After being trapped by a monster, Joan is no longer the same person. In fact, she's not really a person at all anymore.

But the local pack is especially protective and curious when the find that she's an unusual wolf...

General Warning: This story is really sick and twisted; please don't read it if you are too young for rape, graphic sex, cursing, etc. I'm actually sort of disturbed at myself for writing it; the rape scenes are in the first two chapters, and they are disturbing. Please don't read this if you are underage.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Everything you recognize belongs to Patricia Briggs. I took the universe and characters from the Mercy Thompson series and the Alpha and Omega series. Briggs is awesome and I love her work! Yes, I made my own character, but use her if you want, use anything really, just credit me and let me know so I can read and enjoy it!

The Natural Order of Monsters

"He always lost control on the full moon.

I suppose it was strange that I no longer thought of him as out of control the rest of the month. The first few weeks he had me, every gentle caress, every time he spoon fed me meals, every time he assisted me in the bathroom felt like a violation. I thought it felt like rape. He broke my wrists when I wouldn't stop fighting back, and tied them behind my back in such a twisted tight way I knew they would heal back wrong. I remember crying from the pain, then crying because I'd never play piano again. I should have been crying for my soon-to-be-lost humanity.

He was some kind of fucked up creep I'd never heard of before. I think it bothered me that I didn't really understand him. I used to be addicted to crime shows; the true crime ones where they looked at real serial killers and police investigations, the super fake ones where they investigate crime scenes with bad one liners and super-hot lab techs; I guess it's not that weird that after marathon-ing 12 seasons of Law and Order SVU—that's the one where they go after rapists and child molesters, the sick fucked up shit you feel guilty for being addicted to—well, after all that I kept trying to figure him out like I would be able to in 42 minutes of TV. Like, in what episode was the bad guy his brand of crazy? How did the cops eventually save the victim? Were there more before me? Were they going to follow a trail of bodies and evidence here and save me just before he killed me? Was he even going to kill me? Was he going to rape me?

I had a lot of time to think about him, to over-analyze every action, as though he was a character in some literature I had studied. Being a kidnapped English major held away from academia and useless over-thinking about Dickens will do that to you. Being chained up by a lunatic will do that to you.

After two weeks of being spoon-fed, being carried around, having my ass wiped for me, I came to the conclusion that he had some sort of messed up complex about being a father. Like, he needed a child to take care of, so he took me, made me helpless, and then felt real great about helping me. I was half right.

'You don't have to do anything; you just have to be precious, and I'll take care of you. I'll keep you safe." Those were his words. Glad I had him to keep me safe from some creep who might want to chain me up and make me a monster. It was more than protecting me though—he wanted to control every part of my life. So, two weeks in and I thought of him as some sort of mentally disturbed guy who just needed to control and take care of me in his own fucked up way.

But he always lost control on the full moon.

I knew was on the full moon because up in the corner of… because in my…my cell…God… it really was a cell wasn't it?" My breaths came in irregular gasps.

"It's all over now Joan, it was a long time ago. Can you keep going?" He put his pen down and looked at me with sympathy…or was that pity? I took a breath.

"Yea I'm fine. It's just so strange to look back on it now and realize just how fucked up it all was. Like, I lived… I lived in a glorified cage for more than two years. I was in a cage longer than I was in college. It just…doesn't feel like that's possible. Like, that can't be my life."

I turned toward the window and sighed, gathering my thoughts, gathering the threads of my story, gathering what made it an important story for people to know. I had to gather my courage, I had to be strong enough to expose myself yet again; so much depended on me telling this story right.

"This is all important. You have to understand this if you want to understand what happened after…after he… I digress; I'm ahead of myself. I knew it was the full moon because in the corner of… my cell, there was a small half window near the ceiling. It wasn't really a cell in the traditional sense… I think in a way it was actually creepier than that. When I first woke up –he had drugged me outside of the library at my school one night, very suddenly—I didn't even realize I was in that much danger. The basement of his cabin was fitted out like a studio apartment or something, like a combined living room and bedroom. There was a couch and an armchair, both of good quality. The walls were papered in an old-lady floral pattern and there was a standing lamp beside the bed…which I was on. I thought it was a bit weird that the floor was slab cement, instead of carpet. Then I noticed that I had chains around my feet; one chain really, it wrapped from one ankle under the bed and around to my other ankle. I started screaming. He came through the door in a flash running over, asking what was wrong, if I was OK. At first I thought I was saved from whatever freak had chained me up. I told him he had to help me get out of here. He said…

He said 'Sweetie, I can't let you go. I have to keep you safe, and here is the safest place for you to be.' Fucking creep. Like I said, at first he really did treat me that way. Like I was his beloved pet dog or something. He was strong. Inhumanly strong. He was strangely young too, at least for what you'd expect of a creep keeping you prisoner. He looked maybe 30 with dark brown hair and eyes, and pale skin. The 'who knows where I'm from' white that dominates our country. But I figured freaks and rapists could come in any form. For a long time I felt like I should be doing more to get away, but looking back, I can't believe I resisted as long as I did. I really…I started to believe he really did want to protect me and keep me safe. He was just so mentally disturbed he thought this was an appropriate way to do it. He'd been watching me for weeks, months maybe, before he got me. I felt violated that he had watched me eat, watched me change. He knew my favorite foods, wanted to dress me in clothes similar to my regular style. Actually... now that I think about it, he probably took me because he could tell i was a doormat even before he trained me to be one.

