Her Hidden Beast ~ Scarlet Ocean

A little over a hundred years ago, the monsters came out of the shadows. They crawled out from under beds and crept out of closets. Beasts ascended from the mountains and came from the forests. Living a millennia in secret, they were able to build armies, infiltrate every government and take over every part of the world within hours.

You only have yourselves to blame.

The stories were there.

You just didn’t want to believe that Dracula was in that fucking castle, or that Little Red Riding Hood really did run from the big bad wolf. Shit, who knew those crusty bible thumpers were on to something when they were burning so called witches at the stake.

Although, that still wasn’t very nice.

Most of them didn’t deserve it.

Humans are now the minority. You either serve the beasts, or you take your chances in the Trench, where only the cunning and strong survive. If you are smart, you pledge loyalty to a Family. Money is obsolete so resources are everything and your loyalty is all you really have, so it’s taken very seriously.

Families, you ask?

They are like gangs, but a little more civilized, for lack of a better term. They barter between each other for resources and provide protection. As good as protection gets here, anyway. Disagreements between the Families are settled in The Pits. No weapons, just fists.

Since the monsters took over, the world as you know it shut down. Great for the whole global warming problem, shitty for dumb humans who had trouble adjusting. In the beginning it was a violent fight between humans for resources. The humans formed gangs and became even more violent, more brutal. As humans became fewer, the gangs formed the Families and now try to take care of each other, for humanity sake, blah blah blah…give me a break.

I know, I sound cynical.

Probably because I’m not human.

I’m not one of those beasts either.

I don’t belong in either world, but I pass mostly as a human, so it’s easier to live among them. A way to simply exist.

I don’t know if my mother was a wolf, embarrassed to get knocked up by a human, or was she a human, disgraced by a wolf. Either way, nobody has ever spoken of such a thing happening and as far as I’m aware, I’m the only one of my kind.

A freak of fucking nature.

Obviously unwanted, I was dumped in a human orphanage, where I stayed until I was ten. That’s when I realized I was...different.

Female wolves are bigger than the average human, usually around six feet tall. Although I’m under that at five foot nine, I was always taller than all the other girls and much stronger than the boys. On my tenth birthday, or tenth anniversary of being dumped actually, one of the boys teased me to the point of anger that my nails grew out into claws, piercing the skin in my tightly clenched fists.

Besides my eyes changing color, this is the extent of my shifting. I’ve never gone full wolf, no matter how hard I’ve tried.

There is only one other soul in this world that knows about me. Shortly after running from the orphanage I met Rose.

A witch.

Yes, witches are real.

Witches are just what you think they are. Born human, with a little something extra. Some have chosen to use their abilities for good and live among humans, while others are a little more... ambitious. Those bitches are social climbing whores who will do anything to be in the good graces of the Covenant.

Fuck… The Covenant.

Vampires.

They rule this whole shit show.

Rose knew what was lurking in my blood the second she met me, but treated me with nothing but kindness. With her help, I learned everything she could teach me about wolves, but even she only knew so much. More importantly, she taught me how to mask my scent to avoid detection by other wolves.

I guess I even smelled like one of the Covenant’s lap dogs.

So now you have an idea of my world.

The Vampires rule everything. Wolves protect them and maintain order. Witches, while human, are considered a persecuted supernatural race and therefore allowed to live however they want. Humans only have two choices, a slave or live in the slums of the Trench.

If you want to live with the assurance of food in your belly, a clean bed to sleep in and a roof over your head, you become a feed bag for a vampire or a slave to a wolf. Those who have a little more dignity, live in the outer edges of the cities, where life is hard and supplies limited.

My name is Scarlet.

I’m half human, half wolf.

This I keep hidden, for fear it will either get me killed by the humans or condemn me to a life as a slave by the wolves.

This is my story.

Only question is, will I live to tell it?