Broken Pieces

My name is Oakley Smith and this is my story.

Let’s get things straight, I don’t, under ANY circumstances feel sorry for myself. I don’t particularly love my life, but I am pushing through this until I am able to escape.

I have not had the best life ever. My parents, the alpha and Luna of the Alpine Pack, were killed by a neighboring pack. The alpha sent his beta to take over my pack. My wolf has started dwindling and I have been captive in this pack for the past 4 years.

I come from the outskirt of a small town, Leavenworth, Washington. It’s a really small town, with a population of about 2000 people. We live in the surrounding area, between the trees in the mountainous area. It is absolutely gorgeous and also boosts our income. There is plenty of opportunity in town for summer jobs if you don’t already have an assigned job in the pack, we have Lycans working in town. We are one of the 4 remaining Lycan packs. Our pack has a total of 24 members, but we were thriving under my parent’s lead, now, they are all falling down, barely making ends meet and barely surviving. They are being oppressed until the new alpha of the shadow pack is ready to take over.

But let’s start from the beginning.

I woke up, it was a normal day, I just turned 14 and my life was great. My wolf came forward, my parents were extremely loving and caring and school was absolutely great. I put on my favorite white and pink striped tank top, with my white shorts and pink and white Adidas sneakers, according to my mom, the white and light pink complemented me due to my skin tone, being extremely tan and all. It was almost the end of the school year and I only had 2 more years left. I was an above-average student and skipped 2 grades in primary school already. Going down to breakfast, my mom was already in the eating area, making sure that everything had been set up and ready for breakfast. After all, a pack of Lycans can devour an entire cow with the way we eat. High metabolism and all. “Morning mamma,” I greet her. “Morning sweetheart” she greets back. The cooks were still busy preparing the last of the breakfast before setting it out. I join my mother at the head table, where my dad, mom, and I all sit together. The other members of the pack start filling up the rest of the tables as they come in.

You see, in the Lycan communities, we don’t have anything below a beta, except for the alpha and beta, everyone is classed the same. We help each other and we all thrive together. We all live together on a piece of land that my great grandfather purchased about 700 years ago. The average lifespan of a Lycan is around 300 years since we age extremely slow. We’re basically a wolf, with the age of a tortoise. The nearby town doesn’t know of our existence of course, but they do know that we live in the mountains and we support their local shops, festivals, and upkeep of the town. Some of our teens also work in town for “summer jobs” every now and again. Not that we need it, it’s more a thing to keep them from becoming suspicious. We need to act normal after all.

Lycans and werewolves are much the same, and although you wouldn’t know this, we actually live all around you. We are the same as people; except we don’t gain weight and we don’t age as humans do. Our metabolisms are extremely fast, we train at least 4 hours a day and we love to run around, so it is near impossible for us to gain any weight. Both Lycans and werewolves can turn into wolves. Being Lycans, we barely have any problems, we are stronger, faster, we have better sight, smell, and hearing. Our wolves are bigger and on top of that, we can half shift, between wolf and human. Werewolves can only shift into wolves and humans.

My mom and I are sitting at the table, making small talk when my dad joins us. “Good morning pappa.” I greet him and he gives me a kiss on the head before sitting down. As the pack members start dishing food, they walk past our table, with a slight tilt of the head, they pay their respect to the Alpha, Luna, and future heir of the pack. My father is a believer that you feed your pack members first and foremost before you feed the leaders because a strong pack can protect their leaders better. My father is well respected and so is his beta, Major. Major, his wife Isabella, and their son, Jax, also eat before us.

Everyone is making small talk while eating and when it is finally our turn to dish, I get up with mom to get our food, my father is last to get his food though. We get back to the table and my father keeps standing, waiting for everyone to quiet down. The pack looks up to pappa and they all go quiet. “Good morning, alpine.” My father greets them. “Good morning alpha.” They all chorus together.

“Alpha Frederick, from the Shadow pack, has contacted me this morning, he, his Luna, his beta, and his son will be joining us tonight for a dinner, their son has turned 18 and is ready to find his mate.” My father's voice booms through the eating hall. “I expect all members of this pack to help get things ready to receive them tonight. They will also be bringing 15 of their pack members with that has yet to find their mates.” After a quick yes from all the members, my dad sits down and we dig in.