The first few days, I didn't eat anything he gave me, and that really upset him. That was when he broke my wrists and tied them behind me. So he could spoonfeed me easier, I guess. I was afraid, and I was hungry, so I started eating eventually.

He was gone a lot of the day, I guess to go to work. It goes without saying that the house was in the middle of nowhere, or at least far enough that no one ever heard me scream. I had no idea if I had originally been drugged for two hours or two days. I could be anywhere really. The daytime was horrible. Just lying there, waiting around, feeling sorry for myself. I wasn't hopeless, not yet, but I did feel useless. I would kick, scream, piss the bed, anything I could do to keep him from sleeping beside me at night. He liked to cuddle me and sleep down there.

The day of the full moon, about two, three weeks after I first woke up there, he sat on the bed next to me and started brushing my hair gently. I was sitting really still, and looking ahead blankly, because my latest theory was that if he was treating me like a doll, if I just acted like one, he would get bored with me and just kill me, or let me go. Yea right. So anyway, he was brushing my hair when he told me. He wasn't wearing a shirt, which was weird because the basement got pretty cold. He hardly ever wore one, so maybe he wanted me to see he well-muscled form, or he just got really hot. Or maybe I just thought it was cold because he had started to leave me naked. Too much trouble to dress me with my arms all fucked up behind me.

'Sweetie, I've wanted to share this with you for a while. Now that you know you can trust me to keep you safe, I think it's time.' He smiled at me proudly. I stared ahead, trying to think doll thoughts. No thoughts. 'You might not believe it… yet... but I'm a werewolf.' He waited for my reaction. If me not responding (because really, I already knew he was crazy, why would more crazy delusions surprise me?) fazed him for long, he didn't show it. 'It might sound crazy at first,' now that's an understatement, 'but it's true. But you don't have to be afraid! I won't turn down here, not in your home. I'll go into the woods. I'm not going to change you, not for a while yet.' Still no reaction from me, and he was starting to get frustrated. He said it a few more times, like I couldn't hear him or something.

But like I said, he always lost control on the full moon.

'Answer me damn it!' He threw me back against the bed and bent my head back, stretching my neck painfully. He leaned down and bit my neck, hard enough to draw blood. 'I am your alpha, and you will submit to me!' I started to cry.

'Oh, Sweetie, no, no, it's okay!' He sat back up and pulled me into his arms like I was a baby. 'Sweetie, you don't have to worry, really. I won't change down here, not yet, and I don't want to change you until you've had our baby, because you can't have a baby once I change you.' I froze. I still thought he was crazy about the werewolf thing, but I knew he knew how a baby was made. So much for my theory about his need-to-be-a-daddy issues with me. He smiled and giggled a little.

'Aren't you excited to have a baby? I'll protect it and keep it safe. It will be ours, as you are mine. So, you have to stop crying, because I don't want you to cry during our first time.'

I stopped playing a doll. I kicked and screamed and struggled, but sweet talk or not, he was determined to have what was his. That first time, it hurt a lot. And not just because it was my actual first time either, cliché as that is. Despite his sweet talk, he was really rough in subduing me, and like I said, he was really strong. He maneuvered me abound onto my stomach, so that my legs were twisted up. It was jerky and horrible and painful and rough and I was so ashamed… Ashamed at how eventually I just went still and took it. I just let him rape me. They say victims like that, they can drift away from their bodies or whatever. I tried to drift. I just heard his breathing, his grunting, his murmuring to me. Drift away my ass. I was choking, couldn't breathe out my nose from crying, and I think he cracked a rib when he was holding me down.

I can still hear him panting and calling me sweetie when I think about it. like, hear the exact way he said it, feel the way his breath was on me. He howled when he came. He actually fucking howled." I blinked back tears.

"God… I'm sorry, let's take a quick break, I'll go grab us some coffee." He stood up and took a breath to steady himself, but I could smell the disgust and the panic rolling off of him. I think I preferred the pity.

"Dark and sweet please. Really sweet." I said, overly cheerful, blinking away at my wet eyes. We were just barely getting started and he had no idea that this would be the first of many, many uncomfortable coffee breaks. As he left I sighed. I was not looking forward to the next part of the story. My alpha had once told me that my strength was not in my muscles, so I should not measure my worth by my ability to arm wrestle. Still, fighting would feel more concrete than pouring out the horrible parts of my life I wanted to forget. But he was right.

I wasn't so strong that I might fight for him. I wasn't so clever that I might lie and weasel our way out of this mess. I wasn't much help at all honestly. What I was—a pissed off English major drop out, determined to save my new family—was someone with limited tools. I had the truth, I had my story, and I had my words. They would have to be enough.