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Andrea’s POV

Today is my 18^th birthday.

How tragic.

Tragedy is such a common word that can briefly describe my entire life in a nutshell.

I’ve managed to survive a tragedy after another for the past ten years.

But there are only so many tragedies someone like me can take before hitting rock bottom.

And I am at that stage right now.

As I am staring at my number one mortal enemy who does not even know I exist, I contemplate the irony of dying at his hands on my birthday.

I am not being pessimistic here, but the odds of finally getting the revenge I’ve been harboring in my heart for him in the past ten years are not that great.

He's an alpha.

And I am a beta’s daughter. Not only that but I have been living with my human foster family for ten years, packless and all alone. And it’s all because of him and his dead father.

I try to train myself and my wolf regularly but I know my training is nothing compared to his.

Still, here I am, standing among the rogues I recently joined to avenge my brother, staring daggers at him. At Alec Wilson. Alpha of the Otis pack. And he does not even spare a glance at me.

Of course avenging the brother he killed about a week ago is not the only reason I’m on a suicide mission. But I admit it was my tipping point.

My indefinite hatred of him goes back ten years. At the time, he was eighteen and I was eight. My father was his father’s beta. We were a part of the La Crosse pack. The pack his older brother Adrian is in charge of now. Until dad was falsely framed for treason and collaboration with rogues and sentenced to death by his father, the alpha at that time.

That’s when my world shattered apart and hatred got rooted inside my very soul for the first time.

That’s when my stupid childhood crush on Alec; who never spared me a glance the whole time we were living together under the same pack house, turned and twisted into immense loathing and despise.

That’s when I realized how pathetic and childish I was to think of him as a compassionate, lovable person. He was as heartless as his father. There is no goodness in him whatsoever.

The exact details of how I came to truly hate this person and led me to this monumental moment are long and irrelevant to discuss right now.

I might walk down memory lane to the exact memory of when my devastated eight year old self begged him to save my father and convince his father to spare mine; and him mercilessly turning me down, if I managed to survive this battle and succeeded in getting my revenge from him. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

His father ruined my family and destroyed my life. But I blame him too. Because he could have chosen to convince his father to reconsider his decision, I was positive he had that power to change his mind, but he chose not to.

And so I do blame him and I do hold him responsible for my father’s death as well as my brother’s.  

We were standing at opposite sides, Alec and I.

Me with the hundreds of rogues, led by my brother’s alpha. The only one who survived Alec’s attack on his pack that ultimately killed my brother a week ago. He had no pack but he had alliances with other rogue alphas who happily let him borrow six hundred rogues from their own packs to support him in this battle.

And Alec with his own pack along with his brother’s. They were both alphas of their own packs that were ten minutes apart from each other. But they might as well be one big unified pack.

We were more than twice their numbers.

And we were here to take them all down.

I didn’t care about avenging the rogue pack my brother Thomas was a part of. Frankly speaking, I despise rogues. They are heartless, merciless monsters. And the only reason I joined them is because I needed them to lead me here and give me the highest chance to kill Alec without getting killed in the process.

Go ahead, tell me I’m being a hypocrite calling rogues monsters when my brother was a part of their pack. It’s true. He was one of them. For ten years.

He’s a killer. But he is my brother. Was my brother. And he had his reasons for joining them then, just like I have mine right now.

He was a monster but to me he wasn’t. He was just my older and only brother. The one who gave his entire life away for the sake of our family. The family Alec’s father shattered to pieces while he and his brother stood by without even trying to stop their father. I hate both brothers but it was Alec whom I went on my knees and begged heartily to save my dad back then not Adrian. And it was Alec who attacked my brother’s pack and killed him not Adrian.

Alpha Victor; Thomas’s alpha, was currently offering alpha Adrian a chance to avoid battle in exchange for handing over the other rogue girl Rhea who survived Alec’s attack by betraying alpha Victor and was taken hostage by alpha Adrian for some unknown reason. I was both surprised that he didn’t kill her right away because I know how much both brothers despised rogues, and that alpha Victor was willing to let go of revenge in exchange for one little rogue who betrayed him and got the rest of her pack killed.

Imagine my great surprise when alpha Adrian just now revealed that the rogue girl turned out to be his mate. Not only that, but they even marked each other barely a week after they met!

I shook my head slightly, not understanding how the hell the mate bond made him accept her when I know deeply how much rogues are loathed by everyone who’s not a rogue himself. I guess mate bonds do make us crazy enough we’d throw away everything we once believed in and succumb to loving a person who logically cannot be loved in a million years.

Also, for some unknown reason, this revelation angered the hell out of alpha Victor and made him initiate the battle by ordering us menacingly “Attack!”

And that was the cue I was waiting for from the moment we portaled here on the border of the La Crosse pack nearly ten minutes ago. I let go of everything rattling around in my mind, gave up control for my wolf Clara, and shifted right in my place, shredding all my clothes in the process.

It was night time, more specifically it was a full moon night. Its bright light was shining down and illuminating the entire forest ahead of us.

As soon as I shifted, we both smelled something weird we haven’t smelled it before shifting. It wasn’t that strong to side track us but it was distinctively evident in the air we breathed in.

I recognized the scent right away because it was a favorite of mine. Mint. Fresh, sharp, and very calming for me. Whenever I smelled mint before, a deep sense of warmth would spread all over me and this time was no different. It gave me and my wolf the boost to start running towards our one and only target, Alec Wilson.

In the split second before our front paws crossed the border line of the La Crosse territory, I noticed that half their pack shifted into their wolves while the other half remained human. The other half distinguished by a human Alec made me realize him and his entire pack weren’t shifting. Only Adrian’s pack did.

Confusion replaced the warmth inside me and as soon as my paws hit the ground again, all hell broke loose, literally.