Blood Moon

Prologue

Eery silence.

That's all Raelyn could note of as she walked the desolate streets of the her pack. There was usually hustle and bustle around this time; Blood Moon was such a large pack it was very rare that the street could be found empty. Only on occasions where hunting parties were passing through, or maybe the occasional rogue wolf who wondered too close to the border, could Blood Wolves be found locked in their houses by order of the alpha.

None of that was the case tonight.

For centuries The Blood Moon Pack reigned as a world power. More importantly, they had been known for being a pack ran on the idealism of abuse, slavery, legalized rape, lynchings, and so much more. Blood Moon was a living nightmare for those whom lived it, and a terrifying possibility for those who didn't.

The tide changed for Blood Moon as the 1940s came to a close and the spark of a new generation was born. Blood Moon was too powerful to take out from the outside, so it only made sense that an insider would be their demise.

The Blood Alpha hailed from one of the original werewolf families placed on the earth by the moon goddess herself. He was suppose to be unbeatable, all of the Blood's were - and up until that point they had been.

True pure-blooded wolves were said to be unbeatable in combat. Only those with blood of the original families who had mixed blood with the common wolves had been bested. As the centuries passed many of the original families mixed their bloods and found themselves removed from power because of their weakened powers. Not the family of the Blood Moon pack though. Never them. They had taken extreme measures to ensure the purity of their bloodline, going as far as pursuing incesteous relationships on occasion.

This did not change the fact that the Blood family did eventually fall. The last blood alpha had been an older man who did not know how to let go of his power. It was Raelyn's understanding that the alpha had executed two of his eldest heir's before finally letting his third son live. Of course official reports at the time did not state their death as execution by order of the alpha, but as dying by natural causes. The members of Blood Moon were gossips though, and so everyone knew the true reason for the babe's death. The alpha was worried they were too close to him in age. He would be forty-something and them twenty-something. They would be more strong, more powerful than him by that point. They would usurp him by challenge before he was ready to hand down his title. So he killed them.

The third and final son was born when the alpha was forty-nine. She supposed the alpha thought that by the time he came of age he would finally be an old man ready to pass his title down.

The Blood Alpha's own arrogance was his downfall in the end. He belief that his pure bloodline would remove the weakened state his age placed him in, that he would always be able to defeat a younger challenger. When he was killed in a challenge he was sixty-three and his heir fourteen.

It was a regular pack warrior who took the Blood Alpha down. It was after the beating of his mate, whom has committed the crime of petty thievery, that he had issued the challenge on the alpha and won.

Since then, Blood Moon has been peacefully ruled by the Verlice lineage. Great strides have been made under the new alpha family to place the Blood Moon Pack in a new light for the world to see. Women of the pack were granted equal rights, public executions and beats were outlawed, and children were not labored from dusk til dawn learning to be a soldier. Blood Moon had become modernized and fair. Their militia power had weakened as changes were made and the power of the original family was expelled, but in return they gained so much more.

The Blood Moon Pack remained a respectable pack. Though they were no longer untouchable, they continued to hold a title amongst the strongest. This is why the news that during the late hours of the night a rogue had broken into their pack was so bizarre.

Simply stating the the rogue had broken into the pack was not giving him enough credit, however. The stealth of this rogue emitted was surely unmeasurable considering that there was not a single patroller on shift who managed to ever pick up his scent. It remained a mystery how he managed this, managed to find his way to the very heart of the pack (the pack house) and enter undetected. He could have done anything he wanted to do in those moments but instead he chose to walk up to the alpha's quarters and simply knock on his bedroom door.

He administered a challenge for the title of alpha and the moment of acceptance sent shockwaves through every pack shifted pack member.

This was not the first time that the current alpha had been challenge. In the first few years of his succession many challenges came for his title. He rammed through all who challenged him and soon his worth as an alpha was proven to the pack and the Verlice lineage continued to rule. The last challenge against their alpha had taken place before she was even born.

Raelyn was sure that the rogue who challenged their alpha was mad. Perhaps even senile to have the gall to crawl out of whatever hole in the woods he hailed from and attempt to usurp their alpha. He had no right to this pack. He hadn't the slightest training's on how to even run a pack or honorably withhold its laws and keep them out of financial ruin. What could possibly compel a rogue, whom only exist as lone-wolves, to want to be responsible for a pack of hundreds of wolves?

She didn't understand the rogue's ambition. It was her understanding of lone-wolves that they hated even the thought of packs and the wolves who ran in them. There was something chemically wrong in their brain that made them that way. After all, it went against the very nature of a wolf to seek isolation.

Perhaps it was a suicide mission...

She thought more than anything she was ready for the celebration that would come after the alpha crushed his challenger. It was sure to be a grand thing. Schools would be canceled, live music on Main Street, open-bars, etc. It had been almost two decades since our alpha had won a challenge — the celebration is to be grand for sure.

Though Raelyn knew her alpha to be strong she couldn't fully bat away the slivers of doubt that crept into the back of her mind. Alpha Verlice wasn't as young as he once was. He was proved himself to still be the strongest warrior in the pack, but there was no denying that he was no longer at his peak. She briefly wondered if the rest of the pack harbored her same worries, or if she was alone in them. Perhaps his son was better suited for these things now.

Raelyn crossed her arms across her chest as a gust of wind blew by. She pushed her negative thoughts away knowing that she had watched her alpha in action on the training field. He had never lost a fight then, and he would not lose one now.

Tonight when the full moon was at its peak her mind would be put at ease. The challenge would begin.