Fated Stars

Chapter 1

Every year, every year the same month, the same time, the same place.

I both love and hate this time of year.

I love the autumn season, the air is cool and crisp, and the leaves begin to change their colors to rich; oranges, reds, yellow and with some of our trees a deep purple.

All colors I love and long to see each season. Everyone and everything are shedding the old and beginning a new. And I feel mostly at peace and calm when I'm outside looking over the grey cloudy sky.

This is also the time of year that is most important to my people, the werewolf people. This is the time of year when are fates are decided, this is the time of year when are mates are chosen.

Every September 27, just before sunset werewolves from my pack and some from the neighboring packs gather together at a place named the Colectarea de Luncã, the gathering meadow.

This is where the Star Bãtrâni, the star elders come to announce the mating couples. The reason they are called the Star Bãtrâni is because they are the Spectatori a stelelor; the viewers of the stars. In are werewolf culture mates, as well as most everything else are decided by the stars and the moon.

The night sky has are fates written in it and only the Star Bãtrâni who are chosen at birth by having been born with a mark of a crescent moon with a star at the tip can translate them.

The mark for the Bãtrâni shows that they will have the abilities to read, understand, and translate the stars to the rest of the people.

Every Bãtrâni has this mark, and it is one of the most respected position to have besides the Alpha and Beta standings in our pack.

Every werewolf is born with a birthmark in are pack and they mean different things. Most average werewolf marks are their zodiac sign or constellation. Or if you have the mark of an Alpha which resembles a sunburst.

On the night of September 27th, The Star Bãtrâni announces which two females and males werewolves are fated to be mate's according to the stars, constellation, and zodiac signs that they read and foresee. Then exactly ten days later is when the mating ceremony is held on October 7, the Harvest Moon or for us werewolves the Hunters Moon. This is when the mates bond themselves to each other.

Usually this is a time for wolves that have come of age, that have reach they mature potential. It is the time when you change from a child to an adult ready for mating and reproducing.

For females you are ready for mating after your first monthly but only if you are mated by the stars. For male werewolves they can be much older than the females before they're mated.

Again it is up to the stars who your mate will ultimately be and when.

Once a year, every September 27th, is the time of year I hate and dread to arrive.

While every other she wolf is giddy, excited, and hopeful this time of year, I on the other hand am not.

Every September 27th, since I was 13 has been a disappointing, embarrassing, and shameful. I am a 19 year old she wolf and am still not mated.

This is an outrageous age to be as a female wolf and not be mated. Most females are mated between the ages of 14-17, maybe 18 at the latest, but I am the oldest female in the history of are pack not to be mated yet.

I am an embarrassment and a dishonor to my family.

My mother has become a respected seamstress in are pack. She can sew anything and make it magnificent. She gets a lot of business this time of year, traditionally mothers will craft a dress for their daughters to wear for mating announcements, and if they're chosen a white dress for the mating ceremony, but no one comes close to having the skill my mother does.

So many mothers will ask my mother for help in making the dress or they'll just have her make whole thing. Every mother wants their daughter to look the most beautiful on that day. Of course she makes a dress for me each year, but I think she is wasting her time and fabric each year making a new dress for me when my name never gets called.

She was also the former mate of the current Alpha my father. Yes my father is the Alpha of our pack which only adds to the dishonor I bring to my family.

When I say my mother is the former mate of Alpha Rais, my father, it is because after my mother gave birth to me which was a difficult birth I was told, she could no longer bare any more pups, or to be more precise any male pups.

In our pack even if you are an alpha's son it does not mean they will become a future alpha. You must be born with an alpha mark the sunburst, but being born from a family with the alpha gene does increase the chances of being born with the mark.

When my mother after many failed attempts to bare male pups or pups of any kind, the Bãtrâni read in the stars that my father was to take a new mate who ended bearing him two sons my half-brothers who are a year younger than I. Neither of them bears the alpha mark but the hope that their offspring will is very high.

Neither has been mated yet they are only 18 and males usually mate later in life than the females so they still have time and who knows this may be their year for mates.

I know my mother is very shamed that she couldn't give her mate sons. My mother is still technically my father's mate just not the only one. Every werewolf except for the alpha has only one mate.

It is not the first times in the history of are pack that has had an alpha with multiple mates, but I know mother is very embarrassed none the less. She loves my father deeply I see it in her eyes every time, on the rare occasions he visits us. I also know it breaks her heart to see him with Violet his other mate.

Shortly after Violet became my father's mate my mother requested her and I move out of my father's house to go live in our own. Father refused at first he loves my mother and wanted her close to him, but the pain of seeing him with Violet was just too much for my mother to bear. Seeing this father finally consented and we did move to our own small cottage not too far from the Alphas house. That happened when I was but an infant.

I barely see my father and when I do I cannot look him in the eye. We speak few words just pleasantries, how are you, and the weather and such, nothing important or deep between a father and daughter. He is a stranger to me, and I see him only as my alpha.

I know I am partially to blame of why my mother doesn't get to see him often, he is ashamed of me, and I'm sure disappoint that he had a part in producing a daughter such as I.

Though my mother never lets me think this if she can help it. She says it was the stars will for her to only have me and there is a reason for it even if I can't see it. And she always says, "Azalea your time for a mate will come, you just have to be patient, the stars know all."

I do have faith in the stars and want to believe it, but when this time of year rolls around I do become less hopeful and depressed.

Me and my mother are quite the scandal in the pack, were a good choice of gossip among the other she wolves. The staring, the whispering of dirty remarks only makes my already shy and timid personality increase.

I just want to get through the mating announcements and when my name is not called I can burry my head in the sand. The 27th is a day away, way too soon and way to fast.

I take a deep breath of the crisp night air, as I look out my bedroom window. I look at all the stars glistening and twinkling bright against the dark blue backdrop. I could lay in the cool grass at night and look at them for the rest of my life if given the choice, but I also imagine my mate lying next to me so we can gaze up at the stars together forever.

I put my hands together and I close my eyes, I begin to pray to the stars, moon and sky.

"Please, for my mother, please let this year be different. Please bless me with my mate." I keep my voice in a soft whisper.

I release a sigh, "please let me bring honor to my family."

"Please."