My Rogue Luna

Lila’ pov

The woman ran.

She was holding a little girl in her arms, clutching her so tight her knuckles had gone white. The forest blurred around them, dark and angry, branches reaching out like they wanted to grab her. The woman kept looking over her shoulder. Someone was chasing her. I could hear them. Boots and shouts. The growl of wolves.

"Please," the woman whispered. "Please, someone help us."

The little girl didn't cry. She just buried her face in the woman's neck and held on.

I wanted to reach them. I tried to run faster, but my legs wouldn't move. I was stuck watching. Always watching.

Then the arrow came.

It sliced through the air so fast I barely saw it. But I saw where it hit. Right in the middle of the woman's back. She gasped. Her body went stiff. And then she fell, the little girl tumbling from her arms and hitting the ground with a scream that ripped through the night air.

The little girl screamed and screamed.

I woke up.

My eyes flew open. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. Sweat stuck my hair to my forehead and my shirt to my back. I sat up fast, almost hitting my head on the low ceiling of the cave.

Right. The cave.

I looked around, blinking in the dim light. The fire had died down to just embers, casting everything in a weak orange glow. My friends were scattered around me, still sleeping. Finn had his arm thrown over his face. Mara was curled into a tight ball. Sike and Nessa were closer to the entrance, like they always were, ready to run if something came.

Just a dream. The same dream. The one I had been having for as long as I could remember.

I wiped the sweat off my face and tried to slow my breathing. It never got easier. Every time I saw that woman fall, every time I heard that little girl scream, I woke up feeling like I had been the one hit by that arrow.

.

.

.

My name is Lila. I am twenty years old, and I have been a rogue my whole life.

I don't know who my parents are. I don't know if they are dead or alive or if they ever wanted me. I don't know anything about where I came from. All I know is that I have been on my own since before I can remember, stealing and lying and fighting just to stay alive.

That is what rogues do. We do the dirty work. The illegal work. The work that packs do not want to admit needs doing. In return, we get money, food. A chance to see another day.

I have my own crew now. Five of us total. We are all outcasts or lowlifes or runaways. The packs threw us away or we ran away on our own. It does not really matter which. What matters is that we have each other, because no one else wants us.

When I turned sixteen, I spent a whole year trying to find my mate. Every wolf dreams about it. That moment when the bond snaps into place and you finally find the person meant for you. I went to pack territories. I went to neutral grounds. I let myself hope, which was stupid. Hope is for people who can afford it.

I never found him. After a year of nothing, I stopped looking. Accepted my fate. Some wolves just do not get a mate. I am one of them.

I pushed the dream out of my head and stood up. Time to wake the others.

I walked over to Finn first and kicked his boot. "Get up."

He groaned and rolled over, pulling his arm off his face. Finn was nineteen, with brown hair that never stayed out of his eyes and a smart mouth that got us into trouble more times than I could count. He got kicked out of his pack for stealing from the alpha's son. Best thief I had ever met.

"Five more minutes," he mumbled.

"No. We have work to do." I kicked his boot again. "Move."

He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes. "You are so mean in the morning."

Next was Mara. She was sleeping in a ball near the cave wall, her dark skin glowing in the ember light. I crouched down and shook her shoulder gently. Mara was eighteen. She ran away from her pack after her father tried to force her to marry a man twice her age. She did not talk about it much, but I saw the way she flinched when men raised their voices. She was quiet, but she was the best fighter among us when she needed to be.

"Mara. Wake up."

Her eyes opened immediately. She was always like that. Ready. "What time is it?"

"Early. Come on."

Sike and Nessa were already stirring by the entrance. Sike was twenty one, the oldest of us. He had been a guard in his old pack until they accused him of treason. He never told us if he actually did it, and I never asked. Some things are better left in the past. Nessa was twenty, same as me. She was born rogue, just like I was. Her mother died when she was young, and she had been fending for herself ever since. We understood each other in a way the others could not.

"Morning," Sike said, stretching his arms over his head. "What is the plan?"

I sat back down near the dead fire and pulled out the map I had stolen two weeks ago. It was crudely drawn, but it showed what we needed. The Moonshine Pack's territory. Their weapons storage. Their patrol routes.

"We are low on weapons," I said. "Really low. Finn broke his last dagger yesterday."

"That was not my fault," Finn said. "The blade was cheap."

"Everything we have is cheap because we are rogues." I pointed to the map. "The Moonshine Pack is close. Their weapons storage is here, on the eastern edge of their territory. Light guard. Easy in and out."

"The Moonshine Pack?" Nessa raised her eyebrows. "Lila, that pack is responsible for royal security. They are not some small border pack we can push around."

"I know what they are. But we are not fighting them. We are sneaking in, grabbing what we need, and leaving. Simple."

Nothing was ever simple, but we needed those weapons. We had been scraping by for months, using old blades that broke and rusted arrows that barely flew straight. If we wanted to survive the winter, we needed better gear.

Everyone nodded. They trusted me. I did not know why, but they did.

We shifted.

The change always hurts, no matter how many times I do it. Bones breaking and reforming. Skin rippling. Teeth sharpening into fangs. But when it was done, I was in my wolf form, and the pain was worth it.

My wolf was white. Pure white, like snow on a frozen lake. I had never seen another wolf with my coloring. People stared when we passed through towns. Some whispered that it was a bad omen. Others said it meant I was special. I did not care what it meant. It was just my body.

The others shifted too. Finn was a muddy brown. Mara was dark gray, almost black. Sike was a reddish color, like rust. Nessa was a pale tan.

We ran.

The forest flew past us, cold air in our lungs, dirt under our paws. The Moonshine Pack's border came up fast. I could smell them. Wolves. Patrols. The faint metallic scent of weapons.

We crossed the border and headed for the storage shed. Everything was going fine until it was not.

A howl went up behind us. Then another. And another.

They had seen us.

I snarled and turned to face them. Four guards. Big wolves, well fed, well trained. They lunged at us and the fight began.

I ripped into the first guard that came at me. My teeth found his shoulder and I bit down hard. He yelped and scrambled back. Finn was fighting two at once, his brown fur slick with blood. Mara took down one with a clean bite to the throat. Sike and Nessa fought back to back, covering each other.

For a moment, I thought we might actually win.

Then I heard the twang of a bow.

I tried to move. I twisted my body, tried to dodge, but the arrow caught me in the flank. It hurt, but not as much as it should have. I snarled and ripped it out with my teeth.

But the wound did not heal.

My vision blurred. My legs felt heavy. I looked down at the arrow on the ground and saw the greenish liquid coating the tip.

Poison.

I tried to keep fighting. I really did. But my body was shutting down. I could not move my legs. I could not see straight. The sounds of the fight started to fade, like someone was turning down the volume on the world.

Before my eyes closed, I saw my friends being dragged down one by one. Finn, bleeding from his ear. Mara, pinned under a guard twice her size. Sike and Nessa, surrounded.

Captured. All of them.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to shift back and run to them. But I could not move. I could not do anything.

"Fuck," I muttered, and then the world turned black.