Finding Happily Ever After

Chapter 1

I love this band! ^^

I woke up to the shrill scream of a whistle. All around me, I heard the female werewolves rushed around the bunk room, getting dressed and ready for the day.

Groaning, I rolled over and got out of bed. That's when it hit me:  My birthday. Today is my sixteenth birthday. Today is the day that I get my work assignment, the day that determines how I live the rest of my life.

I was part of the BlackFangs pack, the largest and most powerful pack in the world. Our first leader, the fearsome Alpha Abernathy, had been determined to expand our territory and have complete dominance over other packs. To strengthen the BlackFangs pack, he completely did away with traditional pack life and restructured our pack in a very unconventional way.

Infants and children under the age of 6 were kept at the nursery and preschool, where they were cared for and taught basic, unimportant things like colors, numbers, and the alphabet. After they graduated preschool, male children were sent to a separate school to train in combat, while females were kept in these sort of sweat shops, where all of the packs clothes, shoes, blankets, and more were made. In my shop, I spent my days sewing buttons onto soldiers' jackets.

On our 16th birthday, we were required to take a placement exam. The exam measured us based on five categories: strength, endurance, intelligence, talent, and physical attributes. The boys were also tested on their combat skills both in human and wolf form. This determined what job we would spend the rest of our lives doing.

Most of the boys ended up becoming soldiers. Our pack had managed to  conquer so many others mainly because of the sheer size of our army. A male only had to be somewhat strong, have decent aim, or decent fighting skills to be placed in the army. 

Those males who lacked proficiency in any of those were likely to go to the labor camps where they spent the rest of their lives doing manual labor. Most of the women ended up here because the men were needed for the army. Any who showed any level of strength and endurance were sent to the labor camps.

There was the option of higher education, but that option was only given to the males or females who received exceptionally high scores on the intelligence portion of their exams. It was extremely rare to place into this category, and those who did went on to become things like political advisors, war strategists, doctors, and architects.

Women who were lucky were allowed to become caregivers, teachers, cooks, and servants for the alpha family. This, again, was rare and was mostly given to women who didn't really fit in any other category.

The last option was the most horrendous in my opinion. Those who scored high in all five categories became breeders. Alpha Abernathy wanted only the best genes to be passed on to the next generation, so werewolves in the BlackFangs pack were no longer allowed to search for their mate (the one person that the moon goddess made specifically for them) and have a family. Instead, the only children came from the breeders and recently vanquished packs.

Far more females became breeders than males. It only took one man to impregnate many women, and once the women became pregnant, they were sort of out of commission for the next nine months and had to be replaced. Pregnant women were taken to a seperate facility where they were pampered and well taken care of to ensure the birth of healthy children.

Surprisingly, this was one of the most coveted jobs. It was an easy enough life, I suppose, free of labor. The men particularly loved that they got to spend the rest of their days bedding women. But I can't imagine wanting to spend the rest of my fertile days pushing out babies. Babies that you would never see again after they were born, for they were immediately carted off to the nurseries to be looked after by strangers, by caregivers. And did no one care that they were sleeping with people who were not their mates? I suppose that they didn't know about mates...

In order to keep the population content, Alpha Abernathy kept us in ignorance. In the past, children were told about mates as soon as they could comprehend. Parents told their kids about how they met their mate, about how they fell in love as soon as their eyes met, and how flames of pleasure engulfed their bodies whenever they touched. They would say that their wolves howled in pleasure whenever they were near their mates and cried when separated. Finding your mate would turn even the most submissive male into an aggressive, possessive man.

But now, children were kept from their parents. They were not even taught to read, and it was forbidden for stories to be told of life before Alpha Abernathy took control of BlackFangs pack.

I only knew of these things because I was lucky. One of the caretakers, Melinda, had taken a liking to me because my long dark hair and green eyes apparently reminded her of her own daughter. She was from a pack that had been recently conquered before I was moved to the sweatshops, and had been separated from her family upon her arrival to our pack. Because she would never again see her own daughter, she treated me as her own.

Melinda taught me to read and write while the other girls were sleeping. Every few weeks, she would sneak a new book under my pillow for me to read at night. I read all sorts of books, from romance novels to mysteries, books about science, and even a few textbooks that taught me about the outside world. My favorite books were the ones about werewolf life before the rise of the BlackFangs pack. The ones that told of how the now dwindling packs that were not yet merged with ours still lived.

It was my hope to receive higher education. I imagined that because I had been taught to read, I might have a leg up on the other girls. If I could become a political advisor, maybe I could one day persuade the alpha to do away with this horrendous caste system. Then, maybe one day I could find my mate and fall in love.

"Olivia, child, hurry up and get ready! You don't want to be late to your exam and give the administrators a bad impression, do you?" Melinda chided, breaking me out of my thoughts.

As the other girls filtered out of the bunk room and headed to the workshop, I quickly dressed in my uniform and rushed to the cafeteria. My administrator was already there, waiting for me.

He was standing in the doorway, wearing a black suit and shiny leather shoes. His hair was slicked back in a greasy style. While tapping his foot impatiently, he tightened his tie that already looked like it was strangling him. I wondered briefly why the administrators had to dress up, and why oily hair was supposed to look nice.

I hurried into the room and flashed him a friendly smile, hoping to make a good impression.

His only response was to grunt out, "Olivia?"

"Yes, that's me," I replied sweetly, still smiling.

"Follow me to your testing sight," he ordered, making his way out of the cafeteria.

I closely shadowed him, a bundle of nerves. The only thing keeping me from jumping out of my skin was hope for the future.

Thank you for reading!! I really appreciate it :)

If you like the story, make sure to comment or vote 

I would really love to have some feedback!

The first chapter was boring, I know. But, if you made it through, hopefully you'll think that the next chapters are more entertaining!

By the way, I really don't like the name "BlackFangs." Does anyone have a better idea??!!