Hexed Hearts
By Becca Vincenza
Copyright © 2015 Becca Vincenza
Cover done by: Airicka Phoenix
Editing: Onica Editing
ISBN-13: 978-1514158197
ISBN-10: 1514158191
Createspace Edition
All rights reserved. The book may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The books are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Also by Becca Vincenza
The Rebirth Series:
Damaged
Healed
Stolen
Dedication
This one belongs to my best friends, who are always there for me.
Acknowledgement
I say this every book and I truly mean it, this is one of the hardest parts. But this time it’s a little bit easier because I know so distinctly who was there for me through every melt down moment I had. This book was certainly an adventure. And I hope it was a start to something really amazing.
First I have to thank with all my heart and more: Tony Onica. My wonderful, knight in shining armor. Tony – if you are reading this, thank you so very much and please don’t kill me for not letting you edit this part. I couldn’t have been more amazed and proud of all the work you forced out of me. We like to flatter each but I am being 100 percent honest when I say that you made this happen. Even if I sell one book, I have never been more proud to release a book in my life. Thank you for taking a chance with me, and for holding my hand the whole way through this process. I can’t ever thank you enough and I can’t wait to work with you more! *So a warning Tony – I am stealing you as an editor as long as you will have me*
I need to thank my girls, all them. My betas who looked at this way back in December and gave me amazing feedback and kept me pushing toward the finish line. I was excited to present you with Colette and Hunter’s story and now I am so excited for you to all read it again and just be blown away. So thank you: Jen, Dawn, Nans, Kia, Tabby and Melissa. Cause not only did you ladies really help me through the first time around but have been supporting me forever, which I certainly am not sure why but I appreciate. More than you know.
My always supportive friends, Airicka – who makes the best covers ever, because have you seen the cover? Both my Kims, Wallace and Schaaf, Andrea, Jessica and Anna. You ladies keep me going even when I really just rather give up. Especially you Jennifer, who I am pretty sure had to talk me from the edge a couple times with this one. I can’t thank you ladies for being the support I need.
Thank you to all my new and old readers. You are an exceptionally amazing group of people who never give up on me, and for that I am forever grateful. I hope that this totally rocks your socks.
Special thanks to my street team and those who work so hard to help me out – you know who you are and I appreciate every single one of you. If I could list everyone’s names without writing another book solely of names, I would.
Hexed Hearts
Chapter One — How it Began
The metal scraping of my boxed cage jarred me from unconsciousness. Light slanted through the small, barred windows at the top of the high walls. The walls were gray stone and the world felt smaller every passing minute. Limper, aptly named by me because of his staggered gait, pulled me to a cage.
My bottom lip trembled and my heart raced. Fear made my eyesight swim. Or maybe it was the lack of food. I hadn’t eaten much since they brought me here. The last foul drink they forced down my throat had burned all the way down.
Limper stared down at me, a scar bisected his eyebrow and continued down to his chin. It cast a shadow of menace on me and made my whole body tremble.
He hit the hardest, and smiled afterwards.
The other adults hit just as cruelly, but looked down or away after. I huddled away from him, shielding my fragile body from his violent filled gaze.
Limper dropped my cage into a new room. I bounced against the thick metal bars. The space was too small to avoid knocking into the sides and made my tiny frame seem bigger than it was. He added more bruises to existing ones. I held my tongue. Tried to hold in my yelp.
Limper gave me a satisfied smirk as he kicked my cage one last time and turned away. He walked to a single metal door set deep in the bare concrete wall. A small, ominous window occupied its center. I flinched as the metal door slammed shut behind him.
The scraps of clothing that had survived the months of abuse did nothing to block the chill in the air and the coldness of the men. I wrapped my arms around my knobby knees, pulling them close to my protruding ribs. Tears ran down my cheeks and I wiped them against my dirt encrusted skin. But wiping the tears didn’t stop their flow. The bars of the cage against my concave stomach reminded me of the hunger that plagued me.
“Don’t cry,” a voice next to me said.
My head snapped up looking for the source of the voice. I hadn’t seen anyone else in the room before. I scooted away from it. I sniffled. Taming the animalistic sounds that tore from my throat was easier said than done. A boy with disheveled brown hair was sitting as close. He seemed too big for his own cage, but I knew I was small for my age so I guessed he was around the same age. I swallowed hard.
“There you go,” he smiled. “What’s your name?”
My eyes followed his movements, he fidgeted little.
“Mine’s Griffin, but you can call me Griff.”
He pushed his hand into my cage. It was just as dirty and bruised as my own. Some of the skin on the knuckles looked raw.
“Colette,” I answered timidly. I watched the hand like it was a snake ready to bite.
“Lettie. I like it. How old are you, Lettie?”
He watched me closely. His voice had the authority, like an adult, and made my shoulders tense. I took his hand, pumped it once, and retreated.
“T-ten,” I said.
“You haven’t shifted have you? In front of them? I know it’s tempting, but you can’t.”
