***Content Warning: Violence and Sexual Assault***
"Daddy, I'm scared!" I cried, tears forming in the corners of my eyes. My father stood protectively in front of me, blocking the view of my mother and the attackers, but I could hear the fighting. The sound of fangs shredding flesh, yelping and squelching, growling and snarling were flooding my ears and the terror in my chest was constricting my breath.
"I know, darling, but you need to be braver than you've ever been before. You can do this."
I shook my head, tears now streaming down my face. "I can't!"
"Yes, you can, Aria. You can and you must." His hands moved in a circling pattern, fingers pointed, and he mumbled something quietly that I couldn't make out above the cacophony of battle. A ball of green light formed between his hands and his eyes glowed, matching the crackling energy he wielded. He pushed his hands toward me and it flew at me, absorbing into me painlessly. I had no idea what spell he just cast on me, but I knew it was meant to protect me.
"Now go!" he shouted at me, turning around to face the fighting. "Whatever you do, don't look back. Run, Aria!RUN!"
The urgency in his voice connected somewhere deep inside of me, and I was compelled to obey. I turned and fled, trampling the chanterelles scattered on the forest floor with my feet. We had spent all morning gathering them before the rogues ambushed us. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted my basket of treasures that I had collected, and I leaned over to grasp the handle, but I didn't see the tree root sticking out of the ground. My small body tumbled forward and I landed in a crevice of the roots, my ankle bursting with intense pain. I looked up and I could see my parents in the small clearing ahead.
My mother had shifted into her large black wolf and was covered in blood, fighting two partially shifted rogues. My father was next to her, facing two others. Green flames shot from his hands and landed on them. They screeched in agony as the magic enveloped their bodies and they burned, and a moment later they fell, their bodies charcoaled. The spell must have tired my father, for he fell to his knees and looked exhausted.
The two rogues attacking my mother's wolf were slashing at her with long claws extending from their fingers. She jumped and tore out the throat on one of them, while the other slashed at her shoulder. She turned to him, her haunches bristled, blood dripping from her fangs. Her full Alpha aura intimidated the strongest of foes but the rogue just snarled back at her. They lunged at each other and my mother swiftly seized his neck and disposed of him.
A rogue with one eye and greasy black hair dropped from the trees next to my mom while she was dealing with her last opponent. He took advantage of her distraction and raked his claws deeply into her side. Blood and gore instantly came gushing out and she collapsed, her wolf crashing to the ground. Her body transformed back to her human form, naked and unconsious. I could see a blackness spreading through her veins as she rapidly turned grey. My father cried out in anguish. "Victoria!" He threw himself onto her body, openly sobbing.
The one eyed rogue spit on him, a sizzling sound coming from the skin on my father where the saliva landed, and spoke in a gravelly voice. "After I am done with you, Luna, I will have fun with your Alpha."
Even at five years old, I knew that the power my Alpha mother wielded was strong enough to take on a small group of rogues. I knew that my father, while only human, was the strongest warlock in the area. Something was wrong. How were they so strong against them? What were the mysterious black streaks?
The rogue kicked my father in the stomach with strength that I had never seen before, and he flew, landing against a tree trunk. I heard a loud snapping sound and he slumped over, lifeless. Then the monster turned his attention back to my mother. Bile rose in my throat and tears flowed from my eyes, blurring my vision as he grasped her hips, positioned her body and started pumping, jerking himself in and out. Then he raised his face and howled in victory EEP EEP EEP EEP EEP...
The sound of my alarm blaring woke me up and I bolted upright, gasping, my heart pounding. I looked around the room frantically, my head spinning from the nightmare. I turned my alarm off and took a deep breath, my whole body shuddering as I tried to steady my nerves. It didn't matter how many times I had the same awful dream, it always felt so real.
I'd been having the nightmare more frequently lately, and I wasn't sure why or how to make it stop. I hated reliving the last moments I shared with my parents and I was being forced to in my dreams nearly every night.
There were details about that awful day that I must have repressed, because I didn't remember them from my childhood. Little things like the color of their eyes, tattoos, the way they moved, the awful things they did to my mom that I was too young to understand when I was five. Now I knew and I desperately wished that I didn't.
Taking deep breaths, I tried to think about happy things to distract myself. Diego's grinning face was the first thing to pop in my head. I focused on his face, studied each feature in my mind, allowing my heartbeat to steady. Slowly, my body began to calm. I exhaled deeply and stepped out of bed to face the day.
Absorbed in my thoughts as I threw on some loose jeans and a cropped tee, I almost didn't hear my phone buzz with an incoming text.
Diego: We still on for training after school?
Me: Yep
Diego: Great. Prepare to be destroyed.
I chuckled at my best friend's confidence. We had been training together since we were 6 years old. He was an excellent fighter and very strong, but I was fast.
Me: Ha! We shall see about that.
I grabbed a banana and a bagel from the pantry and left the house quietly, trying not to wake uncle Bill. After my parents died, he took me in. He was my mom's younger brother and the pack had wanted him to take her place as Alpha but he refused, citing that he was too weak from the loss of his mate a few years prior and now his sister, his only sibling. The elder council subsequently passed the title to then-Beta Brian, who took up the mantle with pride.
As I walked to school I munched on my breakfast and tried to convince myself that I was okay, I was safe and that Diego and my uncle could protect me. I may be a good fighter but without my wolf I was no match for a shifted werewolf, rogue or not.
Diego had already shifted at the normal age of sixteen, but my wolf had never come. My eighteenth birthday was 6 days away, and it hadn't happened yet. At this point, I figured it never would. I also hadn't exhibited any magical abilities, like my father. I remember him telling me that every firstborn in our family had been blessed with magic by Selene, the moon goddess, for centuries. He and my mom had often mused if I would be a werewolf or a witch one day. Secretly, I had always hoped to be both. I would be the first wolf witch hybrid known to our kind. The universe must have other plans, however, because I'm neither.
Thinking of my mom and dad just reminded me all over again of the nightmare plaguing me,which then caused a familiar pain to start to creep into my temples. Ever since my parents died I have been connected to emotions on a physical level. Not just my own, either. Other people's feelings affect me even more. I've never told anyone about it, not even Diego. After all, it is just one more thing that makes me feel like a freak, different from everyone else.
Passing through the park our pack had created in honor of my parents, I was drawn to the bench with their dedication plaque on it. I spent a few minutes resting, my head swimming with jumbled thoughts and feelings. The nightmare started playing in my head on a loop.
I felt the familiar sensation of a panic attack setting in. I hadn't had one in years, so it caught me off guard. "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10" I repeated over and over in my head. I tried taking slow breaths to calm my heart rate. Instead of slowing down, however, my pulse quickened and my lungs felt like someone had turned off the oxygenin the air. I gasped and my breath came faster and faster. All of a sudden the one eyed monster's face stared at me, snarling, his fangs bared.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to dispel the horrific vision from my sight. My heart pounded so hard it felt like it would jump out of my chest. I was drowning in panic. Everything started spinning and I fell off the bench, hitting the ground hard, and the darkness consumed me.