1 Chapter One

I screamed. Or at least I tried to. My throat felt like it was on fire. Then he whipped me again. I curled myself up into a tiny ball.

"Disgusting creature," the man spat. The man. My brother. No. He stopped being your brother the moment he started to abuse you, I told myself.

In this city, there are werewolves. Each werewolf belongs in a pack, unless they chose to be a loner. The leader of each pack is called the alpha. Each alpha has a beta, who takes over as alpha if the original alpha dies in a fight.

My brother is a loner. We live together, just the two of us. He started abusing me when he found out that his mate had died.

Each werewolf has a mate, the person they are destined to be with. Sometimes, one of the mates may die, leaving the other in complete chaos that will drive them to madness.

That was my brother. He is crazy. His name is Devin, and started torturing me because I reminded him of his dead mate. I tried to escape several times, only to have the shock collar around my neck turned on. Then I'd have no choice but to go back. I've tried taking off the collar. However, it was made of metal and required Devin's fingerprint to open it.

I've tried fighting back, but I still can't summon my inner werewolf.

"Weak," he snarled, putting away the whip and preparing his claws. "Not only are you not a werewolf, you are weak. I'm so disappointed to have you as a sister, Thana."

I trembled on the floor. Thana. My name. Then he attacked, scraping his claws across my back, leaving behind a bloody river. Devin pushed the tips into my belly, creating a burning fire pain. Somewhere along the line, I fainted.

I looked at myself in the cracked mirror. Ugly. So ugly. Scars all over my body, some made by Devin, some made by me. Ugly. Freak. White eyes, black pupils in the shape of lightning. Pure black hair, with a single white streak. Ugly. Freak. Those words echoed in my head, bouncing around my skull.

I took a shower then prepared for another day of torture at school.

I silently got dressed, covering every inch of exposed skin. A mask too, and an eyepatch where Devin had made one of my eyes blind. I grabbed some- well, a lot of foundation. I covered all the years worth of beatings and tried to give a smile. It came out like a frown. I sighed. Then, pulling my hood low over my head, I headed to school without food, as usual.

New students. Three. All are males. Great. New bullies. I walked past them, trying to be invisible, like in class, where the teachers seem like they don't even see me. The bright side is, no homework and tests. I don't even have to go to class if I don't want to. One of the new kids saw me. Wonderful. He pointed me out to the others, all of them observing me with sudden interest. I felt like an animal on display. I broke into a run to get inside the school. Ten meters...six...four...BAM. I slammed into someone. I looked up.

Jade. Great.

"Watch where your going, freak," she snarled at me. Then she kicked my head and walked over my stomach. Jade spotted the new kids and immediately went to put her hands all over them. Slut.

I decided to go to class today, only to find out the new student's names. Apparently the shortest one with brown hair and black eyes is called Daniel. The one slightly taller than him with pure white hair and blue eyes is named Milo. The tallest one with black hair and grey eyes is called Hunter. I saw Jade lick her lips. Disgusting. That word brought back memories of last night's beatings. My head started to spin and I sneaked out of the room. In the hallway, I ran. All the way up to the roof, where nobody came. Perfect. This was my perfect place. Nobody came here. Just me

"Hey," someone called. I sweared under my breath. I turned and saw that it was Daniel. I backed away from him. Nope. Don't want to get beaten again. He stopped moving.

"Hey, I'm not gonna hurt you, I promise. Could I just see what's under that hood?"

Oh god. This was bad. This is really bad. He'll see the white strip of hair. Freak. That word. He'll say it a million times. He'll tell everybody. Not even Jade knows about this secret.

I shook my head frantically. He looked puzzled.

"Can you speak?"

I nodded. Then I pointed at my mask.

"Oh. Why can't you just take off the mask?"

More head shaking.

"What's going on?" Milo. The white haired boy was here now. Frick.

"She won't take off her hood or mask." he complained.

"How are we supposed to find HER without seeing this one?"

Her? Who's her?

I backed away a little bit more. Milo came closed. My foot hit the the ledge and I was trapped. In one smooth motion, he pulled my hood back. I clamped my hand over the white stripe, but not before Milo caught a glimpse. He stepped back and gaped at me. I glared at them, giving the middle finger before pulling my hood back on and stalked towards the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs I bumped into Hunter. He grabbed me by the shoulders.

"You all right?" I nodded. Then I sidestepped him and walked. Just then, See Daniel and Milo erupted from the roof. They ran to Hunter and whispered something to him. He turned to me, examining me once more. Then he started walking towards me. I backed away. He came closer. He held out a hand.

"Wait! I just want to talk!"

No. I was not taking that risk. When he started jogging towards me, I did the thing I did best.

I ran.