Chapter 1 | The Lost Maiden Warrior
"TIME PASSES. EVEN WHEN IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me."
- New Moon(Twilight #2), Stephenie Meyer
Someone once told me, "Wherever there is good, there will be evil."
The moon's rays hugged the dark night in the warm embrace of a secret lover's familiarity. Its radiance wove itself through the canopy of trees, streaming dimly on my face. The sky clear of any hovering rainclouds. Stars danced meticulously across the peripheral breathlessly.
My wolf whined inside me yearning to be let out. Although the desperation was overwhelming, I could not imagine letting her out. There was too much mundane hubbub to be careless.
The faint noise of rock music blasting acknowledged my ears. My nostrils picked up the scents of booze and puke. Gross. A typical party Tessa usually drags me to.
The tree bark against my back got slightly uncomfortable as I pulled my knees up closer hugging them. The damp grass crunched under me as I dragged my boots over it. The pale moon light streaked across, leaving its shadows upon my skin, baring my dark soul out.
In the werewolf world, your happiness depended on particular things that make the earth revolve. It depended on how strong your wolf is. It depended on your lineage. Above all, it depended on the bond your shared with you mate.
Mate. More specifically soulmate.
I was no hinderance to the Moon Goddess's non partiality, thus, indeed being blessed with a mate.
Him.
One's mate was supposedly, the love of their life, soul of their spirit, last ounce of air for their lungs, beating of their heart and all the romantic cliches rolled in one.
But the catch?
You only get paired once. Once rejected you ain't got a second chance, if the rejection is, of course, accepted by your mate.
I had seen him, heard of him, but never talked to him apart from the rejection. Funny enough, considering that he was supposedly the love of my life.Soul mates were each wolves' dream come true. A pairing made by the Moon Goddess herself.
Could you lose someone you never had?
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the question of my life.
I was from the Silverette pack. My father was Alpha Adrian Archer and my mother was Luna Megan Archer.
And I am Blythe Archer. Well, par with my pack's name, our clan was the Silverette clan.
The Silverette lineage, was said to be specially blessed by the Moon Goddess to be the protectors of our kind.
This factor of ours heightened our senses even more.
All our she-wolves were silver in colour. The other packs considered us blessed.
It was not just a blessing. It was our deadliest curse too.
The leaders of our lineage were said to never have a 'happily ever after' with their mates. The history goes way back where they had dinosaurs for pets but we would just do good with the story of my own parents.
Life was all well for the werewolves other than the occasional minor disputes.
There were the Royals. They ruled us, werewolves.
While us, Silverettes protected. Then came the Alpha of the Silverettes called Adrian, my father.
He searched for his mate and found her at last. She was Megan, my mother, of course.
Well the problem was that she was a witch.
Happiness deemed its territory in their love and life not for long.
No 'happily ever after's, remember?
After my birth my mom turned blackhearted.
Evil as in morally wrong. My twin brother Aaron and I, we noticed the depraved change at the age of five.
And so did our pack. But our father did not.
He was blinded by the love towards his mate.
Well, she was blinded by the power she dreamt of having as told by her own clan.
Ultimately, our dad got nefarious and cruel under our mom's spell of love and sin.
My birth was celebrated with great joy as I was the first female to be born from my clan. The first female alpha, precisely. The greatest maiden warrior as the ancestral history books put it.
Then it happened.
The downfall of the Silverettes. Or rather simply put, a bedtime story and fable to young pups in our world.
The Rapscallion pack invaded our pack. The then Rapscallion Alpha, Kaden killed my father , taking over our pack's reign.
The loss of her mate made my mother to finally reach her senses and realize her misdeeds.
But it was too late. I remembered that day in short snippets of nightmares that kept me awake numerous nights, sobbing my heart apart into my pillows.
There was blood everywhere. Aaron grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of the pack house.
As we ran I remembered my silver locket grandpa had given me.
I pulled my hand away from Aaron's. "Go ahead Ronnie, I'll take pappy's locket and come" I yelled over all the commotion.
"No Blee, we need to run. This is all wrong" said Aaron.
"Ronnie, you go I'll come, I promise" I said and ran back in.
I stopped and turned to look at Ronnie running towards the entrance.
I ran into our room and picked the locket. As I was about to take a step I heard a sound.
BOOM!
Suddenly the pack house erupted into flames. I couldn't budge. Ronnie after all was right.
"Blee!"
"Mama" I saw my mom and ran to her.
Knowing that she was good as her eyes were emerald and not pitch black.
She picked me up and peppered my face with kisses.
She placed me on her hip and ran out. My mom was a Wonder Woman.
Big, red, bad fire did not hurt her. She jumped out of the window and landed on the ground.
Seeing both of us Aaron ran to us. Mama swiftly hugged him too.
My mother did magic. It was nice and it made me happy, but when she was angry, her eyes turn pitch black and she does bad magic which hurt Ronnie and I.
Now she did good magic and a back pack appeared in her hand.
She handed the backpack to Ronnie and said, "Run away!
I have been a very bad mom, bad wife, and bad Luna!
Please forgive me Blee and Ronnie! Dad and I will always love you!
Blee remember, never reveal thyself to any, even if the trouble is regarding life-or-death.
