Prologue: Resurfaced Memories

The morning came just as sure as any other, but this one would be quite different. This was the morning that changed everything. Korrine had always enjoyed the luxury of a slow morning, because she knew better than anyone how quickly life could change at the drop of a dime. This particular morning, she was cooking breakfast for her children before sending them off to school. The smell of chocolate chip waffles, fresh fruit and berries, and sausage wafted through the house as she worked steadily to plate her children's breakfast.

Korrine's life was complicated. Sometimes her work took her away from her children for days or even weeks at a time, depending on whether she was working her human job, or her supernatural job. The supernatural jobs she worked were dangerous, so she kept her children far away from those. In the human world she was a high profile author and an entrepreneur, which had made her quite wealthy. Her supernatural job was just as time consuming, though these days she mostly sat back and gave orders to her teams as they invaded vampire nests. The only time she was needed on the front lines these days were when the ancient creatures rose from their slumber. Those instances had been happening more frequently over the years since the Witch Queen whose bloodline was responsible for keeping them slumbering and locked away had died quite young.

Yes, the world outside the Werewolf Kingdoms was quite different than inside it. Atleast the one she had been raised in. Becoming a rogue had never been Korrine's plan growing up, but here she was, living her life as a rogue. She didn't mind it though. Actually, she quite preferred it to the alternative. She could have joined any of the other five Werewolf Kingdoms in the past decade, but chose to stay rogue. Afterall, why would she join another Werewolf Kingdom, when she was the leader of the Rogue Kingdom. Some supernaturals called her the Queen of the Rogues, but the rogues, well they just called her Alpha.

She had gone through quite a bit of trauma to become the woman she was, but all it had done was make her stronger and more powerful than she had been before. Afterall, once upon a time, very few she-wolves would survive the death of a mate. But Korrine, well, Korrine had survived the death of two very powerful supernatural mates and lived to tell about it. That was why she started her Widowed Women's Center. Now, she-wolves from all over the world and all the different Kingdoms were sent to the center when they lost their mate.

Becoming a rogue had never been Korrine's plan as a child, but she had made the best out of an impossible situation. Once upon a time she was living all of her fairytale princess dreams. She was the youngest daughter of the Royal Beta, and her family's pack princess, especially since her older siblings were so much older than her. There was no denying that she was a Daddy's girl, and it still showed to this day by the fact that she was the Alpha to the rogues. Everything she had learned about being an Alpha, she had learned from her father.

It had never been here father's intention to teach her to be an Alpha. As a matter of fact, she spent the first twelve years of her life learning to be the perfect Luna from her step-mother, Dianne. She hadn't known that Dianne was her step mother at the time, however. But, the day her big brother died, everything changed. She was pulled from her summer training with Luna Dianne and her childhood best friend, Lacey, to train with her father. He had lost his only heir, and Korrine was the youngest of his children, which meant she was the most trainable. So, Korrine spent every day after school in middle school, weekends, and then, in high-school since she was at the academy during the school year, all of her summers training with her father.

That meant that she spent her summers at the Royal Packland with her father. That was how she fell in love with Prince Alexander. Spending all summer in the Royal Packland, well, that was the human equivalent to spending the summer in the Hamptons. Her family's status and their close friendship with the Monarchs not only made her popular among the other wolves her age, but it made her a target for the ambitious Alphas who looked to elevate their own family's status.

Her father had warned her when he picked her up from the academy the summer when she was sixteen. He told her that Alphas would be looking to take her hand as their mate when they realized how much she had grown up over the past school year. So, she had expected it from some of the newer Alphas. The last thing she had expected was for Prince Alexander to fall in love with her. Still, the summer started as all the others had. She was exploring the castle, as she usually did while her father and King Reginald were in their meeting planning for Alpha Week, when she ran into Alexander.

She had been texting her friends on her cellphone and not paying attention to where she was going when he grabbed her shoulders to stop her from walking straight into him. He smiled down at her with an eyebrow cocked as she apologized profusely. Korrine had always been nervous around Alexander, even as a child, but as a teenager she felt all sorts of things she wasn't accustomed to when he touched her. The boys at school had always tried to flirt with her, but none of them made her feel the things Alexander did. When he asked her what she was doing, she told him she was just exploring, so he joined her. He had showed her all the secret passageways behind the walls, and they had used them almost every night that summer to meet up.

