Rise from the Ashes

CHAPTER ONE

Lilia-Rose

I was stripped of my last name the day my parents died. Children are meant to be loved, and seen as a blessing to wolves. My pack, they have been too fortunate. We have so many children that many have become as humans and see children as nothing but a next step in life. They have little to no care, so long as their kid is the best at something. Literally anything will suffice.

With an alpha who blamed me for the demise of his best friend and beta, it was no wonder I was being picked on.

The abuse started out slow. At first I was grateful to live in the Alpha's basement and have a room to myself. A few years later, when I was ten, I overheard pack members talking about how no one else wanted me. They said the alpha had threatened to order pack members to take me. It was only after the new second mentioned that the pack might see him as weak if he did not take care of one of his own, that he relented. His need to be seen as a strong leader was the deciding factor.

I lost all of my friends. They now called me names. Or in a shrill voice, meant to mimic my cry they'd chant: Snow Lily, Snow Lily, who ya gonna kill? It was a lot for ten year-old me to handle. Losing my parents and then being forced on someone who did not want me. Of course I cried about all of it. Many of my nights were like that. If I wasn't emotionally charged by the bullying, then it was the nightmares.

Cold sweats plagued me as I would once again scream for my parents. Only to be woken with a bucket of ice water.

"Shut the fuck up. It's your fault they're gone." the Alpha would say as I sputter and sucked in the much needed air. "You have no right to cry."

Eventually my body, and wolf, learned to be silent as it mourned our loss.

The bullying from others got worse when Alpha began treating me like a servant. Not long after my tenth birthday he announced, to his family, that I was to earn my keep. I was his family's cook and house cleaner. The name calling turned physical. Anything to make my "work" more difficult. It started with dirt being tracked into the house and the Alpha's office. The kids in the Alpha's family would purposefully muddy up their clothing or add "accidental" tares. It escalated from there.

The Alpha's son, Jim, started the ambush. He left for school after I had. This was not uncommon, so I thought nothing of it. Until I heard him right behind me.

His hands lashed out and grasped my wrists hard. Using one foot, he knocked my feet out from under me. A friend of his helped him turn me over. That friend proceeded to kick dirt and gravel at me. Others soon joined in all while chanting: Snow Lily, Snow Lily, who ya gonna kill?

It wasn't until I was thirteen that they mustered the courage to leave a mark. Instead of kicking dirt and gravel, they threw rocks. Tiny jagged hunks of earth were being hurled at me from all sides. I begged for them to stop. The more emotion I showed, the more invigorating they found the taunting.

Snow Lily, Snow Lily,

Who you gonna kill?

You're mama and papa,

cause you selfish as hell.