Alpha...

"I'm sorry Rowan" I stroke her hair, gently pulling it back from her damp cheeks, as I kiss her on the forehead and scoop her up in my arms, carrying her away.

"I miss our old pack" Rowan cries, her lips quivering as a pool of water gathers on the rim of her eyes.

I miss our old pack too, I miss mum and dad and my big brother. I think about them all the time, a part of me hates them for that, why can't they just be here? I'm not ready for this, I can't protect my sister like I should, I'm only seventeen. They promised they'd keep me safe and now we're all alone, i'm all alone, and no one wants us.

"I know" I whispered against her hair, my lips still against her forehead. We stay like that for the longest time, my lips against her head, my arms wrapped around her tiny body as she clings to me and cries for the emptiness in her belly and her cold sore hands.

We only have each other now and the clothes on our backs. No home, No other family, No money.

We spent the last year travelling from town to town in search of a pack that would take on a pup and a lone-she wolf.

There were many that hunted us, tried to capture us and breed us, and then there were others that simply told us to leave. We weren’t welcomed or accepted.  Who would want us though? Nothing to offer, nothing to give accept the one thing I couldn't let go of.

"I'm cold" Rowan sniffles, her eyes red and her normally tan skin a sickly yellow colour. I pull her tighter against me, trying to protect her from the biting cold of the winter that the bus stop fails to shield us from.

"I want to go home!" She wails, her ringlets bouncing up and down as she shakes her head back and fourth pushing away from me with more force than any six year old should have. I sighed heavily, trying to calm her, my body weak from little food and numb from the freezing cold.

"Please Rowan" I choke, my throat closing and my eyes stinging with fatigue. She stops struggling but continues to wail loudly.

She never used to be like this. She never used to cry or struggle but gradually as we faced more and more rejection Rowan became more and more difficult to handle.

"I promise I'll find us  a new home, it just takes time, persistence" I reassure, nodding my head as I stroke her soft cheeks. She sniffs loudly, her snot dribbling down to her top lip. I wiped it away with a tissue and tuck her under my arm.

"Try and sleep, we'll get the bus in the morning and try again" I hush rocking her gently back and fourth although she is a little too big for me. She drifts off quite peacefully, the furrow between her eyebrows disappearing and her rosy lips parting as she snores softly.

I lay my head back against the cool glass pane of the bus stop and think of home.

It had been  perfect, beautiful, peaceful. I had been surrounded by family and friends, I had loved every one and every one had loved me. We had lived in peace and in sanctuar,y but as a pack we were weak, small, untrained so when they came... we fell. My father, my mother, my brother were all dead. My friends, my teacher, my boyfriend all slaughtered, their blood coating the walls, the floors, the trees. It had been an extermination mission and they had succeeded in killing all of my small village but me and my sister.

I often thought of my mother, father and brother, remembering better times when I was happy and when Rowan was free to be a child. When I was free to be a teenager.

I fell asleep with that thought, happy thoughts that seemed to belong to a girl I no longer was.