ONE

ELENA’s POV

I once read a famous quote that said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

Hope.

It is the one thing I crave, but it is also the one thing that eludes me.

You see, my family and I come from a long line of omegas; the lowest of all ranks in the world of werewolves and that makes us the scourge of our kind.

To top it off, I am wolfless too.

“Hopeless.”

That is what our pack says when they see me, I am but a lowly existence in their eyes but that has never stopped me from hoping for a better future.

Hope.

It is a very powerful thing but it is also the one thing that killed my father, drove my sister into the arms of the enemy and brought me face to face with the Alpha King.

My name is Elena, and this is my story.

***

“Elena! Freya! Wake up!” mother calls us from the creaky wooden door, lighting up our darkened room with a candle. The orange flame casts a gentle glow on our little room. With great difficulty, I open my eyes - the sky is still dark and I groan.

I’d much rather lay in bed. Thin as my blanket may be, it is much warmer than the freezing cold outside our wooden house.

“C’mon you two!” mother calls again, this time her voice is stern and I know better than to keep lying on my straw bed. Quickly I sit up and shake Freya’s shoulder. She is curled up beside me for warmth and refuses to open her pretty green eyes.

“Last one up puts Dylan to bed tonight.”

That does it for Freya. None of us likes putting that little tyrant to bed. Our little brother may only be two, but he has a temper that can rival the greatest of volcanoes, often erupting in endless cries of monstrous rage when he cannot sleep.

Freya gets up and we quickly fold our blankets before dressing up for the external cold. I pull a brown woolly sweater over my head. The material is rough and scratches my skin, but it does its job in keeping me warm. Freya silently combs her silken golden locks before tying them in a ponytail.

Mother kisses us on the forehead, “Stay low and stay safe.”

We wave her goodbye and step out into the dark. Above us, the stars twinkle to a silent song as the moon continues to cast its pale haunting glow on us.

We have to hurry to look for food before the sun comes up. It will be dangerous then.

Dangerous, yes. We are living in dangerous times.

Many moons ago, our pack was overtaken by another, the Blood Stone Pack. And now, those from Blood Stone control everything.

From the money we earn to the place we stay and to the food we eat. Everything goes through them. And every once in a while, they will storm our village and drag omegas away with them. It doesn’t matter whether the omegas are still young, and it matters not if they scream and beg for mercy. Those who get torn away from their loved ones never come back. Ever. And that scares me.

I look over to Freya as we trudge deeper into the forest and down the hill. She is my sister but we look nothing alike. Freya is a beauty. She has long Bambi lashes and forest green eyes that even I can get lost in. A single smile from her moist red lips can light up the entire household. And though she is a year younger than I am, she has already found her wolf and her body has matured with the curves that elude my petite frame. In short, she is a princess while I am the peasant, she the diamond and I the dirt. But I love her more than anything in the world and that is precisely why we must head back before the sun peeks over the horizon.

A war has erupted between countless packs of late. The former Alpha King of the north who once controlled all the packs has passed on into the afterlife. Some say he died gallantly on the battlefield, others said he was murdered in his sleep.

And now that the throne is up for grabs, every blood thirsty pack is after it – fighting day and night to expand their territories and increase their power. And each time they fight, innocent lives are lost.

“Freya! Look! A rabbit! Let’s bring them back to mother!” I whisper with excitement, wiping my forehead with the back of my palm. It is cold, but somehow I am sweating from all the running.

We have found food! I grin from ear to ear as I hold up the little wriggly animal in my hand. Food is scarce and we make do with what we can find.

Freya sits on the ground not far away, dusting the dirt off from her hand. She doesn’t like to shift into her wolf form to hunt. “Hurry up Elena, it’s cold out here,“ she complains.

I place the rabbit into a rustic sack and hand it over to her.

“Stay here, I’ll go further into the woods for more,” I tell her. She is more than happy to oblige.

Deeper and deeper into the woods I wade. I can see the first rays of the sun making their way towards me. I have to hurry; we need more food.

The branches overhead claw at my hair and the tall grass cut into my skin as I push my way through. There is a spot not far away that might just have more animals running wild and free. If I am lucky, I might even be able to catch another rabbit. That would make father and mother happy. We have not had meat in a long time.

Then I bump into something soft. I freeze.

Shit.

I look down to see a face of a half-shifted man staring back up at me with glassy eyes. He is grinning from ear to ear with dark red blood trickling out of his mouth. He is dead.

And I scream.