Rouge Silverflame

I woke to the sun filling my room again and cursed under my breathe, I slept through my alarm again and now was running late to school. The fact no one tried to wake me didn’t faze me anymore, ever since Alpha James and Luna Cathy got approval to skip me being their heir when I was thirteen, they stopped pretending to care. I used to be angry about the fact they took me in and stopped caring for me once their own children were born but then again, I understood. I was born a rouge; that’s all I’d ever be and they had only let me into the pack because some mysterious history between James and my mother.

I was born to a she-wolf from the pack but she had gone rouge to be with my father, a wolf from another pack; which pack I will never know. My mother died giving birth to me at a human hospital, my father broke laws to bring me to James who had just taken over as alpha from his father before him; the man who refused to take my father into the dark woods pack. James didn’t kill my father thankfully but wolf laws are weird and being a rouge, he couldn’t live on pack land, my father knew I’d need a pack as I grew and that being a rouge would be ten times harder now that his mate was gone. He gave me over to James and his wife Cathy, why my father didn’t just take me to his pack lands I’ll never know and I learned I couldn’t be angry about it, years ago because it did me no good.

My mother had named me something else but Cathy renamed me once my father left the territory. I have very faint memories of playing in a field near the border while a large grey wolf watched from the forest edge, I remember over the years he seemed to get smaller, I used to think it was because I got bigger. I now know it was most likely due to my father losing my mother; it weakened him over the years.

Soon after my eighth birthday I was told he died; a rouge pack had attacked him. That was the day I gave up hope that someone would come whisk me away. James and Cathy weren’t abusive per say but when I was a little older than three their daughter was born and their behavior towards me changed, it was clear they loved her more and I was jealous of that for a while by the time their son was born when I was five, I had grown used to the difference. Yet the words “your father is dead” rocked me to my core, my family was dead, for all I knew I was the last of the Silverflame bloodline; even if I wasn’t I had no idea where to look for family. I hoped maybe the treatment they displayed would change but it didn’t.

The years following were simple, I went to school; came home and spent time with the family but never fully feeling accepted, the feeling got worse when my once blonde hair slowly turned brown making it physically obvious, I wasn’t the Alpha and Lunas child and people started wondering who would take over in the time to come. A year before my thirteenth birthday the Luna and Alpha requested that the elders that I would not be recognized as a future heir as I wasn’t of their blood line. It took time and many meetings for the elders to decide to allow this decision. I could see some of their looks of pity the day they officially told me the news and I wasn’t sure why; I knew some of them felt guilty for not letting my mother stay with my father on pack lands; they knew if I had been delivered in a pack hospital maybe my mother would have survived. Sometimes I resented them for everything that had happened due to their choice and for not at least talking to me about her. No one ever talked about her though, I knew her maiden name was Leia Arrowfoot, I knew her parents died when she was young but that was it. No one had photos, no one told me stories of her time in the pack all because she chose my father over the pack in their eyes. My father had slipped me a picture about a year before he died, it was worn around the edges and had crease lines but I cherished it; looking at it made me smile. Her dark brown hair was falling into her face slightly: her purple eyes shined so brightly as a smile burned across her lips and her hands were touching a very round belly. my father's arms wrapped around them both; a smile that reached to his green eyes was bright across his face. The picture held so much love, I didn’t understand how both their packs could reject them to be on their own or stuck apart. I hoped that the moon goddess herself made sure they were reunited in the afterlife so they could be together again, the thought that in death they met again brought a small amount of joy to me; they deserved more than their lives gave them.

Once the elders agreed to the request my life got a bit harder, the Alpha and Luna moved my room to the top floor away from everyone, I wasn’t with my so-called family, I wasn’t with the staff, I wasn’t even where the guests would stay; I was alone. The first few times no one woke me for school, hurt but slowly I realized I had to depend on me. The staff would still make me food but I no longer ate meals with the Alpha and Lunas family, I either ate alone or with the staff. I no longer got gifts for the holidays or my birthday but they kept a roof over my head and my basic needs met. Like I said not abusive per say, I wasn’t beat or starved like I might have been in another pack but I was lonely. Here I was a week before my 18th birthday running late to school because no one bothered to even try to wake me to me that said a lot.