Her broken soul

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Yea right. I guess that person never dealt with an abusive alpha father, isolation in a pack over 200 strong, or a jerk for a mate. I must be the strongest wolf in the world then.

The White Moon pack is one of the oldest in North America. It's also one of the last white wolf packs in the world. Rogue attacks, mates outside of our pack, and hunters have lead to a decline in pure white wolves. The alpha of White Moon, Alpha Jack White, is from the original line of white wolves. His mate, Luna Rachel, is a chosen wolf from the White Moon pack since both of their mates were killed before they had the chance to bond. You see, white wolves are born with certain gifts, which other packs want. If they can't find a mate in White Moon, they steal them or kill them. See, the reason why there's so few of us.

My name is Renata White and I'm the daughter of the alpha. The only child really, since chosen mates rarely get pregnant and definitely don't get a chance to have more than one. I guess that's why my parents are so disappointed in me. I'm not a boy, a chance to continue the white wolf legacy. It's been almost 18 years but Luna Rachel can't seem to carry another pup. Is that a reason to torture me all my life? Not in my opinion, but I'm in the minority. I'm hated by everyone because my parents hate me.

As long as I can remember I've been beaten by other children, attacked by grown wolves, starved, locked up, all because I'm a girl. Girls can't be strong, can't be Alphas. It's my fault I was born a girl. So the pack tells me. If I have a mate, he can't be from White Moon since there are no ranked pure white sons. The pack will have to be taken over by an outsider. Of course, this is my fault too.

I hope my mate is a strong alpha of his own pack. Then I can leave this place. Be cared for and protected instead of hated and abused. But, hope is like glass, fragile and easily broken, just like me.

Looking back, I don't know why I was so excited for my 18th birthday.

"Hurry up and get ready" my wolf Adira tells me. "It's almost midnight and I want to be far from here for our first shift." She tells me. "I'm going, I'm going," I tell her. Tomorrow is my 18th birthday, when I shift for the first time, get my gift, and find my mate. But, since I'm unwelcome in my pack, no one will be around to celebrate. Only curse me if my wolf isn't strong or my gift too simple. But I'm still excited, because Adira is proud of me no matter what we become. I think she knows more than she's letting on though.

We sneak off to the middle of the forest and watch as the moon drifts across the sky. "Adira, what will happen if I shift and have no gift?" I whisper to myself. "Don't worry," she says comfortingly "Your gift will be amazing, just like me," she says with a wolfish grin. "It's time," she says confidently. I feel an electric zing through my body, followed by a sharp pain as my bones start to crack and stretch. "Don't panic just relax, Adira tells me. "The first shift is always hard and painful, but that's just because you don't know how big you'll be until it's over. Your future shifts will be much easier," she tell me. Adira has never lied to me before so I listen to her. I can't relax but I do try to not tense up through the pain. "That's it my girl, you're doing great," Adira tells me. After what felt like hours but was probably less than minute, the pain is gone.

"Adira, is it over?" I ask her. "I've heard first shifts take a long time, but the moon hasn't moved." I start to panic when Adira doesn't respond right away. "Adira, Adira are you there? What's happening I can't hear you." I start to panic. "Don't worry my girl, the first shift takes a lot energy, and this happened so quickly I think I may have passed out for a second or two," Adira weakly responds. "Are you alright now?" I ask her quietly, for fear I hurt her somehow.

I'm okay. Just need to gather my strength before we take this body out for a spin," she jokingly answers. "Take your time," I tell her, "it's not like we have anywhere important to be right now." We lay silent under the moon as Adira recovers her strength. "What happens now?" I ask Adira. "When do we find out what our gift is?" Adira hums for a minute. "According to the Moon Goddess our gift will show up gradually over the next few weeks. Since I don't know what it will be, we have to be alert for changes in our thoughts, " she answers. "Okay, I'm ready to go, " Adira tells me. We lift our head and give it a shake. We look around and test out the smells of the forest. "Wow, I thought my nose was sensitive before, but now I can separate the smell and tell what it is," I say. "Yes, you're now smelling and hearing everything the way I do, " Adira responds. "Ready to give our legs a go?" she asks. "Let's do it," I answer in excitement.

We shakily stand up on four legs and test out a couple steps. "Just like a newborn," Adira chuckles. We look around to verify our location. "Ok let's test this puppy out, pun intended ," I say happily. "I think the lake is to the east if I'm smelling correctly," Adira says. "let's take a run and get a look at ourselves to see what kind of wolf we are," she challenges. We start at a trot then push ourselves into full speed. I can hear the wind racing us and realize we're going faster than we ever did as a human, and that was pretty fast since we were always trying to run from the pack. "The lake is just ahead," Adira tells me. We slow to a walk then stop just before the tree line ends. "Now we test out our hearing and smelling abilities. Look for other wolves or people around. I don't want to be seen before we see what we've become," I say to Adira. Adira takes her role as my protector seriously, so she she cocks our ears and swivels them slowly filtering out the sounds of the forest. I can hear the wind rubbing against the leaves. It's almost soothing to listen to. But, I don't have time to relax. I can hear some kind of rodent squeaking in it's sleep. "Sounds like someone has a cold," Adira snickers.

