My Personal Hell - D. Richardson (read with me .txt) 📗

Everyone was smiling, enjoying the celebration. Sadler stood on the other side of our back yard, speaking with Drake, Asher, and Bastion. Keira sidled up to Asher and I smiled as he leaned down to give her a lingering kiss. I caught sight of Chris as she sat on Dalton’s lap. He hugged her tight as their little girl ran up to show them a flower she had picked.

I looked back at Sadler to see him smiling in my direction. He raised his glass to me and I raised mine in return. The ring on my left hand caught my attention. A small silver ring with lilies decorating the band and a small onyx taking up the center. I smiled, thinking back to that time of our lives.

The battle would forever be ingrained in my memory. The blood, the death, the screams. Of course, how could someone forget their own death. It had turned out that what made Jackson’s pack so valuable was that every single wolf in his pack got mandatory medical training. Every last one of them was a fully trained medic.

He had sent half of his men down to the battle field to take care of the injured men after witnessing the battle. Then he and his best raced to the house. Only to find the fighting was almost over and I was laying there bleeding to death.

I had woken up in the hospital a week later. Sadler sat in the chair next to my bed, his head in his hands. He looked fully healed except for a fresh scar that sliced his right eyebrow down the middle. I remember running my thumb across that scar before he snatched it away only to bring it to his lips.

He told me that we had had only twelve casualties, three of them female, nine males. I wept for every one of them.

A few days later I had gotten cleared to go home, and Drake immediately called us both into his office. He said that he wouldn’t try to stand in our way. That he was happy that we had found each other. But he asked that we wait to live together until after I graduated high school. We readily agreed.

In the same day Asher wanted to speak with all three of us at the same time. Drake was just as confused as we were. Then he broke the news. The news that turned our lives upside down.

“I’m in love with Keira. She’s my mate and I want to marry her. But she’s unable to have children. So I want to pass the pack to Sadler.” Drake had was so shocked that he sat down.

“Are you sure?” he asked, and Asher nodded.

“I don’t want the pack, Dad. I’m sorry, I don’t want to disappoint you. But I’m just not cut out for this. Sadler is more than capable. Especially with Ailith at his side.” It had taken a few minutes before Drake could answer.

“Alright, Son. If that’s what you want, if that’s what you’ll be happy with. Then it’s up to Sadler.” And then he turned to the male that was still staring at them wide eyed. “What do you say? You want to become the alpha of this pack?” Sadler looked over at me and all I could do was smile.

“Yes, when the time comes I’ll take over the pack,” he smiled down at me, before leaning in to kiss me.

With Jackson’s witness we didn’t have any more troubles with the other packs. Van had survived the battle, and had limped home with his injured pride. We heard about a week after I had gotten out of the hospital that his wife had poisoned him. She didn’t like him anymore than I had. In fact worse, since she was actually his date rape victim.

His territory, and former pack was split and swallowed by the surrounding packs. Some of the females actually broke away, coming to us for asylum because they had heard that we now had true equality.

Four years after that I had graduated with a degree in anthropology, and Sadler got down on one knee. A year after that we were married and Drake handed over the pack. We ran our pack the same way the old packs had. We had the female warriors, and ruled with complete equality. In fact, I was still training the females.

Jen managed to become quite famous with her clothing designs. She mostly sold to packs, but humans were starting to take interest. She had actually managed to come up with a way for our clothes to shift with us, instead of us ruining them every time we had to shift in an emergency.

Camilla was succeeding with her art work as well. Though most of her paintings consisted of wolves, they were selling for an exorbitant amount of money. Lori opened her own salon, and Kadi was just about to start her first year of high school and couldn’t be more excited. What was better was that Asher and Keira were starting to look into adoption. She may not be able to conceive but that wouldn’t stop them from having their family.

Sadler and I were actually just starting to consider building a family. Agreeing that it was time to start our own legacy. But today was my twenty fifth birthday. And all of the people I had loved for so long were there, celebrating with me.

Sadler came over to me, leaning down to steal a kiss I would have given freely. The love in his eyes took my breath away, just like it always had. He started to say something, but someone decided to crash our party.

“Ladies and gentleman,” a tall, lean wolf yelled from just outside the tree line. From the corner of my eye I saw the younger freshly trained females grab the children, taking them inside. “If I can have your attention please. We’ve decided that we like this land, and we’ll be making it our home.”

“Think you can take it?” I asked, stepping forward. Chris and Keira flanked me, prepared to watch my back. Sadler stood behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. The rogue gave me a toothy smile. A smile he really should have kept hidden, his teeth were just awful.

“Oh, I’m pretty confident that we can.” at his words several more males stepped out of the trees. It looked like he had about fifteen of them with him. Which was an impressive number really. And it might have been intimidating as we only had about seven males with us.

“Males,” Jen muttered a couple of feet away. “They never learn.”

“Always biting off more than they can chew,” Camilla replied standing next to her. I smiled at the rogue, his own smile withered slightly. I looked up at Sadler and he bent down to kiss me.

“Have fun, Babe,” he muttered, then backed off to join the males lining the house.

This fight was ours. The elite, The Mothers, the females that protected our homes. I shared a grin with Keira and Chris. We rarely saw any action these days. Leaving the protection of the territory to the males.

But this time they were attacking our family. This was our territory. These were our people. They were ours to protect.

As one we moved forward, the rest of the females following. Our pace quickened as half of our number shifted, the other half pulling out the weapons they carried.

Images: This beautiful cover was created by NIna Kari.
Publication Date: 10-09-2013

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