Flashback ~ I was woken up by a ray of sun shining against my bed frame from my window. I jumped out of bed to look out my bedroom window. I pushed the window open and took a deep breath of the fresh summer air. It was a perfect day to go out and play in the woods. I ran to my parents room and jumped in bed. I heard the protest of my father but my mom immediately got up. She fixed us some breakfast and we were off. My mom and I went for a walk not to far from home. We admired the flowers and animals we saw on the path. Once we had walked into a small clearing. we decided stop and play hide and seek. It was so much fun! We played until the sun started to set. It was my turn to hide so I ran and hid behind a giant redwood tree. I could hear her counting "10,9,8," and I started to giggle. Then there was silence. I stopped giggling and couldn't hear her counting anymore. Then I heard one word. Run. I looked back at my mom and I saw her shift into her brown and gold wolf. She was growling at something to the right of us. My eyes followed a similar path as my moms and then I saw it. Hunters. A group of 2 hunters were staring at my mom with their gleaming weapons in hand. Both had sick smiles on their faces. I stayed hidden behind the redwood tree. I watch as one of the hunters advanced towards my mom but she didn't give him a chance to get any closer. She quickly pounced on him and began clawing and scratching at him. While she wrestled with the first hunter, the second crept closer pulling out a out a silver dagger from his boot. My eyes widened when I realized he was going to stab my mom while she was busy with the first hunter. I looked at my mom as she had raked her claws across the first hunters chest. He dropped to the ground with blood spilling from his chest. He was as good as dead. As she turned to face the second hunter, he was already upon her. With his weapon ready, he circled around her assessing her size and strength. She took that as cue to attack. She raced forwards and tackled him down to the ground. This hunter was much stronger than his companion and didn't falter when she hit him. They both wrestled until he had the upper hand. He was on top of her, grabbing her beautiful coast holding on for dear life. My mom desperately tried to knock him off her back but he didn't give up. When he was about to stab her with his silver knife, I screamed. I couldn't watch my mom be stabbed so screamed for my sake and my mothers life. Little did I know that I helped distract him from my mom. The hunters eyes went straight to me and he smiled. "So this is the child everyone has been talking about." I was what he wanted. My diversion gave my mom enough time to gather her strength and kill him. She threw him off her back and in a matter of seconds she ripped his throat out. I cheered for mommy, but behind her I saw the first hunter crawling towards her. She didn't realize the hunter wasn't yet dead. I felt helpless. My voice wouldn't work. I watched as he got close enough to her to drive his silver blade through her heart. With a yelp she fell down to the ground. The hunter looked me in the eyes. "You will never see your mother again and you will never be safe, little girl. We will find you with the help of of creatures. This is not the end." He smiled a wicked smile with blood dripping out of his mouth. Then his eyes rolled back into his head and he started to breath erratically as he started to cough up blood. I watched him gurgle up more blood and spit it on the ground. I watched him suffer with wide eyes. Then he stopped breathing. I watched him take his last breath and looked back at my mom. I ran over to my mom on the ground who had shifted back into her human form. "Taylor," my mom said coughing up blood, "I love you so much. Remember that the pack is your family. Do whatever you have to do to protect it. Protect your daddy and brother for me. Tell them I love them and that I'll be watching you with the Moon Goddess. Remember that you're special. " Coughing up more blood, she looked into my eyes, "I love you sweetie, never forget that." I looked at the two hunters lying dead behind us and looked back at her with tears filling my eyes. "No mom. You're going to be ok. I can get daddy and he can fix you. We can make pancakes tomorrow morning and then we can.. can go to the park and play with Ben and his friends." She smiled at me and whispered " I will always love you my sweet Taylor, forever and always" and shut her eyes one last time. End of Flashback
11 Years Later
Taylor's POV
Smack, punch, jab, kick, punch, jab, repeat. "Taylor, I think you need some anger management classes."
