In Cinders

I hate my life.

I hated that my mom died, leaving dad to find a new mate. He only did it because he was lonely. I hated that he remarried to someone new. I hated that she had pups my age. And mostly, I hated myself for turning everything upside down.

The fire was an accident. I was scared one night during the thunderstorm. So I lit a candle in my bedroom. I fell asleep and must have knocked it over. The rain should have killed the fire, well, it did, but it was too late. Dad got me out of the house first, then he went back for the twins. My stepmom was last because he couldn’t find her. The other pack members went into the house to get them. They found her, but couldn’t find him.

When the fire was stopped and they went back into the house, they found his body under a wooden bookcase. A beam had fallen on top of the bookcase and even with his strength he had, he couldn’t get free.

It was my fault. I could swear I blew out the candle, but now I wasn’t sure.

My stepmom kept me, refusing to let me go into the pack orphanage. Said that dad would have wanted our family to stay together.

I was foolish to believe that she saw me as part of the family.

Dad left everything to me when he passed away. That made Oliva furious. She had access to everything until I found my mate. The insurance paid out money to build a new house. Olivia used some of the money dad left me to build a bigger house. The new house had four bedrooms. She said the twins and I each could have our own rooms. But she thought better of it after the house was done. I ended up staying in the garden shed at the back of the house.

Which was fine, because I wasn’t near them constantly. I had privacy, and I was grateful for it.

I was currently in the kitchen, making breakfast for everyone.

“Good morning.” Maddy, the oldest of the twins, said as the two of them walked into the kitchen.

“Morning.” Harper, the youngest one of the two, grumbled.

I snorted. “Hi.” I handed them both a mug of coffee.

As far as step sisters go, they weren’t that bad. They actually treated me like I belonged here with them.

“Morning girls.” Olivia sang her greeting to her daughters. She never greeted me. “Where’s my coffee?” She snapped.

“Oh.” I shuffled to make her a cup. She rolled her eyes at me as I handed her the mug. “There you go.” I tried to smile, but it was stiff and actually hurt my face. She hated me, and well, I hated her. The feeling was mutual on every level.

Olivia took a sip of her coffee and made a face. I had to take a deep breath through my nose before I said something horrible to her. Or shift and might murder her.

Goddess, that thought has been plaguing my thoughts since I was sixteen and could shift for the first time. Just to rip her throat out and maybe her heart, too, was such a pleasant feeling. If only I could get away with murder and call it a day.

“Tate.” Harper whispered.

“You’re shifting.” Maddy added, and I looked down at my arm. Sure enough, white fur has sprouted on my left arm. Yet another thing that made Olivia hate me even more. White wolves were thought to be some kind of gift from the Goddess Nehalennia herself. She was white, and it was said that her bloodline was still on earth. Very few white wolves roamed the earth. Sometimes it was said white wolves were bad luck, an omen meaning death.

So shifting wasn’t in my future.

No one knew I was a white wolf, only the twins and Olivia.

My first shift happened on my sixteenth birthday. The twins and I are the same age. Their birthday was a month before mine. So when I shifted, Olivia lost her shit. She hated me more than ever.

I will be eighteen in a few days. That meant I could find my mate, the other half of my soul. But I knew Olivia would probably keep me from finding my mate, because then I would leave and if I left her and the twins, she would lose the money, house and everything that dad left me.

Times have changed, and we lived between humans, worked alongside them and did it peacefully. Dad was a police officer, or sentinel. He basically helped to catch rogue werewolves and made sure the humans were safe. We had doctors, officers, shop owners, lawyers and even teachers who were werewolves. They worked alongside humans to make sure there was a balance between the species.

Humans didn’t know about us, well, only the important ones knew. Our species had to work together with the humans to make sure that everyone follows the treaty our forefathers made many moons ago.

Talk about moons. We were bound to the moon.

We could shift whenever we wanted to, but on a full moon, we had no choice but to shift. We were actually cursed.

