[CONTENTID2]A Monster's Tears - A Broken Toy[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID1]

I experienced a sense of hiraeth before I even opened my eyes. A big word for me, but then I was always ever the studious one. I had hoped to become a medic in my pack, treating the alpha’s wounds would have been such a treat, I had to be smart. In an easier to manage word, I was homesick. Even asleep I could sense I was no longer with my pack and already I yearned for their comfort, their warmth. Saudade. A home I yearned for but had left of my own free will. Nostalgic, I could almost feel them pressing against me, bodies of my family huddled close with no care for privacy. And if I was lucky, alpha would join us on occasion, just touching. Those nights were both the hardest and best, for the obvious reasons.

Now I was never going to see them again. I was lucky enough to be alive, though I knew not for what purpose. Why would a wolf want me around? I would be of no use to any pack, without the ability to bear pups, or to hunt in any sustainable manner. I wasn’t strong enough to be an alpha, second or third to any pack. Why would he have knocked me out only to decide to keep me alive after all? And what had been all that nonsense about powers? Clearly he hadn’t noticed how easy it was to catch me, or he surely wouldn’t have made such proclamations. Was that why I had been saved? I had been mistaken for an alpha’s pup?

An alpha’s children were always destined for extreme greatness or extreme failure. Even if I was a child of an alpha, clearly I was one of the latter. However, I could not help but wonder what had made him assume so. What about me could possibly scream ‘alpha’s child?’ I gave up on the wonderings that were slowly hurting my brain. I wished for my pack, my alpha, my family even though I had never truly been treated as though I were one of them. I missed them, wanted them. It hurt so badly I didn’t know how I had ever gotten up the courage to leave on my own.

Slowly my eyes slid open, faced with the soft white down of feathers that made up a soft blanket beneath me. A bed fit for a queen, soft against human skin, my eyes widened as far as they could go. Such beds were only fit for the most revered members of a clan, an alpha, an alpha’s mate, newborn pups or ancients. The fine hair on the back of my neck rose as disquiet set in. I wasn’t meant to be on a bed such as this…it was just…wrong. I shuddered, rolling off the matt onto the stone floor of the cave. While I could not deny the bed had been much more comfortable, I was more suited to the floor. Age old principals died hard, and I wasn’t going to be the idiot who broke them.

Curling up with a whimpered whine, I attempted to restore the heat to my body the down had provided without effort. Winter was on its way, early this year, and I shivered on the floor. I gave a sudden start at the sound of footsteps, pulling my body up tighter until I was in a tiny ball. Anything to look as submissive and non-challenging as possible. If I was mistaken for a threat I would not last another second. Heavy boots came to a stop before my quivering form and I gave a squeak as their owner suddenly lowered themselves to be on level with me. I wanted to scramble away in alarm, but I held myself as still as possibly under the piercing scrutiny of the other’s dark hazel eyes. This was the man who had found me, captured me.

He reached out a hand to down my arm, breath hitching as he did so. Fight or flight, I knew which one I wanted but I couldn’t. I wanted out, away, far, far away –

“Why aren’t you on the bed I made for you?” his voice was low, but surprisingly musical as he tilted his head in confusion as though staring at a completely different breed of creature. I didn’t want to answer, didn’t want to give the wrong answer. But his eyes broached no option to decline to answer.

“I am not fit,” I whispered, voice rough from all the whimpering and howling and overall useless actions I had engaged in. I shut my eyes in a rush when he leaned in even closer than before, now barely two inches from my face. Squinting against the urge to look at the beautiful specimen before me, I tensed as I felt him trail his hand down my arm once more.

“But you are cold,” the unnamed man pointed out and I shook my head, refusing to look at him,

“It’s meant for important people,” I murmured softly, wishing I could change back to my wolf form and warm myself up – and at the very least hide from his heavy gaze which I could feel resting on my body even now. But I didn’t want to displease him. He was the one who had ordered me to change, after all, I didn’t want to so blatantly disobey.

“And why aren’t you important?” My eyes opened in a flash, scaring myself at our closeness. I reared away, shaking my head furiously in reply. I just wasn’t! Why did he insist on talking to me? Why didn’t he just kill me? What was the point of getting to know me before I was off’ed? What could he want with me? I could only ever be viewed as a rival, cursed to be born as a boy, live as one with the consequences.

“Well, if you won’t give me an answer, at the very least, you are a guest. Guests should be treated with proper respect, should they not?” I raised my head slowly, twitching slightly as I thought. I didn’t know, to be honest. My pack had never had guests, how was I to know? The next second I didn’t have a choice as he wrapped his arms under my legs and around my back, heavily setting me back on the mat. I squirmed like an unhappy child, trying to escape his grasp but was held down,

“Stop that!” he commanded, and I would have laid my ears back at the tone if I was transformed. This was clearly the authoritative tone of a man who was used to being obeyed. Someone