With a loud scream fueled by intense anger, Raya rushed forward, transforming into a wolf, and charged towards the people, furiously snapping at anything in her path.

The scorching flames were hot against her neck and her fur, causing them to become sang, but she did not care. She tried to go into the burning house, but the people surrounding her pulled her back. Their faces had a wicked grin on them. Satisfied with the havoc that they had wrecked and hungry to do even more damage.

“Your time is coming,” the leader of the mob said, cackling wickedly. She had brown hair and dark brown eyes with a sharp face, like an evil queen in a fairy’s book. The woman’s name was Serena and Raya had been surprised she would do such to her. Serena was one of her mother’s best friends. They used to hang out all the time until her mother’s death. When her mother died, Serena had shunned their family, but this was extreme.

“But first, we have to allow you to wail in misery of your sister’s death.”

Raya clawed at the woman who grabbed her neck. She gnashed her teeth wildly and fought stubbornly to be let go. The flames had turned her all-white fur into a dirty-looking brown.

“Why don’t we put her out of her misery now?” another girl spoke. “Let her reunite with her father in the underworld.”

“I’m sure she used some form of sorcery to be mated to the Alpha,” another one said. “Thank the heavens he rejected her. A daughter of a murderer is no good.”

Weak and tired, she slowly morphed back into her human form and was at the feet of the woman who held her tightly. She tried to crawl away but to no avail. The woman stooped low to her level and pulled hard at her hair.

“So you used sorcery on the Alpha?” She sneered.

“Let me go,” Raya wheezed. Her body was shaking uncontrollably—exhausted from the affairs of the day and pent up with worry for her sister. “Just let me go.”

Her heart felt so heavy that it broke. Her little sister, whose birthday was two days away, had passed away because of the brutality of her pack members. The same sister that she had seen that morning, content and happy even though things were hard.

She had left her sister at home with a promise to be back soon so she could go to the palace for the celebration. She wanted to get free food, and she knew the pack members did not like her family, so if she went with her sister, she would not be able to hide herself amongst the crowd. If not for that, she would not have left her sister by herself.

The woman refused to let her be; instead, she dragged her to the center of the mob. The people were throwing rocks and stickers at her, bruising every exposed part of her body without mercy. Her body ached, but there was nothing she could do but scream and trash in agony.

Raya was in shock and disbelief as to the extent to which the people of her pack could be cruel. It was as if cheering as her father had been unjustly executed had not been enough; they still had to connive to shun her, causing her to go bankrupt but burning her harmless sister to her death? Publicly stoning her? This was the height of cruelty, and all for what? What grave sin had her family committed? Why could they not be left in peace?

Just as she had that thought, her heart squeezed in anguish.

Family?

She was the only one left. With her sister burnt alive, her mother killed by thugs that had invaded the pack, and her father beheaded by the Alpha, she had no one. She never knew much about her distant relatives.

After her father’s death and the people saw that no one took care of them, rumor had it that they used to be from another pack but had migrated to the outskirts of the Dark Moon pack because they were wanted criminals. Whenever Raya remembered the rumor, she scoffed in disgust. It made her realize that people could be so easily brainwashed.

For one, it was not easy to migrate to another pack because most packs were not friendly to outsiders. A good example was the tragedy that had befallen her family. If the rumor that was from another pack had been confirmed true she would not be alive to this moment.

“You should not be amongst us,” an old man spat at her. “You do not deserve to be a member of our pack.”

Someone lit a torch and handed it to the woman who led the mob. “Burn her alive!” the voice screamed, and the mob began to echo the same chant.

Just as the torch was thrown in her direction, narrowly missing her ear, a deep voice shouted out, “Thieves! They have come again to raid the pack!”

The people scattered and rushed away to tender to their private properties, but the person who had made the announcement did not follow them. He had a mischievous grin on his face as the crowd went into a frenzy. His plan had worked out just as he had imagined; no one was paying Raya any attention.

Without hesitation, he approached Raya and held out his hand. “Let’s run away now. It’s only a matter of time before they realize it is a false alarm.”

As Raya looked up, she did not doubt in her mind that this man whom the Alpha seconded in terms of looks was the most handsome man she had ever seen. He was tall and muscular, and she was he would be reputed for making girls swoon as he walked by. She imagined he also had a reputation for being tender-hearted, and he was, quite obviously, polar opposites to the Alpha.

But that was the least of Raya’s concerns.