Accidental Surrogate

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 turnedshe 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.”

“The next day I went to the doctor in residence, and I told him what the matron had

done. I’d 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

strange.”

that

starts and stops now,

steaming around us, so I know she isn’t cold and I know the

off my clothes and put me on the exam table. and then

it’s very important that you be still,

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

cheeks as she quotes the

wolf. “Then he said, T know little girls can have a hard

still, so I have these nifty straps to help

down. and then he

I explained he would touch me exactly how she had,

I cried or objected, he would only do it

demand I tell him”

first minute or so I figured out what

but if I didn’t speak

abuses, always demonstrating them on my body. They were far

So I answered. I told him how to hurt me.” Ella is

ferocious snarl, and she looks up at me for the first time since she

are overflowing, but she offers me a bitter

okay, big bad wolf,

becomes a whine, and Ella determinedy forges on. “I was too

they did those things, but I knew how it made me

happen again, but

girls like Cora who

no, no tell me she didn’t!I have a horrible sick feeling in

could go back in time and whisk Ella

could hurt her.

have meant other children would

My brave, brilliant little mate would never stand

be abused… even if it meant being

I stopped hiding at night. I gave myself

I already was, and it was better than

Ella shares, confirming my fears but

by explaining her logic. “The matron came

me in for check ups every few weeks.

of gentle, and she never tied me down

she seemed

different. He was a true sadist; he loved

face in my neck as

I was twelve he r*ped me, and that’s when Cora and I ran away. I

with us, but most were more afraid of living on the

didn’t know about the doctor, and I

who stayed behind to never confide in

are clamped so tightly on Ella I’m afraid I

doesn’t complain.

her muscles have unwound now that her

my own eyes, and I can only kiss and caress my sweet mate

everything she shared.

there? The matron and the doctor?”

hiss.

Ella replies. “Cora and I could only live

stay away through the first winter, but eventually the police found us squatting in

and returned us to the orphanage. When