Revolting

Chapter Eighteen - Never Trust a Pack Hannah

I found Daisy in the garden. I squatted in the trees and watched her for a long time. She was so beautiful, so happy, so carefree. Her gold hair caught the sun, and she was humming contentedly while she worked, digging in the soil and plucking out weeds. It was hard to believe she was an omega. In the pack where we came from, I don't remember any happy omegas. They were treated like slaves. They slipped around silently with haggard faces and downcast eyes. I gathered my courage and crossed the grass to the edge of the garden. I saw the basket was there waiting for me, but I didn't go to take it, not yet. I cleared my throat awkwardly. "I... I want to help you." I wasn't used to talking to anyone except Heath.

Daisy's wide mouth stretched into a welcoming smile. She'd probably known I was there all along, since I no longer bothered to mask my scent. "Well, good morning to you too."

I blushed. "Oh. Good morning." I picked at my shirt and watched what she was doing closely. I had never had a garden. We never stayed in one place long enough. I thought it was an interesting concept... the wolf was a hunter, but the human was doing agriculture. Two different worlds colliding all the time.

I stepped between the neat rows of green beans. She handed me a colander. "You can start picking the beans if you want." She plucked one pod off the bush and showed it to me. "Anything this size or bigger. Try to get them all so that the bush will make more beans." I knelt down and examined the bush with great seriousness. I wanted to do the task perfectly, and win this woman's approval.

Daisy went back to pulling weeds, but asked casually, "How long have you and your brother been rogue?"

I frowned at the bean pods in my hand. It was hard for me to compute the time, exactly. "Thirteen... maybe fourteen years." I answered tersely.

"What happened to your parents?" I didn't like the question, but after all she had done for me, I figured I owed the woman answers. Heath and I never talked about the past, not to each other, and not to outsiders. I felt the memories come flooding back like filthy brackish water trying to drown me. "My mother died in childbirth... along with the baby... a baby brother." I only knew this because it was told to me, I'd been no more than a toddler when she died. "Our father... he changed after she died. He tried to take care of us but... it was like all the light had gone out of him. He'd feed us and put us to bed, and then disappear every night, and we never knew where he went." I took a deep breath and continued plucking vegetables from the low bush. "Then one night the Beta came to our house. Dad sent us up to our rooms, but we could still hear them fighting. We were little, we didn't know what they were fighting about. Heath thought it was money. The beta owed Dad money."

I shivered despite the warm sun on my back. "Dad came up stairs and kissed us good night, then he left as usual. The next morning pack warriors broke into our house. Dad was fighting them, but then they got ahold of Heath and I, and he surrendered. They took him to the pack grounds, and there were all these people gathered. There was a lot of shouting and yelling and noise. The Beta's wife stood up... and she was all black and blue, and cuts and tears were running down her face... And she said that our dad had raped her." I wiped a dirty hand across my nose. "That was all it took, one accusation... people held us there, and made us watch as the Alpha ripped his head off. And then they took us over the border and left us. Told us they would kill us if we put even one toe back on pack lands."""

Daisy's expression was one of absolute horror. "They threw you out of the pack? But you were just children!"

I could only shrug. Heath always said that's how packs were, ruthless and uncaring. "You could join us you know." Daisy said quietly. "Weve taken in many rogues now."

I sighed and let my gaze wander longingly up toward the big old farmhouse that was their packhouse at present. What would it be like to live in a house and sleep on a soft bed again? What would it be like to be part of a pack family, where you kept each other safe at night? What would it be like to always have enough food to eat and warm clothes to wear? I shook my head and tried to shake away the tempting vision. "Heath will never agree." I whispered, "He hates all packs." "But why?" Daisy protested, "Maybe you came from a bad pack, that doesn't mean every pack is bad!"novelbin

I ran a hand down the scar on my face. Heath had tried to find us a new pack at first. But we were rejected over and over, sometimes with cold words, and sometimes with physical violence. No one wanted a pair of orphans. When we finally found a place that would take us in and let us stay, they made us servants in the pack house. They were harsh to us, but Heath insisted it was better to endure a few beatings than to starve on our own. Until the day the Alpha's daughter through a pot of boiling water in my face. He took me away then, and swore he would never trust another pack. "It's because of me," I mumbled sadly, and handed her back the colander, half full of green beans. I was the reason that Heath would never join a pack.