack, a fresh start. And she left me here.

Not because she couldn't take me. Because I wasn't worth taking.

The worst part is, I don't even blame her anymore. Weakness is unforgivable in the werewolf world, and I've been weak for eighteen years.

I needed to know. If I could just see my wolf once, just once, I would know I wasn't a mistake. That something inside me was strong enough to survive this.

_________

The next morning, I stared at the calendar. Today's date was circled in red: EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY – FIRST SHIFT.

In werewolf development, eighteen is the last possible age for a first shift. If you haven't shifted by then, you never will. You're classified as wolfless for life.

This was my last chance.

I could feel her lately, my wolf. She was scratching at my consciousness, whimpering, trying to surface, but she couldn't break through until the moon recognized me as an adult.

I had planned everything. The second I shifted, I'd be fast enough to break through the window bars. I'd run into the forest and never look back.

I just had to make it to midnight.

"ISLA!" My father's Alpha bark made my bones lock. "GET DOWN HERE! YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE!"

When I came downstairs, he was waiting, arms crossed. "Spin."

I turned slowly. He circled me like he was judging livestock. "Good. You look presentable for a wolfless embarrassment. Today is important, Isla. Do you know why?"

"My birthday?" I whispered.

His hand cracked across my face, hard enough to sting, not hard enough to mark. "Wrong. Today is the day you make yourself useful. The werewolves at your school come from powerful families. Be charming. Make them want to know you. I don't care what it takes. Do it, or I'll find a buyer for that pretty face myself."

My stomach dropped.