Remember Blythe, you're strong. Never ever give up.
Now run!" She kissed our foreheads and pushed us away.
We ran. Child instincts you call it, I don't know, we stopped and turned to see our mom letting out her last breath as a red-masked stranger stabbed her from the back. Once again Aaron pulled me and we ran.
Both my brother and I ran away. They had already found some of my brother's blood at the scene and assumed that he was dead while I was long lost maiden warrior turned orphan with no one to fend for. Meh.
My short episode of 'history of my life 101' came to an end as I noticed my jacket vibrating against my abdomen. I pulled my phone out and skimmed the caller's name.
"Blythe!"
I flinched at the amplitude, nevertheless hummed back a meager 'yes'.
"Finally! Where on mother fricking earth are you? I have been calling for ages!" Tessa, my supposed best friend, yelled over the sound of some crappy song blasting the speakers.
"Sorry Tess, I got lost in the moment. I will be right back," I said back, running a hand through my hair.
"Ooh! Is it some guy?" I could literally imagine her wiggling her eyebrows teasingly. Tessa was my best friend since I lost my family. Not family, I have still got Aaron, though.
"In you dreams, Tessie You better shut up, by the way. Because if you keep spewing shit I'm not going haul your drunk self back home,"I rolled my eyes knowing that she would probably be doing the same.
"Come get me soon, wifey. Or I'm just gonna find the hottest guy in the room and get frisky."
"I am astonished at the fact that you still have not. But whatever. I will be there in five," I teased as she laughed before cutting the call.
Getting up, I smoothed down my leather jacket against the chills of the night to head towards the party house.
My steps stumbled and came to a halt as a high pitched anonymous shriek reached my ears.
A shriek that belonged to a female, that stopped me mid track.
Extending my hearing senses, I heard a female begging some others to let her go.
As I mentioned before, I was supposed to be a protector and a fact I failed to mention is that I was also danger-prone.
Thus, I sprinted silently to the source.
My eyes registered a red-haired girl being pinned to a tree by a muscular man while two other lanky guys stand nearby smirking. One sniff told me that the guys are all rogues whereas the girl was human.
Now rogues were werewolves not part of packs. Mostly they are banished due to their misdemeanors but some were turned into rogues by circumstance. Like me.
This difference could be easily recognized by their scents. The bad ones gave a foul stench which overpowered their own scent while the good ones gave only their own scent. And... These rogues here were the bad ones.
"No, no..." The girl began whimpering pleadingly but it did not fall on their deaf ears. How badly I wanted to wipe off their smirks.
Approaching them from the back, I signaled the girl to stay calm as her widened eyes dilated further at my act. My elbows lock around the throats of the lanky men standing behind. Years and years of kickboxing finally paid off as I kicked their asses from the back.
Their gasps of surprise did not go unheard apparently as the muscular guy turns to me with a glare, letting go of the girl. I threw a double uppercut at him as the girl backed away, mumbling incoherent words of gratitude. The front of her cotton shirt ripped, making wrath boil hotly within me.
"There is something called consent. Go get a dictionary for the meaning, you moron. She said no. And what part of no don't you understand?"
I slammed the jerk's head on the bark of an oak tree as he fell down in defeat.
Dodging the punches of the other two I knocked the sidekicks dead with a tight kick in one's shin.
The girl stood at a side timidly, her face flushed and her arms wrapped around her torso.
Pushing my arms through my sleeves, I shrugged off my jacket and offered it to her.
She looked hesitantly at my offer before accepting it with a small smile. I wanted to hug her and tell her that it was fine but I was sure that a stranger's hug was the last thing she needed right now.
"How did you get here?" I asked her slowly testing the waters. "I uh had an argument with my boyfriend and walked away to free my mind. They snuck upon me."
"Where is your boyfriend right now?"
"At the party house."
"Could you call him to come get you?" I asked as I spotted her phone lying a few feet away. She nodded quickly, tapping away on her cell.
"Zac- yeah, yeah. I'm fine. I think so... I don't where I am. Okay. Yeah another girl is with me. Oh okay. Come soon, baby," she ended the call. The main muscular guy was stirring from his exhaustion.
Ugh.
"He got my location. He told us to meet him in the tree house nearby."
"Oh, that's perfect. Are you sure you'll be fine on your own?"
"You should probably come with me too," she swallowed, looking at the men lying down.
"I have got to go the other way," I lied as she frowned but nevertheless nodded.
"Thank you so much," she said, before crossing over to hug me. The impact froze me before I put my arms around her slowly. "Just stay safe," I replied as she stepped back, wiping her cheeks with the back of her fingers.
I leant back, seeing her retreating back disappear frenzied. Cracking my knuckles, I turned to see the main one getting on to his knees and running away so I sprinted after him.
Finally getting hold of him after a quite lengthy chase, I punched his jaw as blood splattered messily at the contact.
Before the pain registered his mind, I kicked him in the groin.
My dramatic fake gasp reechoed in the silence as he fell down clutching his precious jewels.
I kicked him forcefully and he went flying to the nearby tree.
With a few more moves he fell lifeless to the ground in a muddle of disproportionate limbs.
I turned back with an evil smile to myself, feeling quite proud of myself.
But what I saw next wiped off my smile.