I honestly don’t like the shadow pack, their alpha is rude, he always looks at me in a weird way, a pervy way. The Luna of that pack is so extremely shallow. She walks with her nose in the air like she’s better than everyone else, she only treats my parents with a slight bit of respect, but it’s definitely fake. Their son, Matt, is the worst of them all. He’s tried his luck with me a few times, even though he’s 4 years older than me. He has absolutely no respect for any woman. He is the pack whore among the men. He’s a spoilt brat and always gets what he wants. Well, almost always. They are just a regular werewolf pack, so not a threat to us at all, but I still don’t trust them. They all look dodge A.F. and I mean that in the least offensive way ever. It’s not unheard of for werewolves and Lycans to end up as mates, we get a first chance mate and if that doesn’t work out like if they were killed or rejected you, which was a very rare thing to happen, you could settle with someone else and mark them, but the connection won’t be as strong as with your fated mate.

So, to kill a werewolf, anything Silver will do, you poison their blood by stabbing them, they are instantly weakened as the pain is excruciating, giving you the perfect opportunity to kill them. Unless they are out of harm's way by that time and they can get to a pack doctor for a blood transfusion. Lycans on the other hand, are not as easy to kill. With us, you need to use a silver knife, which is then stabbed into our hearts, and then you need to cut off the head. While the knife is in our hearts, we are immobilized, thus giving you this opportunity to cut off our heads. But you’ll need to basically be next to us and we would have to not expect this at all.

So, after my school day, I went back to the pack house to see what still needs to be done. Everyone was bustling and operating to get everything done and set up for the arrival of the Shadow Pack. They were basically done, so I decided to go finish my homework and get ready since they didn’t need much else to be done. Mom is in the house when I get there, busy sorting through clothes. “Hey mamma, I’m home.” I announce as I enter the room. “Hey sweetheart, how was school?”. “Yeah, it was good mamma, how was your day?”. She starts telling me about all the things she had arranged, planning went into every little detail of the day, from the food to the décor, to the rooms that were readied as they were staying over.

I’m staring at my mom and realizing once again just how absolutely gorgeous she is. She walks through the room, from the closet to the bed, and back again with the most elegance I’ve ever seen. She has the most gorgeous light brown hair, hanging down her back with a natural spiral curl, her green eyes sparkle when she looks at you and her lips are plump and full. She has a model body like all wolves do and she is especially fit, she is after all one of the top fighters in our pack. She has legs that just don’t seem to stop. My mom is such an excellent warrior, she could easily take out 10 werewolves on her own, where a normal Lycan can take about 6. Due to my mother and fathers’ position, they are especially strong. An alpha Lycan pair mating is the strongest you will ever get, meaning two Lycans from two alpha pairs. And our journals only speak of one Alpha pair that ever mated and had children. They lived about 500 years before I was born and they were in the blue moon pack, they are the Lycan pack closest to us and our neighboring allies. They have a territory in Chelan, Washington, about a 2-hour journey in wolf form and a 3-hour trip per car.

I go to my room and take a quick shower, washing my hair so I can have it curl naturally for the meeting. I pick out a turquoise sundress to wear with my white pumps. Pulling the side pieces of my hair back, I tie it, flip it through, and leave my hair as I go on with my homework.

I hear my mom calling from downstairs and I look up to see it’s already 5 pm, the guests will be arriving soon. I run down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and meet my mom at the door, we step out together and jokingly walk back to the packhouse to welcome the guests in person. We’re standing on the steps and the Black SUVs start pulling up one by one. The guests start getting out and walking up to us one by one to greet us. My dad joins us when the 3rd SUV pulls up and some more random people get out, greeting us. The fourth SUV pulls up and I freeze when I see alpha Frederick and his Luna get out of the car and I get this weird smell from the car, sniffing, I keep looking at the car, trying to see who comes out next, when blonde hair suddenly appears, along with tan skin, black/brown eyes, coy, sly lips, and a neat, fit body. My body stiffens immediately.

Now they say, or at least my mom does, that when you meet your mate for the very first time, the first thing you’ll notice is his scent. You won’t be able to stop yourself from running to him or him running to you. Then you’ll notice the inevitable mate pull, you will constantly want to touch each other and hold each other. Nothing else in the world will matter, only you two, they will be your weakness and strength, your happiness and sadness, your joy and fear. And I prayed with all my heart that Matt would not be that guy.

And then our eyes met.