Next we test our nose. Adira slowly sniffs the air looking for the scent of anything out of place in the forest. "Smells like the sick one is a squirrel. It's hiding in the tree next," I'm in awe at how well we can pinpoint where and what the animal is. "Yes, we seem to have a powerful set of senses on us. I wonder if it's our gift and will get even stronger as we grow together," Adira replies. We continue to sniff the area, looking for specific scents, such as humans or other shifters. After a few minutes we believe there's no one else around.

"We're clear," she says and we cautiously approach the lake. I get more nervous the closer we get. "Take it easy, babes. You're shaking us so much I might trip over our own feet," Adira tried to lighten the mood. "I can't help it,Adira. I'm so scared! What if we're not like either of my parents? They've told me my whole life I don't belong. If we're different from the Artic wolves, the pack will never let us go," I say sadly.

"Whether we look like them or not, will not affect how the pack sees us," Adira calmly replies. "They don't see us as pack anyway." Most of the wolves of White Moon are varying shades of white or grey. My father, being a direct descendant of the original Arctic wolves, is pure white, while my mother is more of a very light grey. I hope we end up somewhere in the middle, even a dirty white would be great. There have been rumors that my father is not pure Artic wolf. My mother is a pure mutt. Even she doesn't know her bloodline, since her father died almost as soon as she was conceived.

so my chances of extreme mutt-ness are pretty high.

We get closer to the lake and take another look around. "This is it. The beginning of a new life or a neverending nightmare." I say to Adira. "Don't be afraid. I'm here no matter what," Adira says. We creep closer to the edge and finally stick our head over the water. Gold. All I see is gold. Golden eyes in a golden face on golden chest and legs. I shake our head and blink our eyes. I look at the moon to see if it's sending gold instead of silver beams. It's the same as it always is. Maybe even brighter than before, like it wants to make sure I can see what I'm looking at clearly.

"Adira, what the hell is going on? There aren't any species of wolf that are pure golden color. Blonde maybe, but this is so obviously not blonde. What, just what, is happening?" I'm so freaked out that I can't avoid becoming more hysterical. "Calm down Renata, and I will explain," Adira, still calm, even though I think our world is crashing. "How can we be gold? Our entire bloodline is white. It may not be pure white anymore. Grey would be acceptable. Not fucking gold!" I say still freaking out.

"If you calm down, I will tell you a story," Adira says. "It will explain everything, but I need you to focus on our surroundings while I'm telling it." Adira waits patiently for me to get under control. "Ok, I'm better now. You know I love stories about our history," I can finally speak in my normal tone of voice. "At the beginning, the Moon Goddess decided she wanted her creations to be as different from each other as they were from other species. Originally, each subspecies of her wolves, actually all her creations, had a specific gift," Adira begins. "Each of the Moon Goddess's creations correlated to an actual animal to help with blending in and possibly mating if a mate wasn't found. Each set of wolves also a specific gift gift as well. Grey wolves were the biggest and strongest with the keenest senses. Great for protecting their territory," Adira tells me. "Then there are the Timber wolves; smaller, faster, smarter than the grey's. These are the ones who eventually develop all the technology for the packs. Black wolves are the one of the rarest because they were nearly wiped out early on. They were the ones who dream walked but tended to get lost in these worlds, making it easy to kill them," Adira sadly tells me. "The Arctic wolves had the gift of empathy. Since they lived mostly in a frozen world, sight and sound were nearly useless. They could sense the emotions around them to determine if it was animals or people around them. This is why the pack hates you. Their gift has gotten weak over time but the Alpha's and Luna's are still strong and the connection to the whole pack leaks this disappointment," Adira says. So now I understand why I've been treated like this all my life. But it doesn't tell me why I'm still different.

"But, why are they not able to block their emotions like the wolves of the past?" I ask Adira. "I mean, I've never heard that an entire pack was affected by the leaders. Then again I didn't know empathy was a real gift only Arctic wolves could do," I admit. "Time and mating between packs have watered down the original gift. When a pup is born to parents from different breeds, the gift is often a mutated version of both parents gifts," Adira says. "It's why it's unknown what color or gift you get until it happens. You just can't predict which gene will be stronger until the pup gets its own wolf later."

"Take your parents, for example. Your dad is the alpha, the strongest of the pack. Pure white. It's not because he's direct descendants as much as it is the White Moon alpha's selection of the whitest female for mating. It's to ensure the strongest genes get passed to the future Alpha. Keep it pure and all that royal bullshit," she says with a smirk. "They didn't follow the Goddess plan to find the one meant just for them. They usually would reject their true fated mate, if she was less white than other females. Mind you, this is only because the first pup of an Alpha is almost always a male. It doesn't matter too much for lower ranked wolves."

"This is why they can't control or understand their gifts. Since the female may have had a strong Arctic parent, they may be whiter. But the genes of the parent is still there. Since they don't know what the other's gifts were, the knowledge of how to train it is gone.," Adira adds in a sad voice. "Okay. I'm with the history lesson so far. Random mating, random wolves, random gifts. But it doesn't explain why I'm a wolf that didn't exist in the beginning," I whine. "I'm getting there. Just hold your impatient tail still," Adira snaps. "Now where was I? Oh yes random breeding," she giggles. Every once in a while, a mated set will give birth to a pup that carries all the traits of all the breeds. Meaning that both sets of parents are carrying at least 2 of the breeds themselves. This pup is gold and carries all the traits and gifts of every original wolf," she says with excitement.