My brow furrowed and I shook my head slowly. I didn’t understand what he meant by shift. The other men had yelled things I didn’t understand, something about shifting. Then they hit me. My muscles twitched to move into the familiar position of defeat.
“Colette, it’s important, you have –”
The door banged open, the sound echoing in the tall ceiling room. Limper looked at Griffin first, I followed Limper’s glaze back to Griffin who pulled back his top lip to snarl. He was now crouched in his cage, eyes never leaving the limping man for a moment. Limper moved ever so slightly closer to my cage. The snarling grew louder.
“Interesting,” he leered at me as he approached my cage, his focus unwavering. “Come on, doll. It’s your turn.”
I whimpered and pressed myself closer to the back of the cage, closer to Griffin. I wanted him to save me. I wanted him to protect me. Limper opened the cage, an ever growing smile spread across his face. He reached in. I looked back at Griffin my eyes pleaded with him.
“Stay strong, little Lettie,” he said. His eyes never left mine. Limper dragged me from the room. The only thing I left Griffin was the echo of my scream.
* * * *
“Crying doesn’t help,” Griffin said softly.
“Daddy use to say that after he hit me, too,” I said with a cringe.
I wasn’t supposed to talk about daddy. He was supposed to be our little secret. He told me I should never tell anyone that the foster families that took me in allowed daddy to see me. Or that I wasn�
��t living with the foster families, but with him and they collected the support money.
Griffin shifted in his cage and reached through the bars again to lightly touch my hair. I sighed. His touch was gentle and his smell was soothing. He smelled like the always the green trees close to daddy’s cabin, and cinnamon, too. I wasn’t afraid when I smelled that.
I was pulled from those thoughts when Griffin’s lips turned down and his eyes grew hard withdrew his hand.
“Whatever you do Lettie, do not shift.”
It was the same warning he gave me before and I opened my mouth to ask what he meant. The door opened, not with its familiar bang, but it still it sent a chill down my spine. I quaked unconsciously.
Limper and two others strode in. One was tall and lanky. He had ice blue eyes and an uneven smile. The second was short, bald, and his thin lips never moved from their permanent scowl. Blue eyes kicked Griffin’s cage, but he didn’t move. He kept his eyes on me as they came around to the front of my cage. I couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped. The men chuckled while Griffin growled. Limper’s nails bit into my delicate skin as he yanked me from the cage. I tripped over the lip and fell forward. I braced my hands against the floor. Blood welled at my palms.
“Please, I just want to go home,” I cried.
Limper moved forward and grabbed my arm. He pulled me up. He walked circles around me and I remained still. A powerful shove between my shoulder blades set me flying forward. I fell to the ground my hands already bloodied from the first collapse I didn’t prop with my hands, but my arms. I fell hard and heard my right arm crack. Blinding pain shot through me.
Griffin howled and screamed.
“I fucking hate when they look human,” Blue eyes said to Limper. “Change you dumb bitch!”
He punctuated his works with a kick to my tummy. I grunted and curled into a ball. I didn’t help. Nothing helped protect me from the never ending blows. But I curled tighter. I knew how to become small, and I knew the smaller I got the less he had to hit.
The man kept screaming at me to shift. If I knew what he meant, I would have done it. I would have done anything to make him stop, to make the screams and howls coming from Griffin stop.
But neither stopped for hours. Or so it seemed.
Everything was distant when the beatings stopped. I barely noticed, though some part of me was glad. In my head, though, I could still hear Griff’s screams. Limper took my unbroken arm in his grasp and shoved me back into the cage before banging the door shut. I flinched at the sound. His footfalls echoed in the room, then the door to our small dark world slammed shut.
Something brushed against my hand. I pulled away, then I turned my eyes up to Griffin. He offered me all that he could. A small, broken smile, and a hand through the bars. I welcomed both.
He held my hand. It wasn’t big like my daddy’s, or callused and rough. It was much smaller and soft. I blinked at Griff’s black eyes staring down at me from his cage. He hung his head, his face taking on a helpless kind of regret. There was fondness there, too, though I didn’t know why. His swollen eye was completely shut. More cuts and bruises covered his face. I twisted my frame so that I was pressed against the wall closest to Griffin never letting go of his hand.
“You did good. Really good,” he said softly.
I didn’t get praise. I felt the warmth of a blush redden my cheeks. My moment of happiness sent pain radiating from me.
“You have one black eye and one blue,” he said, still studying me.
I pulled my hand free to touch my face. The swelling was bad. He chuckled lightly.
“No, not bruises. Your eye color.”
I shook my head.
“No, I have brown eyes.”
“No,” he said reaching through the cages and gently brushed his free hand along my cheek. His touch comforted me in a way I couldn’t understand. But it sent a warmth through me. I didn’t argue with him. We became quiet, together listening to the distant cries. I understood then that Griffin and I weren’t the only ones.
“I’m scared, Griffin.”
“Call me Griff.”
