Raven's POV

The night sky seems even darker than usual tonight, with just a sliver of the moon shining

down on us. I silently run through the woods letting my wolf Emerald out tonight. She has been

anxious all day, well really the last few days, and I could tell that she needed to come out for a

run. So, we did what we normally do, took a small nap to wait until after Iam to make sure no

one would be around, and then headed out for our run. I would always stick to the woods just

over the far ridge from my pack, as it is near my favorite stream when I need a little peace. It is

always quietest over on this side of the pack, as it is the closest to our neighbors, the Blood

Walker pack. They are our neighbors to the north, but their land only borders ours for about

two thousand feet. They have never entered our land, and the whole pack has all been warned

not to trespass onto their land. We were all advised of the dire consequences that would arise

if someone ever did. We would be at war instantly, as we are not friendly neighbors and we do

not have a treaty with them. I have heard horror stories about their Alpha. They are a very

strong pack, and the outcome of a war between us would not be favorable to us here at the

Silver Blade pack.

Alpha Cole Walker is the Alpha of the Blood Walker pack. He is said to be one of the most

dangerous Alphas in the United States. It is said that he would kill anyone who dared to enter

his packlands uninvited. Due to this fact, most of our pack members studiously avoid this area

altogether. I take advantage of that and use this area to enjoy my solitude, and what little

freedom [ can get from the packhouse, by coming here when I do manage to get out. The

Goddess knows that I need it too. I do not know what I ever did to deserve the life I live, yet I

live it every single day. The blatant hate in the pack member's eyes. The nasty comments and

physical abuse I suffer are bad enough. But I have to say the worst of it is the disrespect and

unwarranted anger that the pack has for me. My twin sister, Reagan, on the other hand, is the

golden child of the pack. They all love her unconditionally. She is cherished and appreciated,

no matter what she does. They all seem to ignore the fact that she is a horrible and mean she-

wolf. I was born first, and with that should come the respect that after I find my mate, I will

officially be the Luna here, and he will take over as the Alpha of the pack. Yet they all treat her

as the next Luna.

“No, you won't Raven. I have already seen it, you know in your heart that we will never be given

this pack. In fact, you should have listened to me and packed before we got our nap tonight. I

already know our fate, but you have to take your own steps in this. I cannot tell you what is

about to happen, as what you decide to do tonight will seal out fate. Whether we will live or

die, will all be decided by you” Emerald tells me through our link.

“I know they hate us, for whatever stupid reason. I have known this for a while since I have

been treated like this from a young child. There was nothing that I could have done to deserve

this treatment that I have received, not from my earliest memory until today. There is nothing

that we can do about it, I feel it too Emerald. Something really bad is about to happen, and I

am scared” I linked her back. I can tell that something big is about to happen, and when it

does, I know that my life will be changed completely.

“Get dressed and hide, I can hear them coming this way. You will need to hide in a tree, but I

will block our scent from whoever it is to protect us” Emerald tells me, and we took off further

into the woods heading away from the packhouse. I head to an area that I know has a change

of clothes for me to wear. Even with the outcome known to her, she doesn't ever want to hurt

me. She has been the only good thing to happen to me in my young life, and I love her like a

sister. I wish she were my sister, instead of Reagan. I got my wolf two months ago when Reagan

and I both turned eighteen years old. Emerald is a strong wolf, and she is really smart. She is a

pretty large wolf too, but I have never been phased and near another wolf to see how much

bigger she will be next to them.

I phased back to human and dressed quickly because whoever it is, they are very close to

where I am now. I won't take the chance of getting hurt again by just standing here. As the

firstborn child of the Alpha of the Silver Blade pack, I really should be able to defend myself.

My sister and I are the only children that our parents had. The Goddess never blessed them

with another child, even though they tried for years. My father, Alpha Graham Sullivan, is very

strict with me. I am not allowed to leave my room other than to eat my meals and then return

back to my room again. I am also not allowed to leave our packland for any reason. I have

never even crossed the border of the Sliver Blade packlands in my life. I have always been told

it is for my own protection but never given a reason for why I need the protection. Reagan is

not a prisoner here, she goes to the movies, shopping, on dates, and leaves the pack all the

time. I get her hand-me-down clothes, well at the least clothes that I consider acceptable. We

do not have the same taste in clothes. I like my butt to be covered, so her dresses and skirts

are all unacceptable. I will take her jeans and t-shirts though. I have no idea what is out there,

outside the pack walls, other than what I have read in the books in the library. I have made a

lot of use of the books in our library. They really helped when I finally got my wolf when I

turned I8 two months ago. That was the only way that I knew what was about to happen to me

when I phased into my wolf for the first time. The level of pain I was in was pretty bad, but now

in just two short months, I can phase into my wolf very quickly, and it is painless to phase for

me now.

I was alone for my first phase, and that was as expected too. Instead of mom and dad having

us together for our first shifts, they were both with Reagan and left me behind. My mother the

Luna, Cassandra Sullivan, was positive that I would not be given a wolf. The whole pack in fact

believed that I was wolfless, as neither she, nor my father, or anyone else in the pack for that

matter had ever sensed that I had a wolf. Emerald has hidden her scent from the pack this

whole time. When we leave our room and go downstairs, she hides our scent, she hid it when I

was finishing my last month at school too. I am more thankful that Emerald did that for me

than her healing me from when I had my little “accidents” I would prefer everyone to think

that I have no wolf, as I think I need to get out of the Silver Blade pack. Things are really bad

here, and the chances of my mate being here in this pack are pretty slim. Even if he were in

this pack, the probability of him rejecting me right off the bat is 50/50. I get bumped, shoved,

tripped, and bones broken, more than it should be possible for me to have as the daughter of

the Alpha of this pack. That is why I am required to stay in my room, or the library, when I do

get permission to go there from mom. She is nicer to me than my father is, but that isn't saying

very much. She has never taken my side in front of him, for in anything in my life.

