Mazelina
I stare at myself in the mirror in wonder, “Look at us, always hiding who we truly are” Samara, my wolf has been bitter about hiding our true selves for a while now. She thinks it’s time to show our pack. But dad, our Alpha does not agree.
“Sam, stop it. You know we have to be cautious.” I chide. Not that I blame her entirely. I know we could do so much good for the pack, but I must obey our Alpha.
As far as anyone in my pack are concerned, I’m an embarrassment to our Alpha, my father because I’m unable to shift, which brings embarrassment to the wider community and other packs. I know there’s a method to his madness even if Sam doesn’t like it, he’d much rather have me ridiculed and teased than dead. I mean, what’s the use of an Alpha’s daughter if she’s unable to shift? It’s completely unheard of.
“Little do they know,” Samara mutters. If Sam had her way, she would burn everyone to the ground. “And we could do it too”
I smirk at us in the mirror. “That was an accidental discovery and not to be used lightly.” I remind her. A wolf is like having a good and evil twin. I’m good and Samara is well. Samara isn’t so bad. She just gets carried away.
“Honey, you need to hurry,” Mom calls from somewhere in the house.
God, this family irritates me. They could mind-link, but father forbids it in the house. He complained the house was too quiet after Blaze got his wolf at ten. That’s the age we all receive our wolves. Once Blaze got him, he would only mind-link.
“We should hurry” Sam’s eager to see the mateless wolves. I ignore her. I’m not in any hurry for her or anyone. She doesn’t understand the impact of what could happen if we end up with a mate, because then he or she will know the truth. Can I trust my mate??
I hate going to these stupid events. I’ve been going to them since I turned eighteen. Here I am four years later and still haven’t found my mate. You would think my parents would give up on this, but no, Mom and Dad constantly worry about me being alone. They want me to have a mate to protect me. I roll my eyes for the millionth time today; I can protect myself. With my thoughts alone, I can protect them all. I do it every day, unbeknownst to them.
I sigh. Gran used to know when I used them. She would give me a secret smile every time. Gosh, I miss her. I wonder what she would think about me going to the King’s for this shit.
“I know what she is doing,” Sam laughs.
“Oh yeah? What?”
“Rolling in her grave laughing her pretty ass off.”
I can’t help but giggle. She’s right about that. Gran hated the Moon King Pack. Few wolves like them, especially they’re holier than thou attitude.
I glance at the woman in the mirror. Lately, I resent being a wolf, and I resent these ridiculously outdated formalities. For all I know, it could be my destiny to live my days alone and hell, that’s just fine by me.
“Here, here!” Sam cheers.
My door opens. “Come on Mazelina. I swear you are doing this on purpose,” Mom scolds, fussing around my room.
Yep, I am almost 22 years old and living with my parents. I have a part-time job at the local bar while I study for my Doctorate in Psychiatry. With my Gran’s inheritance and my weekly paycheck, Soon I’ll have enough money to afford my very own apartment and won’t have to listen to this bullshit about not having a mate on the daily.
Once I’ve completed my studies, I’m going to open my practice, not just for our packs, but for the human community as well.
Dad isn’t happy with it; he is the Alpha, therefore if any issues arise within the pack, they must go to him. Some would say narcissism, but Dad isn’t like that, nor is he power hungry. Nope, he’s a classic fixer, which makes him a great Alpha, according to my friend Daria.
I sigh. I wish Daria was still coming. She’s my only friend. Daria is gorgeous, naturally dark as night hair, cut into a pixie style, which absolutely suits her, being so petite and with those chocolate brown eyes. I smile. I miss her and Samara used to adore her until she met her mate.
“It’s all your fault”
“How can you fault me?” “I didn’t know the lone wolf was her mate.”
Daria is a hairstylist and runs a Salon in town. Naturally, she was going to meet her mate.
I can’t help but feel jealous. Jealous of my friend who finds it so easy just to be herself, beautiful, fun, and intelligent. She has nothing to hide. She can make friends so easily and now she has her mate. Daria deserves every ounce of happiness coming her way. I do wish all of that for her, and yet I’m jealous. Completely jealous of her and why, I don’t understand why my father is making me go to the Moon King ritual tonight. How am I supposed to protect the truth from my mate and his family? It was hard enough to keep it from Daria.
Lately, I’ve been contemplating going out on my own, becoming a lone wolf, a rogue. It’s a tough choice. It’s unnatural for a wolf to be alone.
But under the circumstances, I’m wondering if I’ll be better off. I refuse to join a new pack. I won’t have the protection I have here. People tease me and give me a wide berth, but being the Alpha’s daughter has its privileges. Being on my own is the only option if I decide to go it alone at all.