Shut. Punch. Up. Kick. Ben. I wiped off the sweat from my forehead and glared at Ben, my obnoxious younger brother. My work out sessions are the only place I can actually find peace, but Ben always felt the need to ruin all the good moments in my life.
"Ben, don't you have someone else to annoy with your presence?" I said as I unwrapped the tape from around my hands. Once it was all off I threw the tape in the wastebasket. I grabbed my water bottle and took a sip.
"Come on Taylor, you know I like messing with you."
Ben knew that I hated being interrupted during my workouts. I took another sip of my water and glared at him as he leaned against the door frame with a stupid smirk on his face. What a prick.
"Oh, and by the way Taylor, " His smirk suddenly disappeared. "dad wanted me to tell you that he wanted to see you as soon as you were done. He says it's important."
"Oh great! Another meeting with dad, I can't wait." I rolled my eyes. I hated my dad's meetings, they were usually stupid and worthless. All he talks about is me and my future for our pack. It was boring as hell. You need to be a leader. You need to be smart. Blah blah. The same thing every time.
"Ok thanks, Benji. Thanks for being such a good little messenger, now leave."
"Don't call me Benji! I told you it's annoying." He said crossing his arms and frowning. I thought he was growing up. I guess I was wrong.
I stuck my tongue out at him. I guess we both act like kids.
"I will stop calling you Benji, if .......... you fight me." I took my fighting stance and beckoned him towards me with my finger.
Ben kept his distance. "No way in hell am I fighting you again. The last time I fought you, you gave me a black eye. I couldn't get a girl to look at me for 2 weeks! Two weeks is a very long time!"
"Awe! What a poor baby. What, you couldn't tell them you were beaten by a girl?" I crossed my arms and smirked at Ben.
"Taytay, I would never lay a hand on you. Besides, that would make me look like a bad brother." I mentally rolled my eyes. I never knew he cared about being a good brother.
I forgot what the next exercise I wanted to do was. Was it pull-ups, crunches, squats?
I groaned. "Well look what you've done now! You killed my practice mojo. That's something a bad brother would do."
"Not my fault you can't stay on task." I threw my water bottle at him but unfortunately, he dodged it and let it fall out of the weight room. He chuckled as he watched it sail behind him. "I guess it's time to clean up since I can't focus at all." I stared daggers at him as I put my weights backs. "Not my fault I'm so good looking. I guess I'm just that eye-catching."
"Eww. See you at dinner...Benji." I said smugly, waving to him and walking out of the weight room.
I heard him groan as he closed the door to the weight room. I grabbed my water bottle from the floor and headed up to my room to take a quick shower.
When I got to my room, I went to the bathroom and turned the water on and got my music speakers. Before I got in, I made sure the speakers were working, turned on Hits 1 on my Spotify App, and hopped into the shower.
*25 minutes later* ....."CAUSE WE'RE YOUNG AND WE'RE RECKLESS, WE'LL TAKE THIS WAY TOO FAR, IT'LL LEAVE YOU BREATHLESS, OR WITH A NASTY SCAR, GOT A LONG LIST OF EX-LOVERS, THEY'LL TELL YOU I'M INSANE, BUT I GOT A BLANK SPACE BABY, AND I'LL WRITE YOUR NA"- "TAYLOR SHUT THE F UP!!!!!" I heard Ben shout outside my door.
I shut off the water and turned down the volume. Ben was such a buzzkill. I grabbed my towel from the rack and wrapped it around my body. I looked at myself in the mirror. I wasn't "model status" but I wasn't ugly. I was 5'8, had long brown hair with a couple of blonde highlights, and brown eyes like my mother. I have a C cup, and Ben makes fun of my butt. Whenever I wear spandex and a t-shirt around the house, Ben always plays Bubble Butt and tries to twerk around me. Trust me, it's not a pretty sight.
When I finally got out of the bathroom, Ben glared at me. "What?" I said innocently, "I had to shave."
That's a girl's best excuse for taking long showers. It always works for me.
"Taylor, dad wants you down in his office now. He's been yelling at me cause you had to "shave"." He said putting hand quotes in the air.
