Chapter 1: GREEN SNAKE IN THE GREEN GRASS
I was very glad that we finally graduated. It was time to move on with my life.
It was not going to be easy saying goodbye to friends and people that I have known for years- my friends, the teachers, the memories, but I didn't want to be around.
My bestie, Anna, would surely miss me so much because I had metaphorically been her pillar all these years.
I had already made up my mind to let her know that I wasn't going to stay around for long so that she wouldn't ruin the plans I had already made.
The only pain in my ass presently was my step-father, Rincon. I couldn't entertain his malicious attitude towards my mother and me. I hated my mother, but not as much as I hated Rincon.
I can't tell why my mother, up till this moment, has refused to leave that asshole. He did not deserve my mother in any way. She was better than him in many ramifications, well, except bullying.
My mother was too beautiful for a heartless beast like him and our dead father was even the Alpha's bodyguard when he was alive.
I don't get why the wife of a late Alpha would stoop so low and take the beatings and insults the man kept pouring at her every day, and she wouldn't even retaliate! She was like a lamb for the sacrifice.
Any wonder why it is often said that marriage is like a besieged castle where some people are trying to go in while others are struggling and fighting fiercely to come out?
He was an ill-bred man but we didn't see that beforehand; a wolf in sheep's clothing. He came like an angel. He was kind and sweet, well, until he turned sour.
He started by keeping late nights. He would come back home utterly wrecked with drinking and would begin beating my mother.
There was a time when he beat her so badly that my mother would have been history if I had not intervened.
Everyone was well aware of what was happening but nobody intervened, they all looked away like nothing was happening.
He began to carry out his carefully hatched plans just four months after he had mated and marked my mum. We did not see it coming, now he had succeeded.
I have always tried to convince my mom into running away from the Pack so we could settle in the other neighbouring Packs but she was scared that Rincon would come looking for her.
He did not only beat my mother, but he also slept with other women, and there was nothing he did to hide it.
He would even say it to my mother's face sometimes. That was when I lost it.
I made him know that I was fed up with his inhuman act but that earned me a broken finger that I was still healing from.
My mother would always scold me, telling me that I shouldn't have made my hatred for him so obvious.
There was nothing physical she could do to protect me from this monster of a man.
The only thing she did was to ask me to desist from anything that would make us quarrel, but that was impossible.
Despite it not being possible because we lived in the same house, another reason was that I was not the kind of girl who would watch him do whatever he wished.
I was not born a rogue. I am freeborn, therefore I have the right to live my life as a freeborn.
Rincon is a coward. What baffles me most is that he is not even an Alpha. He was a Beta who had stayed by my mother during her time of distress when her husband and mate, my father, had died.
My father used to be the Alpha's bodyguard and he died during the war. He wasn't so sweet but he had never been cruel, not even for once.
We never knew Rincon was a green snake in the green grass but I am relieved at last, because I just graduated and I will be leaving soon.
I had already raised some money that will take me far away from this perpetual madness.
After our final exams, I left for home immediately so that I could get my things ready and get prepared for the graduation ceremony or realistically, the graduation party.
I was also going to spend some time with Anna before we would sadly part ways.
And yes, I needed to do everything possible to avoid that beast of a man, I needed to be very fast and calculative so that he wouldn't see me pack my things.
As expected, I got home to see them in a fierce battle. The pain of my broken heart resurfaced.
His hands were unwaveringly grasping something which he was desperately trying to take away from my mother who was also trying to stop him. I experienced a simultaneous chill and shock.
He was lucky that I hadn't shifted yet, if not, he would have been long dead by now.
I could only use the fighting skills I learned from my father against him but I was no match for him.
He was a guard to the present Alpha when the Alpha was in his teenage years. So he was well aware of the moves we shifters fought with.
I couldn't wait to shift into my big wolf in a few months when I will be celebrating my birthday. How I longed for that day when I would rip him to pieces and watch his cursed blood from his ripped heart.
My mother desperately tried to stop her even though she had been beaten to a pulp.
Tears were already filling my eyes when my bag dropped from my hands as I ran towards them.
He gave her a blow in the belly before smiling satisfactorily and running away.
My mother lurched for me to prevent her from hitting her head on the floor.
"Run after him Elsie, run" her breaths came in fast gasps as she yelled the words.
Why would I run after a woman-made man? An embarrassment to manhood. Besides, I didn't know why I should run after him.
That was when my mother explained everything to me between tears.
Rincon had found and carted away my savings while looking for his packet of cigarettes which he claimed to have lost.
I stiffened.