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.”

never liked him much, but in my heart I knew 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 else ever talked to us about our bodies. At first I was relieved to tell someone. The doctor seemed very concerned, and agreed that it sounded

me that he needed to

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 you’re used to, and if you move too much I

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 exactly what the matron did, and when I

I figured out 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

those things, but I knew how it made me feel: guilty, tainted, defiled.. I never wanted it to happen again, but I was already broken, and there were other girls like Cora

tell me she didn’t!I have a horrible sick feeling in my stomach, and I wish could go back in time and whisk Ella away from that horrible place

hurt, which is how I already know what Ella did. My brave, brilliant little mate would never stand by and let another child be abused… even if it meant being

night. I gave myself up so the others wouldn’t be touched.. I figured I couldn’t be ruined more than I already was, and it was better than allowing someone else to be destroyed.” Ella shares, confirming my fears but also magnifying my despair by explaining her logic. “The matron came almost

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

clamped so tightly on Ella I’m afraid I must be hurting

crying, but her muscles have unwound now that her story is complete. There are tears in my own eyes, and

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

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 the entire staff was booted out. The new regime wasn’t much better, so we kept running