The Animal Family

"Dad, I think something is wrong.""What do you mean?""I'm smelling four.""Four?""Yes, there are four different scents. I don't know how to explain it but they all have the same earthly scent, but something else to it. What does that mean?""You have four mates.""Four mates? That can't be real, I have never heard of that before." Avery was in a state of panic now, which caused her to involuntarily transform back to her human form.

I plan a family trip at my mother Lucia Sweeney's request. While avoiding the danger zones, my sister Linda Harper and I are ambushed by rogues. To protect her, I throw myself in the path of their claws and get driven into a silver mine. As I fall, my back is slashed open to the bone, and shards of silver embed deep into my right leg. The searing silver poison spreads quickly, burning through me and my wolf. My wolf is whimpering—she's close to death. However, as the pack's chief healer, Mom gathers all the healers around Linda to give her a full check-up over a few minor scrapes. I sob and beg her to save me first. "Mom, the poison has almost reached my heart. I can't hold on anymore." She turns around impatiently and yells, "Are you seriously still fighting with Linda now? Do you have any idea how close she came to getting clawed in the face by a silver claw? Our pack doesn't have a wolf as heartless as you!" And in that moment, I hear my wolf's final whimper, saying goodbye. I finally fall asleep in the cold wind, never waking up again.

After my grandmother passed away, my parents brought me back from the countryside to the city. That was when I learned I had a younger sister, born a mere year after me. My mother sat me down and reminded me that as the oldest sister, I needed to learn to yield to my siblings in everything. I nodded quietly, understanding my place. In this household, I ranked fourth. Later, my little brother was born, and my standing effortlessly plummeted from fourth to fifth. The turning point came during the summer of my sophomore year of college. When I returned home for the holidays, I discovered the front door had been outfitted with a brand-new, high-tech smart lock. They had completely forgotten to mention it to me. Clutching a dead phone, I sat on the hot concrete of the stairwell, waiting from two o'clock in the afternoon until ten o'clock at night. When they finally emerged, they were dragging luggage behind them, laughing and chatter-boxing about the highlights of their recent vacation. The four of them were wearing matching family T-shirts. Naturally, there wasn't one for me. As my dad begrudgingly attempted to program my thumbprint into the system, he let out a sharp, irritated click of his tongue. "The master administrator account only permits five profiles. There's no room to add another." My mom barely looked up. "Just set her up with a temporary guest token. We can manually authorize her whenever she decides to visit." As I stood there stunned, my brother laughed. "Shelly registered the dog's nose print into the system. She said he's an important member of the family. Guess that leaves you out of the slot!" In a family of five, the dog claimed the fifth tier, and I ranked sixth. That very night, I quietly filled out the application to join a classified frontier research program. I understood that when a visitor's time ran out, the only proper thing to do was take their leave.

After setting up the camera, I realize the clients for the family portrait are my parents and sister—the very people I ran away from five years ago. The moment we make eye contact, the smile on my mother's face freezes. Her eyes turn red-rimmed, and she hesitates before asking, "Mora… Is that you? You're alive?" Placing my finger on the shutter, I remind them, "Keep smiling. Look at the camera." My father shoots to his feet. "Are you still mad at us? You've avoided us for five years. What kind of grudge between family members can't be resolved after all that time?" I look at Mora, the dog who shares my name, as it stands beside my sister. I don't understand why Dad's angry. After all, they're the ones who spent years brainwashing me into believing I'm nothing but a bone marrow provider for my sister, Eva Fletcher. Even the dog makes it in the family photos that I wasn't allowed to be in as a child. I've long given up on needing such a family.

The cautious and routine-filled werewolf, Luke Sager, is plagued with fear of being discovered, of separation and death when he knows his real identity. His relationship with his not-so-close younger twin brother, Leo, is a rollercoaster while living within human society. Their species' security is the priority but it is in great danger when an ancient curse falls down on the Sager family. Will their cooperation with an organization be able to stop it? Or will the future of their species come to an end?

My mom gave birth to a pair of twins. While I lived with my grandma in the countryside since young, my younger sister, Katrina Coffey, got to live with our parents. I only got to live with my family after I got into a high school in the city. I thought I'd be able to experience what it feels like to be loved by my family. What I didn't know was that this would be the start of my nightmares. My family alienated me, treating me as though I were an outsider. My status was even lower than that of Katrina's dog. Later on, Katrina forcibly stuffed a piece of mango, which I was allergic to, into my mouth. Her excuse was that she wanted to help me get rid of my allergy. I tried to plead with my parents for help with great difficulty, but they merely glanced at me icily. "What's with the complaints? Are you saying that we can't have mangoes anymore because of you from now on?" "What allergy? All you have to do is eat more mangoes, and you'll be fine!" What they didn't know was that people actually die from severe allergies.