My Most Precious Human novel Chapter 42

When my vision became less blurry, I saw a grey wolf lying right next to me. It was embracing me with its warmth. Its large tail covered half of my small body like a blanket. It was huge, yet I didn't fear it. Furthermore, I somehow knew its name, a male human name. His name was Ezra. He was the wolf that protected me from the cold of the night.

I sat on the ground observing him. My faint movements woke him up. He raised his large head, stroking my cheeks with his furry forehead and ears. That tickled and made me laugh. He fawned over me. I could barely remember when I felt such happiness and peace. It was almost like I was being loved and cherished by someone. I hugged his huge neck and sank into his fur. For the first time since I lived in the orphanage, I felt safe…

We didn't use words to communicate, yet I knew that he had to go before anyone woke up and that I would meet him again in the evening. It was as if I could hear his thoughts. I said goodbye to him, then he swiftly jumped over the fence and vanished into the nearby woods.

For the first time since I could remember, I spent my day awaiting something good to happen. I became peaceful and silent. Of course, the nuns quickly declared that kneeling the entire night brought a revelation upon me. I didn't deny it. I stopped fighting with them and even pretended to accept that "Lucy" name they wanted me to have. That way, I wanted to keep myself out of trouble for a couple of days.

When everyone fell asleep, I sneaked out of the girls' bedroom, went down to the porch, and waited. Suddenly, a dark-grey-haired man jumped over the fence and ran towards me. He moved fast. He was tall, muscled, and looked fierce, but his eyes were kind and serene. His whole body was covered in scars and tattoos. He might have seemed like a bloodthirsty warrior, but I knew that he hadn't come here to harm me. When he was right in front of me, he instantly knelt down on one knee.

"Good evening, my Princess," he greeted me respectfully.

"You were the wolf that covered me, right? But how can I know that, and how is it all possible?" I asked, confused.

He stood up and stepped closer.

"I am a werewolf. I can shift between my human and wolf form," he explained.

I looked him up and down, processing his words, but they weren't shocking nor confusing. The fact that werewolves existed wasn't surprising, as if I had known it from when I was born. At first, I thought that I had merely a few fainted memories from before I woke up at the orphanage, all unclear, but at that moment a stream of forgotten images flooded my mind.

"You are Ezra… How do I know you are Ezra?" I looked at him, desperate to put together faint, surfacing memories.

"We've met before, once you lived among the pack, Princess. Your mind remembers it, even if you have forgotten." He smiled.

I was nervous and puzzled, but I decided to trust him. All of my instincts told me I could. Since it was too dangerous for me to leave the orphanage, Ezra led me to the old, shabby bower, the furthest place from the main building within the orphanage's territory. The wooden bower was half-rotten, but it had a cozy-looking bench where we could sit. It was quiet there. It was one of the forgotten corners that had never been renewed, and no one had ever walked over it. It created the perfect place for us to meet and talk. From that moment, we met there every night.

He told me that I was born into the werewolves' pack, and I was supposed to be the most cherished child of all. I was the daughter of two Alpha wolves, a fruit of the union between the two largest packs in the south. My mother was the leader of the Moon Lake pack, and my father ruled over the Southern Wood pack. Once they became mates, those two packs became one, and I was supposed to seal the alliance. I had learned that relationships between two Alphas were rare, and for them to have offspring was almost impossible, yet it happened. Everyone celebrated my birth as if it was the greatest miracle of all, and they called me "Princess" until it became known that I was different. I had no wolf gene in me, and even had the opposite… Not even a wolf's bite would have changed me into a wolf. That was the day I was thrown into the orphanage and became the only not-orphan living there.

The orphanage was one of the facilities founded by the pack. Moreover, the institution that was supposed to provide a home for the stray kids was actually created to serve the pack's interests, yet all the children at the orphanage were human. I don't think that any of those kids knew about the werewolves, and I don't think the nuns knew about their existence either. All I knew was that they feared my father and were more than willing to do whatever he commanded.

I had never known why every child's blood was collected by the nuns at least once. Ezra told me the cruel purpose of it. Each child had their DNA tested in the pack's lab, so it would be known whether they could become good wolves once they were bitten. After each series of tests, the nuns were given a list of names of children that needed to be doted on. That way, the children were divided into groups: the better-treated by the nuns, the "chosen-ones," and the rejects, who could only count on poor treatment, less food, and worn-out clothes. The chosen-ones were the children whose tests had proved that they would be able to survive the bite and wolf change, despite their young age. The rejects were those weaker children who were too fragile to become pack members. The weak could only hope for human adoption, which was an extremely rare event at the St. Anna's Orphanage. Certainly, I belonged to neither of those groups, which automatically sentenced me to a hell-like life. The orphanage was founded as a supermarket for childless wolf couples. It was a calculated and well-profitable practice, while I was just a broken item that needed to be stashed somewhere.

The truth that Ezra had told me was ruthless, and it stole the last shreds of hope I had for adoption and getting out of this place, but at the same time, it gave my mind some form of peace. From the moment I got here, I was assigned the worst and toughest kind of labor, and I was beaten on a daily basis. At least now, I partially knew why. I didn't cry when I found out, although the stabbing pain pierced my small heart. There was something comforting at the moment I found out about my situation, and that was Ezra's presence…

Ezra was my mother's friend, at least that was how he called himself. I always thought that he was actually in love with my mom. He told me that he made her a promise that he would take care of me since she couldn't abandon her pack to do so. At first, I hated her as much as I had learned to hate my father, but once I grew up, I understood her more. I realized that she had never wished to abandon me, but as an Alpha of her pack and an Alpha's mate, Luna, she was forced to prioritize her people, even over her own child. Ezra was different. He had no restraints and held no important position in the combined pack, which was led by my father. The great Randall D'Apolito couldn't care less about one of my mother's old warriors. That was the main reason Ezra managed to sneak out of the pack's district undetected for years.

When Ezra first met me at the orphanage, he was forty-two years old. He spent most of his life following my mother, his Alpha, as a loyal fighter and the pack's defender. He had a mate once, but she was cruelly killed by a member of an enemy pack, once Ezra was away from the territory, serving my mother. The tragic love he had made him stay single, without even trying to search for another mate. When he retired from being an active warrior, he became a teacher. He trained young wolves, teaching them how to fight, and he was devoted to his job, but even that position was taken away from him when the Southern Wood Pack swallowed the Moon Lake pack. I guess that he missed teaching quite a bit because as soon as I mentioned how I was beaten by the other children in the orphanage, he told me that he would make me a warrior. That was how I started practicing all sorts of martial arts with him, but he didn't plan my training so I could defend myself against stronger humans. Even then, he instinctively knew that I needed to learn how to protect myself against other werewolves because there would certainly come a time when those skills would decide on my survival…