A witch fell in love with a witch hunter, and the town’s people burned her alive. But the one who led the witch hunt was the man who she fell in love with. At the stake, she cursed the entire town.

They could fall in love, but they will not be happy until they find their true soulmate, or moon given mate. And to make things harder on them, their hate would manifest into a beast who cannot love and care for anyone but their true mates. So if they fell in love with a human, the beast would kill that human. A chosen mate would never make you happy like your true mate would.

The beasts would be bound by the moon and its cycles. So on every full moon, they became beasts who had no control over themselves and would kill anything and anyone who came close to them.

It has been hundreds of years since the curse was placed, and there was no way of breaking it. But as the years went on, our kind has finally accepted the curse for what it was. And we tried to respect the humans to ensure that we wouldn’t get cursed again.

“Tate?” Maddy’s voice filtered through my train of thought.

“Hmm?” I answer her back, blinking at her.

“You’re fur.” Harper said and pointed to my arm.

I shook my hand and smiled. “Sorry, just a little tired.”

Olivia snorted, “tired? Perhaps you should study more and not go to the training field until the morning hours.”

She had a point. But I really had no choice but to train every day. Dad was a pack sentinel, and I wanted to be one, too. Only because I was his last legacy left. It fell upon me to make sure his memory wouldn’t end up tarnished because of Olivia.

I had to make him proud, even if he wasn’t here to see it.

His fellow sentinels were there, and they thought it was brave of me to follow in his footsteps. It was an honour to have had such a great father who did everything to keep both humans and werewolves safe. Even if the humans never knew what he had done for them.

I ignored Olivia and downed the rest of my coffee.

“I’ll see you guys around at school.” I said to the twins. They smiled and nodded. “See you at dinner.” I said with a tight smile at Oliva.”

She made a sound between agreement and irritation.

I grabbed my bag that I left at the front door.

My best friend Peyton just drove into our driveway as I shut the front door behind me. I grinned as I made my way towards her car.

Peyton has a sweet and kind nature. She was never mean or spiteful. I was grateful for a friend like her. Even if she was human. Her mom was a human and her dad was a werewolf. She was unlucky when the shifter gene skipped her. It normally happens when a human and werewolf mated.

“Morning, Tater Tot.” she sang as I got into the car.

“Morning Pey.” I rolled my eyes. Her nickname for me was horrible, but it was better than being called Cinder by the rest of the town. Well, not everyone called me that, but some do. Only because Olivia said something about me starting the fire that killed my dad. Her friends normally called me that behind my back.

“How’s Olive?” Peyton asked as she backed out of the driveway.

“Still the evil stepmother.”

Peyton laughed. “One day, she’ll feel horrible about everything when you find your mate and leave her sad ass behind for all eternity.”

I snorted. “As if I’ll find mine.”

“We will. Both of us will find our mates. You’re turning eighteen soon.” She said with a wink. I wanted to believe that I would find my mate the day I turned eighteen. But it was a wish that everyone had. As for Peyton, she could still find her mate, werewolf or human.

We could only find our true mates after we turned eighteen. So I could have walked past mine for years now without even knowing who he really was. But he would probably be someone who either wanted to control me like Olivia did, or he would not even exist. There wasn’t really a happy ending for me, if I was being honest.

“I hope so.” I said to Peyton, hoping she’ll leave this subject.

“Oh!” Peyton squealed. “There’s a meeting today after school.”

I groaned. “I know. Olivia said even I had to attend it.”

“Everyone does. Even the humans.” She nodded to herself and it made me feel bad for her. She was human, even if one of her parents was a shifter.

Each town was ruled over by an Alpha, who reported back to the Royal Alpha, who ruled over every pack in our country. It’s like having Mayors under a President.

Well, it was like that, but everyone of those people were shifters.

And if there was a town meeting, something was about to happen and we all needed to be informed about it.

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