Des chemins séparés pour lesquels je me suis battue

Katniss was still a little girl when she realized that being a rogue was not safe and was very hard. They ate when they were able to hunt, if and when the packwolves left them alone or other rogues, cruel and sadistic, weren't around. They went cold or hot, with nothing clean to cover themselves with.

She had lived in hiding since she was orphaned at age sixteen. Now at eighteen, she had her wolf to protect her, but she wasn't strong enough to win against the nasty rogues who crossed her path and looked at her with lust in their eyes.

She had lost her father and mother on the same day. His father fought to the death to save the family from the clutches of 4 rogues. She managed to escape, because her parents ordered her to flee without looking back. Her poor mother allowed herself to be raped to death to keep them entertained while she fled.

His father had been a good alpha, who had run out of pack, been defeated by enemies, and forced to go rogue. He was a good man, but bitter at having been forced to subject his pregnant Luna to that life. He asked her to reject him and stay in the pack, but the love that united them won, and she followed him, even if it took her to hell.

During the years they lived together, her father tried to be accepted into some pack, but no alpha wanted another alpha on their land, even if that alpha had been destroyed.

She lived alone, hiding as best she could from other rogues. She knew that if she was caught, nothing would save her from the carnal desires of men, or worse, she would be made a sex slave to some rogue pack.

Her biggest dream was to find a pack that would accept her. She had alpha blood, but would gladly accept being an omega, a simple kitchen maid, in exchange for a real bed, clean clothes and three meals a day.

The problem was her fear of packwolves, as she had grown up with stories that they first killed the rogues, and only later would they find out if they were dangerous. How could a little shewolf approach a pack without being killed by them? That was something she still hadn't figured out, so she was still alone and without a pack.

Alexander acquired his Alpha title at the age of twenty-one, when his father thought it was the right time for him to be replaced. At twenty-three, he was the strongest and smartest of the pack, serious and honest, loved by all.

Michael has been his best friend since birth. He'd become his beta at age twenty, as his father didn't think a forty-year-old would be the perfect right-hand man for a young alpha.

Over the past two years, Alexander and Michael had become the perfect team, they didn't need to talk to know what the other thought or wanted.

The members of the Black Stone Pack lived happily and adored their leaders, but among themselves they commented on how sad it was to see such a good man as Michael suffer in silence. Michael didn't know that his secret was known in the pack.

Michael had loved Alexander since he was a little boy, and when he turned 18, his biggest heartbreak was seeing that Alex wasn't his soulmate. This secret he guarded religiously, and Alexander had no idea what was going on in his best friend's heart.

Alexandre had looked for his mate between eighteen and twenty-one, but had given up looking, telling his father that one day he would find her.

Michael, in turn, said he was in no hurry. He spent his free time in human bars, having sex with women and men who succumbed to his charms. That was the way he had to deal with not being able to touch the man he had loved forever. That was another secret he kept. He was bisexual.

Alex wasn't a virgin, he had his share of relationships, always out of the pack, with a few human women and even a few shewolves, but it never lasted more than a few months. He expected the Moon Goddess to mate him and he would wait for her as long as it took.

Luna, his mother, continued to assume the role of mother of the pack, until her son's mate appeared.

The packhouse was very large, and many werewolves lived in it. The 5th floor was reserved for the alpha and his family. On the 4th floor, lived the beta and his family. The 3rd and 2nd floors, with many rooms, were reserved for pack members, who, for different reasons, did not live in their own houses.

The 1st floor was reserved for orphans and the elderly who needed help to survive, while on the ground floor were the offices, library, dining room, collective showers, bathroom and kitchen.

Not far from the packhouse, there was the pack hospital, the school, the gym, the training fields, barracks, agricultural fields, livestock, orchards, in addition to several houses occupied by families of werewolves.

There was also a huge underground bunker, well supplied with food and water, which would serve to hide the pack members if any war broke out.

It wasn't a small pack, it had about five hundred members, and they lived in peace with neighboring packs and a few humans who knew of their existence.

The houses, and even the packhouse, were fitted with thick, huge silver railings, which were lowered to protect the shewolves from the males when they came into heat, or to keep the males trapped when they were in a rut.

Any unmarked shewolf in heat attracts males like lights attract moths. The alpha had ensured with this equipment that unmarked females were not in danger of being violated and marked by unmarked males, who entered a rut after sensing the pheromones of a female in heat.

These heat cycles occurred 4 times a year, and the only intention was to procreate.

The other packs didn't protect their females like the Black Stone Pack did. There, it was up to the marked relatives to protect and keep the children apart at these times of the year.

Heat cycles, which hit mated females and non-dominant males whose mate was of the same sex, lasted 4 to 6 days, during which time their mates would go into a rut and attempt to spawn small pups.

Mateless shewolves or non-dominant mateless males, also have similar cycles, but mateless dominant males only enter a rut once a year, at the end of winter, or when another mateless werewolf in heat gets too close.

A werewolf in a rut was very dangerous, loose in a pack, but there was nothing more dangerous than an Alpha in a rut.

For all that, Alex had installed all possible protection in his room too, and the pack was grateful.