Dad has never hit me, or physically hurt me. What he does is actually worse, it is all emotional

abuse, and it has cut me to my core on each and every occasion. You would think that I would

have learned that fact by now. I honestly should never get hopeful that he might have a

change of heart and love me too. For him to see how much I love him, and my mother. But it

never happens, he has never said a kind word to me. He has never taken up for or supported

me, and that fact alone is what hurts the most. He thinks the very worst of me all the time. He

is the most important person in my life, the one I look up to the most, and he actually hates

me more than anyone else in this stupid pack.

I guess I will never know why, I have asked numerous times, and all I am met with is anger, and

then my parents leaving whatever room we were in at the time. They both leave, heading in

two separate directions, and neither of them will tell me anything. Whatever the secret is, it is

the pack’s biggest secret, and that makes me even more nervous about why they hate me so

much. My sister hates me too, but she is really smart about how she hides it, faking concern as

if she cares. She totally works up my tormenters, and then walks away while I call out for help.

I learned the real truth of our relationship at fourteen years old. The truth was that I would not

be able to trust her, ever again. I was hurt more than I had ever previously been hurt and

ended up in the pack hospital with several broken bones and knocked out from hitting the

ground so hard.

Reagan was there when it happened, but as I was waking up, I heard the story that she was

telling dad. The whole thing was a lie. When I was finally able to speak, I did tell dad what had

actually happened, and then he slapped me for lying. He immediately took her side of it, not

mine, and I actually learned two lessons on that day. The first is just how much Reagan will

boldly lie to our parents, or really anyone, to get her way. Second, she started that whole

event, and never got in trouble for attempting to kill me. She walked right out the door with

dad, giving me a smirk as they left, knowing that dad totally believed the lies she told. He had

broken my heart again, and I swore from that day forward that I was locking him out of my

heart. I was never going to hope that he would change, or truly love me, ever again. I can still

remember him walking out of my hospital room with his arm around her shoulders murmuring

to her about how much he loved her, and her smirking back at me. That was the cherry on top

of the sundae, and I decided right then and there that I would not be allowing either of them

to catch me unawares, or off guard again.

Mom had given me a little smile before she went to leave my hospital room before stopping at

the door and telling me, “I will be back to check on you in the morning. I will have an Omega

bring you a book to read tonight” I watched her as she walked out of the room, leaving me

alone with the silence that was overwhelming, and seemed to take over the room. It was at

that moment that my heartbreak was complete. A short time later all that could be heard from

my room were the sound of my sobs, as I cried myself to sleep. I knew the book would never

come, and it didn’t. Even if mom did manage to remember what she had said to me, The

Omegas never really cared for me at all. I was unimportant in the pack, as that fact had been

drilled into me every single day. No one had to listen to me or fulfill any of my requests. Like

my own birthday cake, or at least for them to put both of our names on our birthday cake.

Instead every year it was only Reagan's name on the cake, and me not allowed to come to the

party. No gifts were ever for me, they were always just for Reagan. My mom had come back

alone to the hospital the following afternoon to get me checked out, and to go back to my

room to complete the healing process. I was back in my room that night, with no dinner

because I couldn't maneuver the stairs. Goddess forbid someone had to bring food up for me.

It was at the 48-hour mark when my mom decided to check on me to see why I hadn't come

down to eat any of my meals. They had forgotten that I was not able to use the stairs to get

down to the dining room and we had no elevator here at the packhouse. I healed slowly,

according to my family, and that was the first time the rumor that I had no wolf, started to

spread. It ran rampant, and my dad did nothing to stop it, it actually seemed to please him

that I didn’t have a wolf.

I started climbing a tree to hide and got about 20 feet up from the base of the tree. I picked a

spot where there were two strong branches coming out very close together, stretching out from

the tree trunk, and got comfortable on the branches. Whoever was coming their way here are

near, and I didn’t want to get caught out of the house. I wasn't very well known to the whole

pack just the kids that had gone to school with me would really know me, otherwise, they

would have to have seen me eating in the dining hall with my parents. I was the Alpha's

daughter, but I was not a valued member of this pack. Telling on me has always resulted in a

bonus for whoever told on me to my father. I have had to learn how to overcome this on my

own. It has made me very independent over the years, as well as a very good climber. I use the

tree outside my window at the packhouse, to climb up and down to get in and out of my room.

From my vantage point, I can see who is coming now and rolled my eyes so hard I almost saw

my brain. Goddess, it was Reagan, and she was pulling the arm of a pretty large guy, as she

headed toward the grassy bank near my tree. I realized right this moment that I have picked a

terrible place to hide. I should have doubled back and then climbed in my window to my room

and I would have been safe and sound in my room. Reagan is clearly out with one of her many

men, as she was allowed to stay out and do whatever she wanted to. I mean how else could

she beat me to finding her mate if she didn't sleep with all the unmated men in our pack? I

rolled my eyes again and then froze when I looked at them again and got a good look at his

face. That smell coming off of him was starting to drive me wild, he smelled like freshly baked

cinnamon buns, and I was now pissed off. She had come here with the guy that I had a crush

on, someone with whom she had never shown any interest in before. It was our Beta’s son and

the guy that I have had a crush on for the last year and a half. I had dreamed of him becoming

my mate, and now I am completely disgusted as my twin sister Reagan is about to sleep with

my mate, and I had no way to stop her from doing it.