It was no secret that she was her father's chosen heir, but that summer was the first time she had actually been allowed to sit in on Alpha Week. The other Alphas had complained about her presence, and even made comments about her being perfect for mating and suggestions that she be kept in a woman's place, but her father laughed them all off, taking it all in stride. Yes, the summer before she turned seventeen had been a perfect fever dream. Between falling madly in love with Alexander, his declarations of love to her, even going as far as to ask her father for permission to mate her when she came of age, and her preparing to take over as Alpha of her family's pack, it had been the perfect summer. The perfection continued into the school year as Alexander slipped away from the castle to meet her at the academy atleast twice a week, furthering their love and the connection they shared.

She sighed as the kids grabbed their plates from the counter where she'd sat them. Remembering her time as a pack wolf came few and far between these days, but everytime she did, the weight of it all crashed down on her. Her life had been so perfect that summer, and everything she had ever wanted was right there, just out of reach. Then, it had all come crashing down. She still regretted answering her cell phone that day.

That one phone call had changed her entire life. Kelly Callahan had been one of her oldest friends. Once upon a time the two of them had had so much in common that their friendship seemed inevitable, even if their two packs were essentially sworn enemies. Still, she had trusted Kelly, and that trust had ruined her life. She had worked for years in therapy to fix the trust issues she had gained from that trauma.

The phone call had seemed innocent enough. It was spring break of senior year and she was home in the Stone Hill Creek packlands for the week. Kelly had called and asked what she was doing that evening, and invited her over to her packhouse to hang out with the girls to celebrate her mating proposal. Korrine had refused, stating that she wasn't allowed off her packland. So Kelly offered for her and the girls to meet her at the fort her big brother and Prince Alexander had built for her when she was a little girl. It was at the border of Stone Hill Creek and only a mile from the Callahan packland borders. They set a time, and when that time came, Korrine had been there to meet her to hang out for a little while.

She should have left when Kelly pulled out the wine bottle she had stolen from her big brother, afterall, she knew that she didn't get cell service out there and Alexander was supposed to call. But, she wanted to be a good friend, and Kelly had just been proposed to by the wealthiest Alpha heir in the Kingdom. So, she agreed to one celebratory glass of wine. Little did she know that the girl who had been one of her oldest friends had malicious intentions.

The kids bickering pulled her from those haunted memories before she had a chance to remember the heartbreak of it all. It was all coming back to her so crystal clear that morning. She knew she should try to push all the uncomfortable feelings to the side and continue on with her day, but something inside her wanted her to remember, it was demanding it. So, after getting her kids sent off to their different schools in different parts of the world, thanks to her daughter Lorelai's portalling ability, she allowed herself to wallow in the pain of the past.

It wasn't long after the kids left that she was back in that old fort with Kelly Callhan and the other girls. She and Kelly had been talking about how she would handle her duties as an Alpha and those of the Marked Princess when he came crawling into the fort, a twisted smirk on his face, with all of his wretched buddies, including Kelly's future mate, behind him.

"I think that your dad has truly lost it. He should be teaching you your place as a woman, which is to breed an Alpha heir, not to be one," Callahan chuckled menacingly.

Rather than argue with him, she chugged the rest of her wine, preparing to leave. That was when she had noticed that she didn't feel right. She had drank wine at Royal Dinners, and with Alexander numerous times, but one glass had never had an effect on her before. Yet, this one glass had completely thrown her off balance. The dirt floor of that little time worn fort began spinning under her feet, and her body was so heavy, she had no idea how she would make it back to the packhouse. She reached for her wolf, Stella, to give her control to get them home, but Stella was nowhere to be found in her mind.

"I...wh..." she tried to speak.

"Shhh, just go to sleep pretty princess." Callahan laughed as he pushed her backwards on to her butt from where she had been on all fours.

That was all she remembered from that night, atleast that part of it. The next thing she remembered was looking down at her body and knowing she was dead. She knew the area where they had dumped her body, as the future Alpha of her pack, it was her responsibility to know the land her pack sat on. She was five miles from the southern tip of her packland, where the creek emptied into the river. Her lifeless body in tattered clothes just thrown carelessly onto the river bank. Atleast they hadn't pushed it into the river and someone would eventually find it, she had thought to herself.

She had lifted her head towards the moon to say a prayer to the Moon Goddess when she noticed how it seemed to flare brightly before dimming to all but dull orb. Then, before she knew it, the Moon Goddess was kneeling next to her lifeless body.

"It's not time for you to come home yet child. Heal your human, the two of you still have a destiny to fulfill." The Moon Goddess spoke to her beautiful sunset bronze wolf who suddenly appeared next to the kneeling Goddess.

With one hand on Korrine's chest and the other on Stella, Stella disappeared and within seconds Korrine's skin started pinking up. The Goddess looked up at her in her spirit form and smiled.

"Stay strong my daughter, for your trials will become your triumphs. I am always watching over you." The Moon Goddess spoke to Korrine before disappearing into thin air.

