Two

Aria could hear her heart beating loudly in her chest as all blood rushed to her head. She lifted her head to meet the blue gaze of the Alpha wolf in front of her.

It was finally happening. She was the chosen twin. Her lips curved in a smile and she parted her lips to respond to the mate call.

However, her mouth only opened. It was not her voice that responded.

“Mate!” Ellie’s voice called out softly behind her.

Aria swiveled and she saw that the two of them were lost in each other. Her whole world began to crumble before her eyes as she observed the intimate moment between her sister and the golden-haired Alpha. One tear rolled down her cheek and she didn’t wipe it off.

The new mates wrapped their arms around each other and the whole party cheered. Her father came to the front, beaming with smiles at Ellie and her new mate.

“My daughter has found her mate! The true twin has found her mate!!” he bellowed.

The true twin…the true twin…the true twin…

Those words bounced around in her head and her heart wrenched painfully.

“No,” she whispered softly to herself.

Just then, everybody seemed to notice her. Majority looked at her with scorn in their eyes, but a few looked at her with pity, especially the Lunas and the Betas’ mates.

Her father sneered at her. Then he pointed at her and announced, “I hereby cast you Aria Jean Hendrix out of the Blood Moon Pack. From today, you shall be a rogue and you shall be severed from the pack connection. You are no longer Hendrix, and you are no longer a member of my pack!”

As her father made the pronouncement, she could feel them taking root. Her heart twisted in unimaginable pain, and she sank to her knees. She felt the cords of attachment to the pack being severed, and each felt like a stab in the gut.

“No,” she whispered again, clutching at her chest.

The tears dropped heavily from her eyes, making everything appear blurry. She could not see in front of her, but she could hear the murmurs all around her.

“She should leave before she brings a bad omen to the pack.”

“Leave!”

“Evil!”

“Bad omen!”

All those voices condemning and gossiping, each one felt like an arrow being stabbed in her chest.

Her pack members began throwing rotting things at her as they cursed her and called her unimaginable names. It didn't help that she was on the floor as they threw even stones and sand at her.

When she could not stand up, her father growled and grabbed her arm, forcefully yanking her up.

She put up no resistance as he dragged her to her feet and pushed her out of the packhouse. She fell to the dirt, heavily.

“You had better be gone within the next minute, Aria, or I will tear you apart myself!”

Aria gingerly picked herself up and limped out of the premises of the packhouse.

Gradually, she left behind the party and the noise, and the only life that she had known, no matter how cruel.

The Blood Moon Pack packhouse was located on the outskirts of the pack territory, so from there, she crossed into unknown terrain; rogue territory.

The atmosphere felt more primal, rawer, but it wasn’t as hostile as her pack…no, the former pack was.

She embraced the strangeness of the woods and continued to hobble along. Her father had thrown her with such force that she landed on her ankle and twisted it.

The reality of her situation dawned on her again and the tears started to flow. Where was she to go from here? She, Aria Jean Hendrix was no longer a legitimate wolf. She was now a rogue. Maybe she should find a pack of rogues and join them. Or she should just make her way to the cliff whose silhouette she saw way up ahead, and jump off it to end her miserable existence.

As she limped along in the woods, crunching dead leaves underneath her feet, she could hear a distant rustling. Her werewolf senses became more acute, and she followed the sound of the rustling with her ears. It was coming from somewhere on her right. Another joined it from the left, and she knew that she was being stalked.

She crouched to the ground and placed her hand on the forest floor, trying to get the vibrations. She noticed that they were two pairs of four legs, meaning wolves. Rogue wolves.

Shit! She couldn’t handle them in this condition. She started hobbling faster, but the wolves were faster. Finally, she broke into a run, wincing with every collision of her injured foot with the ground.

Aria could hear them running from all sides now. They growled, snarled and howled, coming in closer to corner her. Suddenly, one of the wolves leaped in front of her.

Because she was an Alpha’s daughter with Alpha blood in her veins, she was more powerful than most wolves. She stopped and stared down the small black wolf. It snarled, showing off sharp teeth.

It rushed at her, and Aria braced herself. As soon as the wolf leapt at her, she grabbed it by the paws and threw it over her shoulder. It yelped and hit a tree with a thud.

The other wolves suddenly rounded her up, trapping her in a circle. They all snarled and growled, and their wicked black eyes were trained on her. Suddenly, a strange sensation took over her body and a new voice invaded her head.

“Relax, Aria. Let me take over. I’m your wolf, Keera.”

“Okay, Keera. Can you get me out of this situation?”

“That’s why I’m here, Aria,” Keera replied calmly.

For the first time in her 18 years, Aria shifted into a wolf. Her bones cracked and bent into new joints, fur grew out of her skin and her snout grew forward.

Her paws scratched at the forest floor as she and Keera stood proud; a pure white wolf.

However, much of her strength had depleted, and Keera had nothing to work with. She started to sway and shift back into human form, just as the rogues closed in on her.

They disbanded when a large brown wolf landed in their middle and growled at them. His warm amber eyes were the last thing she saw as she lost consciousness and dropped to the forest floor, human.