Oh crap, I forgot about that. "Thanks, Benji! Love ya!" I said as I ran down the stairs.
"You owe me Taylor!" I heard him shout as I ran down the hall to my father's office. Once I was just outside my father's door I took a deep breath.
*knock knock* "Come in Taylor" my father's voice was laced with frustration.
"Hey dad, Ben told me you wanted to see me." When I looked at him, he was enveloped in paperwork. There were papers littering the floor and invading the workspace on his desk.
"Ah, yes. I have an important matter to discuss with you. Taylor, you're turning 18 soon. That means you're going to find your mate, which is great, but...."
"But what dad?" Why is he talking about mates? He knows I don't want one. That I have no time for one.
"I'm getting to the point, calm down Taylor. You know that the number of rogue and hunter attacks have increased dramatically in the last month. We have been able to fend them off, but we can't keep this up forever. So, I made a proposal to the Silver Moon Pack."
"The Silver Moon Pack..... Hmmm, are we combining packs or nah?" I chuckled at my joke.
"Taylor this is serious. Stop acting like a child and listen!" I shut my mouth and sat silently. "The alpha of the Silver Moon pack and I have discussed this alliance for five hours yesterday and we finally agreed upon a deal.
"That's great, but I don't really think this concerns me."
"Taylor listen to me. We made the deal but they said we needed a way to show both packs would be faithful to the treaty. They wanted something they could see, physically. So they asked me ....... tohaveyoumarriedtothenextalphainlineforthetitlesoIsaidyes." My dad, what should I call it... Oh, word vomited.
"Dad, can you say that again slowly. Tell me I heard you wrong through all that mumbling." I know I heard the two words, marry and alpha. Those were two words I never wanted to hear.
"Tell me that you didn't just marry off your own daughter to some random boy. Tell me this is a sick joke! Wait, am I being recorded? Is this a prank show or reality TV, because you got me good. Am I going to be famous?!"
"No Taylor I'm telling the truth. You're not going to be famous and you're not going to be on tv. What you are going to do is marry this boy and you're going to do it for your pack."
"What?!" I slammed my fist on the table.
"Taylor I can explain."
"YOU WANT ME TO MARRY SOMEONE I DON'T EVEN KNOW? Nor that I love or can call mate?" I screamed in his face, tear threatening to spill from my eyes.
"Taylor you have to calm down. I thought you didn't even care about mates. Just remember it's for the good of the pack." He said reassuringly.
Calm down? Did he just tell me to calm down? "This is for the good of the pack? To hell with that and calm down?! How can I calm down? How could you do this to me dad?! How can you marry off your own daughter? I'm not even 18!"
"Let me expl-"
"NO! You don't know anything about me. You had mom as a mate. You had the one person you were destined to be with. Your other half. Your soul mate. Yeah, she died. I watched it, but that doesn't mean I don't get mine. Just because I don't want one now doesn't mean I'll never want one. So excuse me if I don't want to be apart of this stupid deal!" I stomped out of his office, slamming the door shut behind me.
"Honey we can talk this out! There is no need for this kind of reaction." He shouted from his office.
Talk this out my ass. As I walked away, I got weird looks from other pack members, but I ignored them. I slammed the door to the packhouse shut and walked to out pack territory line. I jogged to the edge forest and looked at the view. It was beautiful. It was sad that I too pissed off to enjoy the view.
My pack, the Gold Paw Pack, was the second strongest pack in the US. I don't understand why we would need to unite with Silver Moon Pack, the pack above us. We can handle ourselves. I shook my head and took a deep breath. Concentrating, I called out to my wolf, Catherine.
One second, I was an ordinary teenage girl the next moment I was a magnificent beast. Oh did I forget to mention? I'm a werewolf and surprise, I'm next in line to be my packs alpha.
~~~
Well, there's the first chapter! ^-^ I hope you liked it! This is my first time writing so please bear with me.
It's Almost Christmas! I'm so excited! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or Happy Holidays!
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