Wild Magic One: By the Light of the Moon-- A Wolf Shifter M/M Romance

1- Master

*****TRIGGER WARNINGS: This story contains mentions of past rape, including the rape of a child, and severe physical abuse.

The beautiful new cover is courtesy of immortalmorals ❤️❤️❤️❤️*****

EDON—

It wasn't the first time Master had left me for that long, stewing in my own filth. And I had no doubt it wouldn't be the last. He had a sadistic streak a mile wide, and he was careless, forgetful.... And I was forgotten again.

I flinched as I shifted, trying to take the weight off my wrists. He had left them tied above me, up high enough that my toes barely touched the ground if I stretched, and my shoulders and wrists had stopped screaming in pain hours ago, which I knew was a bad sign.

I wanted to cry in shame as my jostling caused my bladder to give in, and I felt piss slide down my bare legs. Since the last "showing", he hadn't let me relieve myself. He usually allowed me a few moments outside of the cage, with only the heavy chains around my wrists and ankles to keep me from bolting, after each showing, but this time he hadn't been happy with the money earned, so he had simply tied me up and left, mumbling and kicking at my cage. I knew he would be back. Sooner or later, whatever pub he had gone to would toss him out, and he would come back. He would come for me drunk, angry, and looking for someone to take his frustration out on.

And I'd be here. Helpless to do anything but take the beating he gave me.

I tried to cast my mind back, tried to think of anything that I could to distract myself. I immersed myself in memories of childhood. Of my ma, soft and beautiful, warm brown eyes watching me with laughter. My pa, his body strong and sure, so different from my small, willowy form. He had always assured me I would grow into my body, would grow out like him.

"There are no Carterson's that ain't thick as a tree, son. Someday, you'll be big as me."

I knew that at 20 (if that was my age; it was a guess on my part, really), I wasn't really done growing, but I'd have to do a hell of a lot of growing to be anywhere near my father's size. I didn't know how much of my memory of him was accurate, since I had seen both my ma and pa last when I was barely ten, but I remembered a mountain of a man, who dwarfed my thin, fragile mother. And I was barely six inches above five feet tall, with ribs that stuck through my almost translucent skin, and arms a grown man could wrap his fingers around twice. I knew that for sure, because Master did it all the time. I had the bruises to show for it.

It wasn't as if my size was the only way I didn't resemble my pa. After all, he was human. And I was... not. The gods only knew what I was; what they had made me. But human was not something I could ever claim to be.

It wasn't much longer after I pissed myself that I could hear Master coming. A few miles away still, but my ears caught onto his shuffling steps, lurching every few feet, and his frustrated, angry muttering under his breath.

Although I knew it was pointless, I yanked on the chains, rattling them against the cage. It was a futile attempt at escape, but my adrenaline had begun to pump through my body, and my fight or flight instinct was racing. Because I could do neither. I was completely helpless.

And Master was worse than he had been in a long time. I knew I was in for a long night, especially when I heard him come up to the cage and yank his belt from his pants.

I closed my eyes, calling up my ma's face, my pa's. I tried to immerse myself in their memory, and in the memories of the years after I left them. Of the furry bodies, the warmth of family, and the sense of belonging when I was with my pack. It worked, sometimes, to let my mind go towards these thoughts.

It didn't work tonight. As the first blow landed, Master spitting in my face as he roared at me about the mess I had made in the cage, on myself, the warm thoughts fled and I was left alone, a monster hanging in a cage, facing down a very different kind of monster.