Accidental Surrogate for Alpha

Sinclair

Don’t shift, don’t shift, don’t shift. I think manically Ella needs you.

Listening to Ella recount her childhood always makes me furious, but this time is worse than all the others. I’ve suspected that Ella suffered terrible traumas for some time now, but before this night l’d been able to pacify my outrage with the hope that I’m wrong.

No longer.

As Ella speaks, I wonder how she could ever imagine herself weak. I can’t even stand to listen to her story, but she actually lived it. She sacrificed herself for her sister, and she survived things I can only imagine

“When the matron realized it was me, she smiled so cruelly that my stomach turned-she was only too glad to take, me instead of Cora.” Ella continues, shuddering with the memory. Her unease gives my wolf the push he needed to put aside his own rage and comfort her. I finally manage a weak purr, and Ella presses her nose to my chest, breathing in my scent.

“She took me to her own room and put me in her bed, and then she got in with me and.. started touching me in ways I didn’t like or understand.

She made me touch her too, and she never stopped talking She told me how pretty I was over and over, and kept asking me if I liked it. I said no, but she just insisted that this was a special, secret game I was lucky to play. She said everything I was feeling might be confusing, but it was good and right and natural. She said it took practice, but that we’d have plenty of time.. Afterwards she took me back to the dorm with a reminder not to share our secret. Cora asked me what happened but I didn’t know how to explain.”

what had happened was wrong, and I didn’t know who else to tell. I thought that since it was about my body, the doctor was the one who could help. There was no such thing as sex ed at the orphanage and no one

told me that he needed to

and her shaking is getting worse. The bath is still steaming around us, so I know she isn’t cold and I know the worst isn’t over yet. “He took off my clothes and put me on the exam table. and then I’ll never forget the way he said, ‘now it’s very important that you be still, Ella. This is a different kind of exam than

she quotes the doctor, and it takes all my strength to contain my wolf. “Then he said, T know little girls can have a hard time staying still, so I have these nifty straps to help you. He pulled out restraints from under the table and strapped me down. and then he asked me

what he was about, and I didn’t want to answer his questions anymore, but if I didn’t speak he would start guessing more and more abuses, always demonstrating them on my body. They were far worse than anything she’d done.. So I answered. I told him how to hurt me.” Ella is interrupted by my ferocious snarl, and she looks up at me for the first time since she started speaking.

young to understand why they did those things, but I knew how it made me feel: guilty, tainted,

have a horrible sick feeling in my stomach, and I wish could go back in time and whisk Ella away from that horrible

have meant other children would be hurt, which is how I already know what Ella did. My brave, brilliant little mate would never stand by and let

my fears but also magnifying my despair by explaining her logic. “The matron came almost every night… and the doctor would call me in for check ups every few weeks. I hated those visits worse than anything. the matron

he loved my fear, loved my pain. And he escalated over time.” Ella hides her face in my neck as she concludes her horrible tale “When I was twelve he r*ped me, and that’s when Cora and I ran away. I invited the other girls to run with us, but most were more afraid of living on the street than they were of the matron. Luckily they didn’t know about the doctor, and I warned the

Ella I’m afraid I must be hurting

complete. There are tears in my own eyes, and I can only

matron and the doctor?” I finally ask, my voice a

eventually the police found us squatting in an abandoned building and returned us to the orphanage. When we got back they had both been fired. Apparently a state inspection was run and