When Korrine finally woke up, it was late morning and she was still on that dreadful river bank. It took her an hour and a half to finally get to the pack borders, and when she did, she was just as surprised as the warriors on duty. They told her that her father had said she was dead, and that there were teams of warriors out searching for her body. All she could do was nod as she walked past them towards the packhouse. Now that she had her wolf and senses back, she could smell them all over her body.

She hadn't needed to be awake to know what they did to her. Their scents scarred her nose, and she knew she would never forget the scents of the five Alphas who did this to her and even after twenty years, she remembered them like it was yesterday. She could smell all of it on her, their sweat, their scents, their semen. They had poisoned and raped her, until and probably even after she died, then dumped her body on the river bank, probably hoping the tide would come in and take her body away with it. But, the Moon Goddess had other plans for her, plans she needed to be alive for.

Her father didn't say much to her when he saw the condition she was in. He simply hugged her tightly, and walked her to her bedroom, before walking into the ensuite bathroom and turning on the shower. She didn't need to say a single word to him for him to know. He could smell it, just as she had. But he didn't care, he had felt her link snap last night, so he was just happy that she was alive. He never asked about it either, and the pack had continued on as if that night had never happened. It wasn't until she returned to school the following Monday that the rumors started.

The rumor was that she had gotten drunk and thrown herself at Callahan and the other Alphas, and how could they turn her down? Before she knew it, everyone was calling her whore, slut, or hoe, and saying that she didn't deserve to be the Marked Princess. Alexander had stopped calling her, and he didn't bother coming to visit her at school any more. The only friend she had left, and the only person besides her father and big sisters who believed her about what had happened was her bestfriend Lacey.

She had dealt with the bullying from the kids her age for the last month and a half of the school year, but it didn't stop there. Once she had graduated from the academy, the bullying had only gotten worse. It wasn't just the kids who bullied her, but the adults did as well, treating her as if she were the most disgusting piece of trash they had ever come across. Some of them even openly cursed her for what they claimed was a betrayal of the Prince. The worst part was her removal from Alpha Week.

The Alphas who had raped her said that she would be a distraction, so King Reginald had refused to let her sit in on the meetings. Then, they had made it clear to her father that she was not allowed to take over as Alpha, and instead insisted that her sister Kimmy and her mate, who was his big brother's beta at the time, take over as Alpha and Luna. They also suggested that she be mated to Alpha Callahan, since the rumor was that she had thrown her self at him. When her father told her that Callahan wanted to mate her, and that he was her best choice for a decent match after her name had been ruined from all the rumors, she had blatantly refused.

Even Alexander had tried to talk her into mating Callahan, explaining that things were quickly changing in the Kingdom, and being Callahan's mate would keep her protected from the changes that would be coming. She had wanted to please him, to make him happy after he had told her he believed her but still couldn't be with her after everyone had started spreading the rumors. He had even apologized for not protecting her from the rumors, but she couldn't imagine a life in the Kingdom without him by her side. Even worse, she couldn't imagine a life with the man she not only despised, but one that had assaulted and essentially murdered her.

The rest of her summer went by slowly, yet in a blur. She barely left her family's house on the Royal Packland all summer. She didn't attend any of the balls that were held, and refused to see anyone outside of her family and Lacey. She had even refused to see Alexander in those last weeks, because every time he would come visit, he would try to convince her to mate Callahan so that she would still be close and be able to spend summers in the Royal Packlands with him. She had made her decision though, and was willing to face the consequences, even if it meant being exiled and turned rogue.

"Alpha, are you alright?" Charli's voice rang through her memories.

"Sorry, I didn't hear you come in. I'm fine, I promise. I've just been thinking about my old home alot this morning. How are you this..." A bright burst of light and energy pierced through her mind, interrupting her.

When the light finally receded, she clutched her chest as she felt sharp stabbing pains. She knew what it was, but Stella's confirmation made it all the more true. She had just become the Alpha of Stone Hill Creek, which meant her brother-in-law was dead.

"I need all available and close teams to converge on Stone Hill Creek right now. Call Daphne so we can get a portal open. They are under attack." Korrine barked out as she stood to prepare for the inevitable.

She glanced around the room and noticed that her entire leadership team's eyes were glowing the color of their wolves. They had all become pack wolves, true pack wolves. Sure her eyes always glowed when she accepted a new wolf into the rogue pack, but never had all their eyes started glowing. Now, she understood why the memories of her past life as a pack wolf had been surfacing this morning. After twenty years away from her home, her Kingdom, and the Prince she lost, she would finally get to return home, and Goddess help all of those who had a hand in her downfall.