"Wake up!" the voice of Aurelia's best friend and adoptive brother, David, yelled.
Eight-year-old Aurelia opened her eyes to see David looming over her.
"Let me sleep," she mumbled.
"You are not sleeping! We are being attacked by the Thunder Stone pack!"
Aurelia muttered under her breath but with David's extended hearing he heard her. David was a rogue wolf-shifter who had been exiled by his pack, and he lived peacefully with his wolf-shifter parents.
Aurelia had been found at the orphanage doorstep with a tag around her neck, her name on it, and David's parents had adopted her.
"Come on!" David ignored her words and dragged Aurelia from her warm bed, bringing downstairs into the basement. He then gave her the key. "Lock it once I'm gone."
He left. Aurelia shoved the key into the lock and turned it.
Why did she have to be born human?
She couldn't even help her adoptive family when they were being attacked...
She sighed and retreated to the farthest corner of the basement, with only one dagger to protect her.
♤
"Aurelia!" David shouted. "THEY'RE DEAD!"
Those two words made Aurelia gasp. With fuming fingers, she turned the key in the keyhole. She bolted out of the basement and ran into the backyard to see David staring at his dead parents.
"What happened?!" she cried.
"I don't know, but they're dead," David whispered.
Aurelia pressed her lips together as tears clouded her dark green eyes. "David, I-I'm sorry..."
"You don't have to apologize, Lia. You've done nothing wrong," David said. "It's all the Thunder Stone pack's fault."
"B-but I'm so useless... if only I could help, then m-maybe..."
"Don't blame youself," David said quietly. "This didn't happen because of you."
Aurelia looked at the claw marks on her adoptive parents and more tears fell out of her eyes. She brushed a strand of her dark brown hair out of her face as David knelt.
"I swear... I'll get revenge for you," David whispered quietly, but Aurelia heard him just fine.
A bit of fear crept into her. What if David died trying to get revenge?
But, she couldn't tell him not to avenge his parents. It just wasn't right. She wanted to kill the ones who had murdered her adoptive parents too, but she was too weak for that.
Aurelia swallowed.
She'd tell him some other day.