Let me give you a rundown on how the territories work.
There are many Shifter packs of all kinds of animals, all over the world including in our country, however, the wolves have always been large in numbers and status, and other shifter animals are always small, with the exception of the rats. Don’t ever underestimate the Rats. We intermingle our territories and businesses and have many friends, however, it’s exceedingly rare to mate outside your animal. I know what you’re thinking…. Rat and Wolf… oh honey, it doesn’t have to work that way. Just shift to human screw, well like bunnies. Anyway, back-to-back territories.
In our country, the wolf Packs run in the hierarchy in accordance with the size of your territory. Some territories have from One to five packs, while others have more. We have Eight packs and thousands of wolves; our territory is the largest.
Each territory has a similar hierarchy across the nation:
1. The Moon King Pack or The King’s, as we all call them. These men and women are all Pure Bloods. Born pure. It’s not as incestuous as it sounds. There are other hierarchies around the world that also have Top Tier Pure Blood Packs. To avoid inbreeding, they travel to each Pure Blood Pack to find their mates.
2. The Sentinel Pack. My pack below the king’s we’re also somewhat considered royalty. However, unlike the Purebloods, we mingle with all of the packs. It’s in our name ‘Sentinels’ to keep watch over everyone.
3. The Bloodmoon Pack, these men and women, consist of warriors. The King’s will call on them for battle, hunts, or to track shifters or humans. But as we haven’t been to war for many moons, they predominantly work security. Let me just say business is booming for the Bloodmoon.
4. The Moon River Pack and,
5. Dawn Moon Pack: they’re mostly made up of farmers and healers. The Bloodmoon Pack provides protection from rogues and other shifters from trying to steal our supplies and products.
6. The Lonecrest Pack and,
7. NightStar Pack is our workers. They provide for all the packs. However, most of the funds go straight to the top. Even though some men and women in all packs work to provide for themselves and fund our packs when needed. These two packs provide for extracurricular activities. For example, so we can have this lame-ass outdated ritual.
8. The Ironmaw Pack, these guys comprise mostly of half-humans. They cannot do a complete shift, but they still have our strength. It’s where the werewolf stories come from, half man, half beast. There are a few half-bloods in the Pack that can do a complete shift, ones that were rejected from other packs or rogues who still want to be part of a pack.
MazelinaMazelinaIronmaw, I swear every misfit reject from the other packs above is in Ironmaw. They know how to party, and I’ve been to werehyena parties. Ironmaw kills it every time.But you never stay at the party long. These guys are maniacs. They love sex and violence and, above all, get completely annihilated on drugs and alcohol.And for the record, it takes triple the amount of human alcohol and drug intake to get shifters drunk. Imagine a half-human with all our strength and no inhibitions.I felt like showering a hundred times a day for a week after visiting them. But it was one hell of a way to lose my virginity. I did it out of spite of my father. I was Nineteen and concluded that I would never find my mate, not with this lie hanging over my head, so I got high and with some random guy.“Two Maze. Two random guys and it was the best night of our lives”, I shake my head.“Samara, you are going to get us in trouble one day” “Ha! Says you. I had complete control of us.” “Ar
Mazelina It’s been a long time since I was here at The Moon King Pack, and it hasn’t changed much. Each pack has thousands of wolves, except for Lonecrest, NightStar and, of course, Ironmaw, who have under a thousand wolves in each pack. To say that it was a shock to hear The Kings have a female shortage is an understatement, considering the pack contains over 5000 men, women, and children. Funny how they send the halfers to the back of the lands instead of the front entrance. It’s a long trek to get to this ridiculously over-the-top tent. They still don’t want us sullying their territory and yet they want our women. I roll my eyes. Maybe Gran really was clairvoyant, maybe the Gods and Goddess are punishing the Moon King’s. “If you continue rolling your eyes, you’re going to make us dizzy,” Sam chuckles. I take a piece of fruit from the largest fruit platter I’ve ever seen in my life, more like a fruit friggin’ table. “Do these people take notes from television series or what?
