The Alpha and his Mate
Chapter 1

Annabelle’s POV

I wasn’t a stranger to pain; in fact I was far from it. If I was being honest I could barely remember a time that I wasn’t in some form of pain, whether it was emotional or physical, I had felt it all.

My first experience of feeling pain was when a stranger, in a police officers uniform, turned up at my front door with a pinched expression positioned on his face, telling me that my mummy and daddy weren’t ever coming back to me after they had gone out on one of their date nights. No one had known quite what had happened to them, but everyone seemed to stop looking for them fairly quickly which I always found fairly odd. I had always thought my parents were well liked, if the amount of people that had always come around to visit us was anything to go by that was. I was only seven at the time of their disappearance and I had been on my own ever since.

I didn’t remember much about my parents, but I did remember my father being a kind man, both to me and the people that always seemed to surround us, and his smile was so infectious he could cheer up any room he walked into. My mother was also a kind and free-spirited person, she loved everyone in her life and always made the time of day for anyone who needed her. The one thing that always captivated me about her as a child was her eyes, her bright blue eyes that looked like they held a secret that would one day change the way we all viewed the world. They sparked in the light like rare gems and I always wondered whether I would one day grow up to be just like her.

Unfortunately my happy family didn’t last very long. I’m now living with my adoptive family, if you could even use the word family, on the other side of town, far from my old home. After my parents disappeared, and I was removed from my home the building was quickly demolished, leaving no trace of my parents and the wonderful life we had lived together. When I had found out about the demolition I had cried for hours, crying for the loss of the household objects that had been destroyed and the memories that they held. The feeling of grief was swiftly beaten out of me though, my adoptive father always stressed, ‘there is never a time to grieve when there was work to be done’.

“Where the hell are my work clothes! They should have been washed, ironed and hung up in my wardrobe by now, you know that” my adoptive father, Tony, screamed at me as he stalked forward, quickly getting into my personal space. Before I could explain to him that I had already done the task that he had required of me and that he was, in fact, just looking in the wrong part of his wardrobe, he slapped me across the face.

I dropped to the floor due to force of the blow and cradled my burning left cheek with my hand, feeling the tell tale signs of the heat and tingles that my skin was already omitting, warning me of the bruise that was to come. “I did Sir i-it is now on the other s-side of your wardrobe, if you would r-remember you had me reorganise it y-yesterday for you so that you found it easier to change in the mornings” I stuttered out. I remembered the conversation well; he had nearly broken my arm because of it.

“Are you calling me a liar” he hissed as he leant down slightly, making it easy for me to smell the coffee that was strong on his breath. I looked up from where I was on the floor, hand still cradling my cheek, to see his face contorted with anger. He had one of his eyebrows raised and arms folded across his chest, with an expression across his face as if to say he couldn’t believe that I was even questioning him. To be honest I couldn’t believe that I was either, I couldn’t even remember the last time I had said something that wasn’t ′yes sir, of course sir’ to him.

I cursed in my head, knowing never to question anything the family say as it always landed me in some form of trouble. Whether I was in the right or not, they never liked to be questioned. “N-no sir, I will go replace it for you now sir...s-sorry sir” I muttered as I got up off the floor to replace his missing suit. As I stumbled up he kicked my legs out from under me and as one of my hands was still clutching my burning cheek, hoping it would aid with the pain in some way, I didn’t have enough time to catch my fall. Before I could blink, my forehead made contact with the wall opposite me, leaving me with a bad headache and an even worse bruise. Thankfully it was on the other side of my face so at least my left side wasn’t having to deal with a double blow.

“And never question me again you little rat or you’ll get a lot more than just a smack across the face” he sneered before walking off towards the staircase, probably going to watch some form of sports game on the television. I sighed, used to this kind of treatment by now, and made my way over to his and his wife’s bedroom.

The Leften’s house was extremely beautiful, the walls were completely made out of glass which covered half of the house to let in as much light as possible. A colour scheme of beiges and creams covered the walls and soft furnishings, making the whole house seem open and inviting. Too bad I was the one who had to polish that glass every day until there wasn’t a single finger mark on it and hoover those carpets until they were as pristine as the day they bought them. I sometimes caught their son vandalising the place on purpose, smearing greasy hands all over the windows and pouring coffee over the carpets, just so he can laugh as I went around cleaning up after him. If the place wasn’t spotless at all times the Leftens would be extremely angry with me. It usually resulted in me having an empty stomach or a bruised body part.

I slowly made my way over to the master bedroom, slightly worried that my stepmother, Natalie, would be in there and getting ready for tonight, but after knocking and getting no response I sighed in relief, she wasn’t in. She was probably out with her usual girlfriends getting a manicure for their big event tonight. The last thing I needed was a run in from with her too, her temper could rival Tony’s any day.

I swiftly made my way over to their walk-in wardrobe and found the suit he was looking for and as expected, it was exactly where I had left it. I rolled my eyes before quickly exiting their room and made my way down the stairs so that I could give it to him. I had learnt the hard way that the longer I took getting something done the worse my fate would be.

As I was making my way down the stairs though I was suddenly shoved into the banister of the staircase by Damon, Natalie and Tony’s son, as he too started making his way down the stairs and towards the kitchen.

“Move bitch before I move you” he laughed as he stared down at me. Even with him being on the step below me he still towered over me.

It wasn’t uncommon for me to be called things like that; half the time I forget I even had a name due to the fact that it was never used around here.

“Come on then idiot, come and make me a sandwich before I tell dad that you said no to me. We all know what happened last time you said that” he laughed as he gripped my chin harshly in his hand.