I nodded and clung to his hand, and for the next week never willingly let go. The men returned often, ripping us apart. The pain in my arm was constant, the beatings…after having no one for so long, none of that was worse than losing my hold on Griff. I clearly remember the first time we were separated. It felt as if something inside me was being ripped apart. Every time, I’d wail and struggle to reach him again. Griff would try to calm me through the bars of his prison, but nothing worked. I saw him cry when they beat me.
Another day, another beating. They had just left us and I lay in the bottom of my cage, clutching his hand once more.
“Lettie…”
I looked away from the door to Griffin’s black eyes.
“I love you. You are my pack now. They won’t ever hurt you again.”
I shook my head, and my bottom lip trembled. It sounded like a goodbye. I was about to tell him I loved him too, when the door crashed open. I flinched but never loosened my grip.
My eyes vacantly took in his face. A new tormentor. He glanced at us, then leaned back out into the hall to shout.
“I found Griffin!”
Then he was back looking at Griff.
“Shit, I bet the other guy looks ten times worse,” he said with a wink.
He had the same black eyes that Griff had, but he was blonde in stark contrast to Griff’s tangled brown mop. He smelled like Griff a little. Still, I whispered to Griff, clinging closer to him when the man took a step into the room. Griff’s chest rumbled with a cautious noise.
“It’s alright, Griff. Stop your growling. Your dad is here, too. Well, half the pack really. Your mom wanted to come inside, but Uncle Isaac made her wait in the car. Said it might be too dangerous.”
While this stranger talked, he moved to unlock Griff’s door.
“Get Colette out first,” Griffin said.
The stranger, was distinctly avoid looking at me up till this point.
“This is Colette?”
His voice and eyes softened when he looked down at me.
“Hey, sweetie, don’t worry. We’ll get you out of there.”
He reached over and casually popped the lock on my too small cage with just his hand. The door drifted open and a couple more men filtered in. I whined, wanting to stay in the cage. If I left the cage I’d have to let go of Griffin’s hand. And letting go hurt too much.
“Colette, you have to let go of Griffin.”
I whimpered and shook my head. I didn’t ever want to let go of Griffin. I held even tighter instead.
“It’s okay, Lettie. You can let go. It won’t hurt.”
I shook my head.
“Colette, look at me.
“It’s okay. I promise.”
Griffin motioned to the three men who had entered. The first newcomer to enter was a red haired man with a scowl on his face. He stood tall, and rigid. His dark eyes swept over the room taking in all the details. His fist tightened along with his lips when he caught sight of spattered blood on the ground. The second man stood about a few inches shorter than the red-haired man, but taller than the first. He had the same blond hair as the first one. Their eyes matched Griffin’s black ones.
“This is Keith, Teddy, and Johnathan. My Beta, my uncle and cousin. They’re here to help. To take us home.”
Keith, the serious red haired man with a scowl on his face nodded when Griff said his name, he stood off to the side, closest to the door. Teddy, who’d freed us, tipped his head at us. Johnathan was an older version of Teddy, only with much kinder eyes. He stood next to Teddy, close to our abandoned cages.
I shook my head, still resistant. I looked back to Griff. He mouthed a silent ‘please’ to me and I felt my insides twist. I had to trust him. He was my only friend in the whole world.
I let go. There was no pain this time. I sighed and, crawled from the cage. I cradled my fractured arm to my chest
, careful not to jar it. Teddy gently helped me out then handed me to Johnathan, who looked gentler than the rest.
“Hey, sweet child,” Johnathan said. “All will be well.”
He hugged me gently. His scent was similar to Griff’s, like those green trees that reminded me of daddy. His heat warmed me outside in.
Griff crawled from his cage, and when he stood, he was taller than I’d thought. He came over to me right away. He still limped, but his bruises had healed much faster than mine. They were barely visible.
“Lettie.”
He reached for me, and his Uncle let me go. For the first time, Griff wrapped his arms around me. I held onto him as tightly as I could.
“Griffin why haven’t either of you shifted?” Johnathan asked.
“The beatings would’ve been worse. You were so brave, Lettie.”
He squeezed too tightly, jostling my broken arm. I cried out. Griff pulled away looking stricken.
“You should shift, Lettie.”
I looked at him blankly and shook my head slowly.
“It’s okay now, Lettie,” Griff said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Shift to your wolf, baby,” Johnathan said.
I shook my head, and they exchanged puzzled glances.
“She smells like a wolf, doesn’t she?” Teddy said.
“She has to be one of us. Why else would they take her?” Keith looked down at me, a sickened expression creeping into his face.
“Well, we’ll figure out which pack she belongs with,” Johnathan said, “and return her just like the rest of the boys.”
Griffin growled.
“No. She’s mine.”
The three men looked at him confused.
“No, she isn’t, Griff. She belongs to another pack, she isn’t yours to take,” Keith said.
“She. Is. Mine.”
Griff’s eyes changed from black to yellow, and his grip tightened. I tried to back away, startled. I knew what it meant. My father’s eyes did the same when he was mad. When he was getting ready to change.
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