Mazelina Course after course arrives from oversized plates of meat to vegetables, nuts, and fruit. “There’s so much food,” Sam says with sorrow in her voice. “I know and I bet this will all just go to waste.” “I know what you and your wolf are thinking,” Blaze chuckles, “And I agree it is a great waste of food.” Still, we all eat because heaven forbid that anyone insults Alpha Gaius or the King’s. In between meals, Alpha Gaius addresses us, with the usual ho-hum of speeches, ritual poems, and performances. I try to prolong dessert, but of course, time gives me no mercy and speeds up. Usually, Blaze escorts me, but tonight Dad has decided it’s his turn. Blaze gives me an apologetic look. Guess I have no choice but to go on this archaic mating hunt. I look around and find there are five groups just like ours and we are all escorted to the edge of the forest. The forest looks dark and foreboding, just the way I like it. To humans, it would be a nightmare, but to creatures like u
Mazelina“What is the meaning of this!” Dad shouts, “You cannot force my daughter to accept your son!” he continues to my surprise. Dad has always pushed me to go to these events and now??My head is spinning. I found my mate…… I repeat it over and over in my head because it’s just so unbelievable. “I will force no one to do anything they don’t want to do,” Gaius says calmly. They continue to argue back and forth.I feel like I’m at a terrible tennis match mixed with terrible political dialogue and all of it is at my expense. I can feel myself vibrate with anger. If they continue, Samara might shift on me, and we’ll all be in trouble.“Come with me.” Rush whispers. His scent washes over me and instantly calms us down.I gaze up at him. I’m not sure if I should be alone with him. Samara is utterly unhelpful; she’s totally blissed out, drunk on his scent.Goddess, she is even loving the fact that he hasn’t let go of our hand. She loves how his breath tickles our neck and his scent. Jes
Mazelina “Is that true?” I ask, suspicious of both of them. “It is,” Blaze says. “Alpha Gaius told us of his plan. The problem is they will never accept you as Luna and Alpha Gaius know it. They will ridicule you every single day for the rest of your life under the King Pack or worse, they’ll kill you. I don’t know what Gaius is playing at, but we will not allow this.” Dad’s shoulders slump. “They killed my first mate here.” Both Blaze and I look at Dad in shock. “What?” “Before your mother, I had a mate. My father changed the law like Alpha Gaius is attempting to do now. My father wanted me to be Alpha to the King Pack. I was the only male, and my father did not want to lose the Alpha line over an outdated law. But no one accepted my half-blood mate as Luna. It became a constant battle for months. Instead of being Alpha and doing pack business, I was fighting for her acceptance. I had to have three warriors with her at all times.” He looks away in shame. “It was a little over a y
Rush Kali takes Mazelina to her room right away. The pull between us is so strong I feel the need to go to my mate, to be alone with her. I know she’s confused. I can feel it, taste it all around her. Somehow, I have to convince her to not reject me. “RUSH!” Dad thumps his fist on the table. I look up, surprised that we’re the only two left. The library is one of my two favourite places to go for privacy, it’s why I bought her here. No one really comes in here. “Where did Alpha Eric go?” “To his rooms. You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?” he rubs his chin painstakingly, “You must persuade her she belongs here”. “Why is this so important to you, Dad?” “Are you questioning your Alpha?” he growls, his Alpha tone making me almost buckle at the knees. “Of course, not Alpha. I’m just surprised. The Pack Law says.” “I say.” He stands thumping his chest with his fist, “I say what is the Law, not you, not The Guardians. You will convince the shiftless bitch to stay. You will ma
Rush I’ve been awake since dawn, pacing in my room. “Calm down” Bain complains. “I just want everything to be perfect”. “We have arranged everything. If you keep this up, you’re going to give us a heart attack before our mate gets to-” he stops mid-sentence. “She’s awake!” we both say at once. I race to my door and open it as she closes her own door, she’s so beautiful, her hair is all black today, she’s wearing a blue summer dress with white polka dots all over, a white belt cinched at her waist and a soft white cashmere sweater and the same shade of blue, heels. Last night she was in flats, making her chest height to me. Today she’s a foot taller. She twirls around, clutching her hand to her chest. “Goddess, you scared me.” “I’m sorry.” I stammer. My heart is racing a million miles an hour. Her deep blue eyes sparkle with amusement. She’s so damn beautiful. “Come on Rush, quick, say something, you’re making a fool of us”, a wave of peace flows through me, I smile, “Told yo
Mazelina Despite our little tiff yesterday, I still ended up in Rush’s bed. It was the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had, no nightmares, no waking in the middle of the night wondering if The Guardians had finally found me or tried to murder me. Just peaceful, sweet, blissful dreams. “Good morning, Beautiful.” Rush kisses the side of my head, “I feel like I can conquer the world.” he grins. “Please don’t be one of those wolves.” I throw my hand across my face. “What wolf?” “The one that wakes cheerfully. I can’t deal with that too.” “Too?” “Well, you’re hot, you’re sweet and now you’re god damn cheerful.” He laughs full-throated, “I’m not usually cheerful. I just had the most incredible restful sleep, plus I woke up with you beside me.” He leans in and kisses me on the lips. I turn away before it gets too deep. “We don’t want to upset your cheerful morning, with morning breath.” I laugh at his puzzled expression. “Who the fuck cares about morning breath?” he takes my chin and