Prologue

"Why are you doing this to yourself? Why put yourself through all this pain and suffering if your just going to go and kill yourself?" He said.

She sighed. "Because I don't have a reason to live anymore! I have nothing...he took everything from me!"

He cupped her face in his hand, squeezing gently as he starred into her eyes. "You'll always have me! I'll teach you how to love yourself again. Until then, I'll love you enough for the both of us..."

*****

You never know where you're going, until you know where you've been.

Unfortunately, where I've been isn't something I want to determine my future. It's filled with pain and complete and utter misery.

Ever feel like, no matter how hard you try to forget your past, it just finds it's way back to you? You feel like you'll never escape it, and it'll always be with you in all of its painful glory.

Pain. You feel enough of it and you start to forget that anything else exists. The ironic thing about it is that, after only knowing that one feeling your whole life, you come to expect it everywhere you go — crave it even. Like some sick addiction, you can't imagine life without the pain you've felt for years. The pain that destroyed you and changed you in ways that you never thought possible.

You crave this pain because, well...you'd rather feel that than nothing at all. Nothing hurts more than emptiness.

I wish I didn't know what I was talking about, but I do.

But emptiness lies in the same bed with pain. They come hand in hand. After a while, you feel your body shut itself down because it can't take any more pain. Even one more ounce of pain, something small enough to hurt a butterfly, can knock you off your feet. Emptiness then becomes a way of life. A way to get by, day by day, so that the pain subsides...at least until your alone, then nothing can keep the pain at bay. It's an endless cycle though, and another addiction in itself.

Finally, after all that pain and emptiness, comes another feeling. One that is perhaps the worse of them all.

Hope. It hurts so much more because it's often false. It spreads throughout you, making false claims about a way out of all of the pain you feel. It breads like a disease, urging you to continue on in life so that one day you will find something worth living for again. It keeps you from giving up on life completely. No matter how hard you convince yourself that if you stop fighting then everything would simply be easier, it rises up inside of you again. All kinds of hope — hope for life, happiness, love. Every morning you wake up with this feeling of hope, only to feel it burn up in the fiery pits of your heart come the night. At that moment, everything comes crashing back again — all the memories, ones you wished you forgot.

Every day...Every night. When will the cycle end?

Here's where it began...

My father was a ruthless leader of a small pack in Texas. I never knew my mother, she died giving birth to me. She was human, unlike my father who was a werewolf. He didn't take her death well, they were mates after all. Being Alpha he was very powerful, and that power went to his head without her guidance.

He was so distraught over losing her that he became a monster, quite literally. Our pack wasn't very large. Probably only a dozen people in it. They were all family though.

He killed every single one of them! Couldn't bear the fact that they were all happy and he wasn't. My grandparents, Aunts and Uncles. All dead, because of him!

He was smart about it though. Made up some excuse to neighboring packs that they were committing crimes, threatening their packs. That lie was the only thing that kept him alive. I grew up with that lie for so long, until recently I discovered the truth. The horrible and indescribable truth!

He never killed me though, the reason for the death of his mate. No, death would have been too easy he said. He wanted me to suffer.

Every day that I suffered I begged for death, but it never came.

My brother, Duke, was adopted. He is also a werewolf, and his parents died when he was very young. He's only a few years older than me and I couldn't have asked for a better big brother. But he couldn't protect me from our father...my father. He didn't know everything that he was doing to me, and I made sure it stayed that way. My father was too strong for Duke.

I didn't want to see him get hurt, that would be the worse pain of all and I wouldn't be able to live with myself. My father never cared for him much. When he wasn't abusing me, he was ignoring us. When my brother became of age, he told my father that he was going to college. Thankfully, though, that was a lie. He just wanted to get away from him.

One night my father let something slip. He was usually careful to beat me only in the places where no one would see. But I'm a hybrid — part werewolf and part human — so my bruises didn't heal as quickly as he thought. Duke caught a glimpse of a bruise on my arm and lost it. The only thing that kept him from going after my father was when I told him we could run away together. He was set to leave for 'college' the next day, and he could take me with him. Luckily he agreed after he saw how distraught I was over a confrontation between the two of them. He just wanted to get me out of there and I didn't argue with that. So we left and my father none the wiser. His scheduled beating wasn't until that night and we left in the middle of the morning, so he'd never be able to catch our scents in time.

My brother and I took refugee with one of his buddies in Wyoming on a small farm. It was the beginning of the summer when we arrived there.

I still don't know why my brother didn't just drop me off at the side of the road or at some motel room. I was damaged goods, barely able to function as a human being. Duke never did learn the extent of what my father did to me, mostly because I broke down every time I tried to talk about it. He knew not to press the issue. He helped me mend all my wounds though. But some scars never did heal — physically and mentally.

I loved my brother more than life itself. And if it wasn't for him, then I probably would have given up the fight a long time ago. He was the only reason I was still fighting right now. I owed it to him to do everything in my power to live, no matter how much I wanted to die.

My mother died because of me, my father hated and abused me in ways that would have hardened criminals cringing in a corner. But I buried all that pain down deep and numbed myself to the world, thinking that everything would just be easier that way.

It wasn't though. The pain was still there, and it always would be. There was no escaping it.

I spent a full month in my room at the ranch. Blinds closed and only seeing my brother when he came in to bring me some food. No matter how hard he tried, I couldn't bring myself to leave my room. I felt safe in my room. But the nightmares didn't help its appeal. Still, I just couldn't leave, and it pained me knowing that Duke was feeling my pain too. He thought he failed me as a brother and I nearly lost it on him when he said that. I wouldn't have him blaming himself for my psycho of a father! It wasn't his fault. It was my father's fault...and mine. If I didn't kill my mother, then none of this would have happened!