Chapter 8: Cruel Fate

Chapter 8: Cruel Fate

Mink’s P.O.V

I watched four men approach us from the other end of the desert. Each one was wearing the traditional Gujarati dhoti-kurta along with the multicolored turbans. Their stance was rigid, their expression harsh.

One hundred years later and the world hasn’t changed all that much from since I was a child. Shifters are still a male dominated species, not much different from the patriarchal society that humans live in.

I often wonder what it was that made men so special that they thought they could rule every aspect of everyone’s lives. Be it humans or shifters, women were always looked down upon. I could understand the theory behind this discrimination with humans, but shifters? Shifters were strong and that strength didn’t discriminate between male or female.

The highest I’ve ever seen a female shifter rise in rank was a beta in a deer shifter pack, which was pretty unconventional considering that most of the deer packs comprise of females with one big horned male. That was why I didn’t like the idea of a pack. I didn’t want to be confined by the rules of a pack and I would never bow down to another man for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, the term used for such packless, mateless wolves such as me and Ruksaar, was Rouges. Not a pretty term considering that rogues were usually violent in their temperament and their only aim was to wreck havoc in the world, but that’s how the saying goes. However, I preferred the term lone wolf.

“State your purpose of being here, rogue!” A tall man in his late twenties spat out, like he had swallowed something distasteful.

I raised my eyebrows at him. “I’m under no such obligation.”

“You have some nerve, woman!” Another man spoke up from behind the first one, obviously the beta. “You come into our land and roam around like this place belongs to you! State your purpose or prepare to die!”

“Oh?” Ruksaar spoke up from beside me as she pretended to examine her nails. “If you’re that desperate to know our purpose of visit, how about letting me take a bite out of you? I’ve never had falcon meat before, is that purpose enough for you?”

“Shut up, wretched woma-“

“Enough!” I let my wolf seep into my voice as I stepped forward to face the Alpha. “Our purpose of visit is none of your business and neither should you have any interest in either of us. Go about your day without bothering us, falcon or the consequences will not be in your favor.”

The men backed down a few steps but their ego was still intact. “You come to our land and threaten us!” Spoke the young Alpha. “You might be wolves but you cannot take on an entire flock of falcons!”

“What land are you even talking about?” I asked the Alpha. “These sands that you see once belonged to my pack. I was born here but you weren’t. Your flock flew in when you could no longer find prey in the desert. So technically, you are standing in my land, not the other way around.”

The men looked at me in confusion for a few seconds before realization dawned on them, followed by fear. The Alpha was the first to speak, his voice holding a tremor that wasn’t there before. “There hasn’t been a wolf pack in Gujarat for a hundred year now, not until….you can’t be! They’re all dead! No one survived!”

“And yet, no one ever questions who killed them all,” I tilted my head to one side, watching the sun rise in the horizon over the dunes. “Who set fire to an entire village and killed the most ferocious Alpha known to man? None of you ask questions that are actually important.”

“What you’re speaking of is impossible!” The beta accused. “Only an Alpha can kill an Alpha. And for you to have killed Rafael…no! You cannot be an Alpha! Women are not Alpha’s!”

“Wanna test that theory?” Ruksaar mocked the men, letting her wolf rise to the surface.

The falcons weren’t a predatory pack like us wolves. They were scavengers, the lowest of the low. Shifter packs were usually divided amongst predatory, non-predatory and scavengers, with predatory packs being on top of the food chain.

No, it didn’t mean that other packs couldn’t harm a predator, a heard of buffaloes could easily trample a lion. But the predators were usually feared by all.

It wasn’t a surprise however, to see a scavenger pack trying to challenge two predatory lone wolves, especially since we were women. Apparently, women, whether predatory or non-predatory, fell even below scavengers in the social hierarchy. Which is exactly why the falcon Alpha of the SkySummit flock decided to call us out in the middle of the desert, that too before sunrise.

It was also an added bonus that they had brought extra men to outnumber us. I don’t believe their crap about humans finding out about us shifters bullshit one tiny bit. They had thought they could intimidate and overpower two women, be it predatory wolves, in the dark of the night, probably scare us into submission. Oh, how the world the changed.

What they hadn’t expected was to find an Alpha wolf and her companion that belonged to the dreaded BloodPlegde pack of Mouri. It wasn’t their fault to be honest, so I couldn’t be mad at them. Men were raised to feel superior to women, be it human or shifter, even though men didn’t have the gift of procreation. But what can I do to change their though? I am but one woman.

The falcons didn’t wait for an answer. They simply turned tail and fled the scene.

“Aren’t we going to chase after them?” Ruksaar asked. She was practically bouncing on her toes, ready to chase the falcons.

“No,” I shook my head. “We’ve made our point clear and they’ve got the message. Anything else and they’d consider us serious threat.”

“But we are a serious threat!” Ruksaar complained.

“Yes, but what would chasing after them achieve?” I asked her. “You may be doing this just for the thrill of it but falcons are a sensitive bunch, they might feel threatened and try to relocate. You have to keep in mind that their flock doesn’t only consist of men like the Alpha and his followers, but also women and children. Uprooting their entire flock may also come as a shock to the children and they might not make it to their next destination.”

Ruksaar blinked up at me with her big brown eyes. “For someone who doesn’t want to build a pack, you sure know a awful lot about how it operates.”

“Every Alpha knows how a pack operates. It’s built into their bones.” I told her. “But that doesn’t mean I want to form a pack, Ruksaar. We’ve had this conversation plenty of times and I’m not entertaining it any longer.” With that I turned and started walking the long way back to the village.

“Oh, come on, jiji!” Ruksaar followed behind me with quick steps. “Wait up!”

Sometimes I thought if I really wanted to be an Alpha or not, but I guess I didn’t have a choice in that matter. I was already an Alpha, an Alpha without a pack.

Why was I even created? Why was I so unique? Why was I even born as an Alpha?

My mother and father had hidden me from Rafael’s view right after I was born not only because I was a girl but because I was so different. Everything about me screamed foreigner and yet, I was of this land. And it was what attracted people to me, both good and bad.

Humans, I wasn’t worried about, but shifters were a whole new story that I didn’t even want to divulge into.

What cruel fate had the Moon Goddess planned out for me for making me the way I was? I wasn’t a question I could find an answer to easily, especially after searching for it for the last century.

 Not only did I stick out like a sore thumb, I was also given a human mate. A mate that my wolf longed for, wanted to be close to, and yet, he was someone who I couldn’t bring into my life because human lives were far shorter than those of wolves…and eventually, if by some miracle I accepted the mating bond, death awaited not long after and I would be left alone for another eternity with a gaping hole in my heart.

What a cruel fate indeed…