I sighed before painfully nodding as best I could as I carried on making my way down the stairs after he had released me. A few weeks back, I hadn’t made Damon’s food to his liking and so he told his parents that I had refused to make him a snack at all. Safe to say the end result was not good, I ended up with half a swollen face and a few cracked ribs from the beating, not the worst I’ve had from them but certainly nothing I wanted to repeat any time soon.

I entered the open plan living room where I found Tony and handed the suit over to him with my head held low, hoping to act as submissive as possible so he wouldn’t hurt me further for my mistake.

“Don’t let it happen again” he stated as he snatched his suit from my fingers before getting up off the sofa and heading back upstairs, probably to get ready for his and Natalie’s grand outing tonight. Thankfully he left, leaving me alone with no further injuries. My head was throbbing and my vision was ever so slightly blurry from where I had hit my head earlier, but I know that if I complained about it I would just get a repeat of earlier, so I just took a deep breath of air to help clear my foggy head and turned around to start fixing up a sandwich for Damon.

Later that night, once Mr and Mrs Leften had left for their gala, I lay in bed, staring at an old photo I had of my parents and myself, the only thing I have managed to hide all these years from these people. It was of the three of us in the back garden of our house, me in my mum’s arms and my dad holding the both of us in his. I don’t think it was long after this photo was taken that they disappeared.

Thanks to a loose floorboard in my room I had managed to hide the photo, plus a few other things, from the Leftens. If it wasn’t for this photo, I probably would have completely forgotten what my parents looked like due to it being the only thing I had of theirs.

I sighed as I took in our smiling and cheerful faces, even though I didn’t remember much about them I still knew that having them as my parents made me the luckiest kid in the world. They were so kind and thoughtful, and happiness just radiated from them.

A lone tear escaped my eye and ran down my cheek as my brain reminisced though the amazing memories I held with them. When I suddenly heard my bedroom door start to creek open I startled, I had been so caught up in the memory of my parents that the noise of the door shocked me.

“H-hello?” I whispered, asking the question but not really wanting to get an answer.

“Be quiet freak” I heard Damon hiss in the darkness of my room and my heart rate suddenly skyrocketed. I was immediately on guard and started to slightly whimper as soon as I heard the first syllables leave his lips. What was he doing in here? The Leftens almost never come in here, they say that the ugly should remain behind closed doors and should only come out when told to. Whenever I questioned it as a child Natalie always told me that they were doing the world a favour by shutting me away, after all who would want to look at a face like mine all day.

“I said be quiet” he whispered and unexpectedly appeared in my line of vision, with me lying on my bed and him leaning over me. It was dark inside my room, with no window to even offer the glow of the moon, but I could still tell from the sneer on Damon’s face that he wasn’t here to get me to make him a midnight snack.

I flinched at his sudden proximity and my heart started to go a mile a minute, whatever he wanted from me I knew it wasn’t good. I tried to sit up and get him out of my personal space but he just smacked me across the face before gripping onto my wrists, forcing me back down onto the mattress. I whimpered and squeezed my eyes shut at the pain as he laughed. My face still hadn’t completely healed from earlier so that hit sent stars into my vision and my cheekbone to throb painfully.

“Stay still bitch or I’ll really give you something to cry over” he growled “I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long” he whispered as he breathed in my scent from the crook of my neck. He was so close I could feel his breath on my face and I gagged as I got a strong whiff of alcohol. Oh god please no, Damon was a mean drunk, just like his father.

I quickly flung my legs in the air, trying to get enough momentum to get him to release his hold on my arms but all I managed to do was twist my elbow in the wrong direction and I let out a scream of pain as I heard it pop out of its socket.

“I said stay still” he growled as he quickly elbowed me in the stomach, effectively winding me and making it nearly impossible for me to breath. Not good, not good at all. The blow rendered me breathless and I stilled my efforts of escape, my whole focus now on just making sure I got enough air into my lungs to not have a panic attack.

“There, now you be a good little girl and I won’t have to tell my father about you not listening to me okay?” He smirked. Even in the dark I could tell that he was enjoying this, enjoying hurting me and making me cry out in pain. Like father like son.

“Now do as I say and I promise I won’t hurt you anymore” he whispered in my ear, still keeping his full body weight on top of me.

Apparently I didn’t respond quick enough for him because he growled and elbowed me in the ribs again.

I cried out from the pain, feeling my ribs re-break from the impact, but he ignored my cry and continued to hold me wrists down, repeating his question.

I nodded my head, tears leaking out of my eyes, just wanting the pain to stop.

“Good little girl” he sneered as I felt him move both of my hands into one of his, my elbow screaming in protest at being moved but I bit back my cry, not wanting to anger him anymore than he already was. With one hand he held both of mine down securely with all of his weight whilst the other found its way to the hem of my shirt and started to grip and paw at my skin around my hips and stomach...I need to stop this, I needed to get away from him and away from this place.

With all my strength and will power I could muster I pushed upwards, succeeding in head butting him in the nose and I smiled slightly when I heard a crunch.

“Ahh what the hell! You freak...you broke my nose!” He screamed as he let go of my arms and sat up to cradle his bloody nose in his hands, swaying from side to side slightly due to the high levels of alcohol that were still in his system.

I didn’t wait another second, worried that if I hesitated even slightly he would regain his composure. As quick as I could I slipped out from under him and kicked him in the back, shoving his blood covered face into my lumpy old mattress before turning on my heel and making a run for it.

“Crap, get back here you bitch!” Damon screamed at me as I sprinted as fast as I could out of my room, down the stairs taking them two at a time and out the front door, thanking whoever was out there that it wasn’t locked. I knew where the keys were, I just knew I didn’t have time to get them as I could hear Damon stumbling after me not to far behind.

“I’m going to get you bitch” he screamed as he chased after me down the street, “I’m going to get you and when I do you are going to be so sorry you did that”.