Chapter Eight

Wynter

The mess wasn’t a lot to clean up. While they had thrown some dishes, none of them broke. A severe lack of damage for shifters who were supposedly powerful and desired by all the alphas. Out of sheer aggravation, I broke one bowl by throwing it into the sink a bit harder than necessary. They wouldn’t ask about it. There were at least ten sets of china in the kitchen. A missing bowl would never be noticed.

Thankfully, I’d saved some food for myself in the kitchen. I even went so far as to hide it just in case they made their way down there. They kept copious amounts of snacks in their dresser drawers and closets, so usually they kept their distance from anyplace that even scented of work.

All done with the cleaning and my belly thankfully full of my delicious meal, I leaned back in my rickety rocking chair, staring out the window of my shack, speaking to the moon about my life and how I could survive this for the rest of it.

I was barely twenty and already dead tired of it all. Perhaps because this was only an existence.

My escape was the nights. I could rock in my chair, allowing the creaky lullaby to take away the aches in my bones. Closing my eyes, I’d clutch one of Calla’s discarded paperback novels in my hand, knowing it would bring me the mental escape I needed, but also, there was something calming about sitting with the pain, with the disappointment, with the shame of who I was.

The more I let it fester, maybe the less it would bother me.

After wrapping the blanket I had made for myself out of scraps of fabric, around my shoulders, I dug into the novel, almost able to recite the entire thing out loud. I took comfort in the pages, laying out the story I knew, the story that would inevitably, after some twists, turns, and heartbreak, end with the hero confessing his love to the heroine, and they would live happily ever after. And maybe a roll in the hay in between.

I just wanted to live not-so miserably ever after, and preferably away from the three women who tormented me awake and asleep.

Pushing the open novel to my chest, I sighed and denied the tear that threatened to fall from my eye. Crying never helped anyone, or, at least, that’s what they said. Daddy had let me cry all I liked. He would hold me and push my hair from my face and whisper loving, calming things.

If I dared to cry in front of my stepmother, she would tell me crying was for children, and either I shut up or she’d throw me out.

I’d considered leaving. I really had. But with little education, nothing to my name and little knowledge of the outside world, where would I go? What would I do? I would be lucky to survive a week.

But a girl could dream.

I left the book on my rocking chair before bolting toward my bed, hoping my blanket would retain some of the heat it had gathered while I swayed back and forth. I tucked the covers up to my neck and pulled on my knitted hat. The nights were getting colder and, despite my namesake, winter had always been tough for me. This shed didn’t have a lick of insulation, and every gust of wind cut right through me despite the four walls and thin roof.

I stuffed my nearly flat pillow into my mouth so I could scream into it. I could dream and fantasize all I wanted. I wasn’t allowed to leave this place.

How in the world was I going to meet a mate? He was just going to show up at my shed, sliding the squeaking door open, and declaring his love for me?

I couldn’t be stupider. And this stupid girl needed sleep.