Chapter 1 Ivora pov

CHAPTER 1

Panting, Ivora, a girl of about twenty, pushed open the door to the tattered little house that had sheltered her and her father for years. Small as the house was, it still could keep one's body warm. The building, mostly made of wood that needed to be replaced often, held a stench of rotten wood in the air but Ivora had gotten used to it. She had even come to love the little house.

She closed the door and secured it with the piece of stick that was often used to lock it. Pulling down her worn-out cloak, she let it fall down her shoulders.

"Father!" She called out, dropping the plain old sack she was holding on the table. A scrawny man with a distinct sickly pallor and completely greyed hair walked towards Ivora, the flame in the lamp he was holding, flickering continuously.

"My Vora." He croaked, smiling as his blue eyes crinkled at the sides. He tried to speak again when he doubled over in a fit of coughs. His ghastly skin paled even more, blue veins bulging out of his skin.

"Oh, father!" She said, moving over to hold him. Leading him to the table, she sat him down gently.

"Father look! I got us enough food today."

She poured out the contents of the bag as she laid the food neatly on the table.

"Vora. Did you go stealing food today again?" Her father asked, disapproval laced in his voice. Ivora ignored his question, taking out a loaf of bread and sharing it into equal halves.

"Here." She gave him one-half of the bread and bit into her half. He didn't say a word again as he dipped his bread into the water his daughter kept on the table earlier to make it soft enough for him to eat. Ivora watched him quietly as she struggled to fight her tears away, her throat clogging up.

It was painful to see what their pack had turned him to. The Dark Blood Pack. The most bloodthirsty wolf pack in the world. It's men, so hefty and strong looking that one would think they were made of iron. With its big-boned savage women and the weird green-inked symbols tattooed on their bodies.

A pack that was even capable of eating its children in times of hunger. As cruel as its rules were, it was one particular rule that Ivora hated the most. On the first day of winter every five years, the mated men would exchange their mates with each other, such that everyone had a different woman to warm their beds on those nights.

Her mother, Luny, unlike every other woman in the pack, was a human. A soft, exquisite woman she was. On one such winter night, her mother was to be exchanged to the Alpha of the pack, Malavan, her father's brother. Ander, her father knew that nothing romantic happened on those nights. It was raw, savage sex. Her mother's human body would never have been able to endure it. Worse, she was pregnant with Ivora. Ander had to refuse for he feared for his yet-to-be-born child and his weak human mate.

The alpha was furious. No one had ever refused him before. He ordered for her mother to be killed and her father, to be locked in a special cell for traitors and to be fed poison every day for six years. Luckily, her mother was able to get Malavan to let her deliver the unborn child before she was killed.

Ivora was nursed by her mother's maid, the woman who helped deliver her. But she too died when Ivora was six.

Ivora saw her father for the first time that same year. Her father's health had been deteriorating since then. it hadn't been easy for them to feed as they had been treated as outcasts and though her father was a werewolf, he couldn't shift to his wolf form since then. They went into hiding to prevent the pack members from finding and killing them.

A sharp knock on the door pulled Ivora from her thoughts. She whipped her head to her father and made to get up.

"Sit. I'll go." Her father said.

"Okay, father." She nodded.

When Ivora sat for a while and her father did not return, her eyes shot to the door. She grabbed her dagger, put on her cloak and went outside.

"Leave my daughter alone."

Ivora heard her father saying and her heart jumped into her throat and she picked up her speed.

Nothing could have prepared Ivora for what she saw. Her father kneeling on the ground, blood dripping from his head. Another man, tall, huge and bald stood sneering down at him. A Dark Blood Pack member.

"Please. Leave my daughter alone. I promise... I promise.. she won't steal from you again." Her father said, his voice shaky.

" Father!" Ivora screamed, making her way over there. The man turned to see Ivora then. With grim eyes and a crooked nose, Ivora recognized him as the man she stole from.

"Go back Vora, I'll be okay." Her father said looking at her gently.

"I would not go anywhere, father." Said Ivora, her pale blue eyes spitting fire.

" Great. Watch this then." He brought his claws to her father's chest, ripping out his heart and leaving a bloody, gaping hole in its place. It all happened in a second. Before Ivora could process what happened, her father's body fell on the snow with a weak thud, his streaming blood painting it red.

A gut-wrenching scream tore out of Ivora's mouth.

"Bastard!" She lunged herself at the man. She thrust forward, aiming her dagger at his chest. He twisted his body out of the way as the blade missed, piercing his stomach instead.

"You filthy whore!" He roared, hoisting her up with her neck and smashing into a large tree. He pinned her to the cold snow, his weight almost choking her.

"I'll make you pay." He spat.

Reaching in for the knife tucked safely in her waistband, she plunged it violently into his chest. He made a choking sound as he collapsed over her. Ivora struggled, pulling herself from under him as she plunged the knife into his body again and again, roaring madly each time.

"You hurt my father!"

He lay limp on the floor but Ivora did not stop. Werewolves couldn't die by a mere stab in the chest. She picked up her dagger, hacking his head from his neck, she watched as his ugly head rolled on the snow before she fell, panting. Her blonde hair, wet and darkened with sweat, fell over her eyes.

****

Ivora jerked up with a start when she remembered her father. She stood up and went over to her father. Her legs stopped just a few inches from him as it refused to go farther. Ivora felt something shift in her chest as she looked at her father, eyes glazed, body almost frozen in the snow. She let out a breath as her eyes raked over her father's face again.

The same face that would always form into a smile as its croaky voice called her name _My Vora_ and pulled her into a hug. That would develop more worry lines if she got hurt each time she went out to steal. The same face... The same person lay down on the reddened snow, face frozen.

A violent sob tore out of Ivora's lips as she fell onto the snow, holding her father's face in her hands.

"Father." She whispered.

"I'm okay. I.. I killed the bastard, he's lying there on the snow, just like you. Are.. are you happy now?" She waited but of course, the reply did not come, she would no longer hear her father's croaky voice again. Ivora broke down once more as she closed her father's eyes, letting her tears drop freely.

****

Ivora stood up moments later and looked at her father. She knew had to bury her father as soon as possible. Getting up, she broke one of the tree branches and quickly shaped it into a shovel using her knife. She checked the ground looking for a softer part that would be easier for her to dig.

When Ivora stopped digging, she didn't know how much time had passed but the moon was out again. She carried her father's body as she gently lowered him to the ground. Tracing his face one more time, she covered his body slowly. Ivora half expected that she wouldn't be able to stop crying for days but as she finished burying his body, the tears refused to come down. She was numb.

Sucking in her lips that had been purpled in the cold, she stood up and grabbed her cloak and dagger. Ivora walked towards her house, she moved a few steps and stopped walking to look back at her father's blood.

"Red Circle Pack. I will get revenge." She whispered, her eyes growing cold.

She ran to her house, grabbed some things she needed, put them in her bag and turned to leave, never turning back to the house again.