Wolf Ring Alpha (Wolves of Canada)(Hiatus)

Prologue

They call it the Ring.

And they call the fighters in the Ring animals. Stupid beasts. They do it because they want to ease their consciences-what scraps they have left. IT is humanity's way to make escuses for the intolerable, to stick up for their own interests no matter what the pain on other's hearts and souls.

And they do it because we are different. We do not communicate the way they do. We are supposed to be just beasts, incapable of feelings. Of thoughts. Of desires.

Some more than others, but we all feel.

Think.

Live.

Desire.

Love, even. Well, that one's rarer than the others. Here in this place, hate is more prevalent. That and lust. Even I've been known to mate occasionally, when the desire is strong during the breeding season. I never let them choose the sire. I chose my own male to mate with, before they could force me to the rape bindings and force an equally unwilling male onto me.

Here, if you lose three matches, they'll let the opponent kill you. No fourth chance. Lose three and die. So the only choice was to win.

To win is to live.

To lose is to die.

But there can only be one winner.

And there has to be a loser. But that loser will never be me. No matter how many times that I fight, I never lose. Not after that first fight, the only one I ever lost. The name my mother gave me is Gabela, and I am a fighter in the Ring.

They call me the Black Death, because of my color. I'm black as night, a rare wolf colour, enabling you to see me clearly in the stadium, with its white sand and white-washed walls, stained with the blood of thousands. They whitewash it whenever blood sprays on the walls.

Winning makes others hate you, for you kill those they care for, until the time comes when you barely blink a lash or twitch at the sight of your own kills. I'm not to that point yet, but slowly, I am desensitizing. I have not fought for long. Just three years, which makes me four years old, I suppose. The only sense of time comes from the periodic capturing of outside wolves and their reckoning of the seasons.

It made humans uncomfortable to see such blatant cruelty painted on the walls, although they watch and do nothing to stop the killing sport they so enjoyed. It was white so that the people who pay to see this can follow my movements, and point me out to their children, who giggle and throw things at me.

Like a half-eaten corn dog, or a piece of pizza-also names gleaned from outside wolves, before they realize who I am and cower away from me. Sometimes it's French fries, slathered in gravy or ketchup or heavily salted. Once, someone threw a hamburger at me, and I had to resist gulping it down. The food we got was generally dirty and stale. If it wasn't, there was usually nothing left of the carcass. We tore it apart in seconds, gnawing bones until they were leached over every milligram of marrow they ever possessed and more.

Sometimes they threw hard stuff at me. Once, a heavy book collided with my head. I'd barely recovered in time to kill my opponent, who fought futilely against her demise, and I couldn't walk straight for a week. Sometimes, that old ache between my ears flared up again and I had problems moving. The frequency decreased with time, but it was unnerving to know that you could freeze up at any time and leave yourself wide open for attack.

But I am down in the Ring, and they are above. In the world, beyond this place. Outsiders call it hell, at least, until they die, trying to fight by the honourable codes of their foolish families. I envy those bratty children up there, and that envy is the only things that prevents me from seizing them by the throat and throwing their bodies down to the pit. Because my opponents would gladly tear a human pup apart-hell, I'd love to tear one apart myself. They're weak and disgusting and useless.