Ashes to Ashes

Chapter One- Twenty Years Later

I huffed as I waited behind a tree, not a great hiding place but good enough against the persistent little five year old. I listened quietly, trying to manage my breathing so it didn't overshadow my hearing, when I heard a twig snap and a sudden yell had me falling on my back with a violent giggle.

"I found you, I found you!" Mia yelled with pride as she lay on top of me from her tackle.

"That you did, little wolf," I said, poking her sides. She erupted into a fit of laughter, her eyes shining with glee. "But we do need to get back," I told her after I stopped my assault. She pouted lightly.

"But I don't wanna," She argued, crossing her arms across her chest.

"And I don't want to do my chores but sometimes we have to," I said with a tutt, grabbing her hand and pulling her up with me as we weaved through trees back to the pack house. I had many things I needed to do today, including shadowing my mother as she accomplished her tasks as mother of the pack. The wolves here depended on my father for protection and guidance while my mother nurtured and took care of them. There was a lot of paperwork that came with their titles as Alpha and Luna, but they both preferred to interact with the pack, leaving the papers in the back of their mind until it couldn't be ignored anymore. My mother spent her days with the children, offering advice to new moms and helping families with their constant needs.

Today would be spent at the orphanage, where we took in rogue children without families or children who had lost their parents in our pack, which wasn't often but as my father says 'we can't protect them from everything, just hope that we've done enough to keep them safe'. It wore on my father at times, though he wouldn't admit it. No one was ever truly safe at this day in age. Rogue attacks were more frequent and a constant raging war between packs had everyone on edge, especially the Alpha whose job it was to keep the wolves in his pack safe.

Mia and I made it to the front porch of the pack house where she let go of my hand and ran into her mother, Emily's arms. She was sitting next to my mother, Luna Abigail, who was drinking a cup of coffee as if today was going to be perfect and she wouldn't accept less, which she usually didn't. My mom smiled warmly at me as I kissed her on the cheek and told her I was going to get ready.

"Don't take too long, you and Mia spent too much time in the woods and we're running behind." She told me sternly. I rolled my eyes with a smile, while running up the stairs.

I saw my parents as a gift, I got blessed with two caring and loving people but they were also protective and hard. I knew why so I never blamed them, I got anything I ever wanted growing up, spoiled if you will but I was the only child,  my parents were ever able to conceive and a female Alpha was rare and usually frowned upon. They wanted me to be ready, prepared.

I was adored in the pack but also feared. I never understood it as a kid, to me I was just like everyone else until I noticed every kid looked like their parents in some way. So I asked my parents why I didn't look like them, and they didn't have an answer. Then I noticed that compared to the tan and dark haired wolves around me, I was the exact opposite. It never bothered me until I got to junior high and my friends would blush when they talked to boys, they would cry when they got hurt, and one of my friends even dyed her hair funky colors. I convinced my mom to let me do it, which she was against from the beginning, always telling me my unique appearance was from the moon goddess, but I didn't feel unique, I felt out of place.

Eventually she let me, we applied the color, let it sit and washed it, only for it to remain white. Not blonde, not a pale yellow, but a bright and voluminous white. After that I stopped trying to change it and started embracing it. It was hard at first, just like I didn't understand why I was different; they didn't either, so they avoided me like the plague. They were nice of course, my title came with many things including respect but the older I got the more I learned there was a difference between given respect and earned respect. It didn't take me long to receive the latter.