The Voice of the Wolf

(Alena’s Point of View) “You. Omega. Come clean this s**t up. Alpha and the pack don’t need to see dirty dishes and trash piled in the kitchen.” I looked up at the one speaking to me as I silently went about cleaning the dishes and picking up the trash. I was used to it. As the packhouse cleaner, it was common for me to have to do such menial tasks. A typical day for me consisted of cleaning the kitchen after I'd cooked for one hundred or more members, cleaning the pack house itself from top to bottom, and making sure the linens were clean for everyone and folded. You would think I would have some help... but for some reason, I am the only one who was ever given the tasks. It wouldn't be so bad if they didn’t intentionally make the place a pigsty for me. So many times, I’ve finished cleaning, and someone comes in with muddy shoes and walks across the freshly mopped floor, or they would smash a dish in the game room. They would snicker and sneer at me when I came in and cleaned it up. The Alpha... I’ve complained once to him... and he didn't care. Most of the time, the Alpha and Betas stayed away from what was happening to me and I will never know why. It makes me hate them more than the ones who are hurting me. Who just ignores abuse like that? I was not born into this pack. I look nothing like the many who were. Most here had strawberry blond or red hair and were fit and athletic, while the rest were stocky. I was none of those things. I had deep brown hair and green eyes; petite in stature, but still semi-strong from the work I was constantly doing for them all. I had scars all over my body from their abuse and I wish I had known where I came from... But that was not something anyone would tell me. It was frustrating, to say the least, while I grew up. I was taunted and treated poorly, and it only got worse when they found out I could not speak. I knew it was because my wolf hadn’t shown itself to me yet. Alyssa liked to terrorize me the most out of all of them. She tells everyone I am just a rogue who was dropped in the woods because my parents found out I was a human. She’s told the Pack leaders on more than one occasion she thinks I need to be killed to protect our kind. The scary part was that some people agreed with her, but the elders denied the request and said that I couldn’t speak, and I smelt like a wolf, so there was no reason to do that to me. Small victories, I guess. No one had ever heard of a mute wolf. it just didn’t happen, at least that was what I was told when I was being called a freak and “the mute b***h”. The alpha of the pack didn’t care that I was treated terribly either and it made my life a living hell. I’ve thought of ending my life many times, but each time, I would just feel as if something were telling me not to. The moment I stopped myself each time, the feeling would go away. I shook my head as I cleaned the kitchen, even the things I wasn’t asked to clean I scrubbed until it shone and smelled of lemon cleaner. The other members of the pack house came back in, looked around at the kitchen, and nodded. Ms. Addly was a nice enough lady, she had a chubby and round face with short blond hair. She knew how bad everyone was towards me, and usually treated me fairly. She didn’t get in the way of the others who did it, but she would sneak me small bits of food here and there to make sure I didn’t starve to death from malnutrition. That was common here, I didn’t get to eat too much. It all had to go to the guards and pack members who were worth something, according to Alyssa. It was a common insult that I couldn’t cook but everyone still ate it. Alyssa always made sure there was almost nothing left for me by the end of the meal. Either throwing it away or making sure one of the guards had more than they needed. “Don’t want to waste it on a dead freak walking.” She would sneer, and everyone would laugh. I came out of my daydream as Miss Addly spoke to me. “Good. At least it's clean. Now go and ru...” The door flew open as she was speaking, and 3 girls came inside. One after one, they came inside. The leader, a tall thin blonde, and her two shorter, stockier brunette friends. Allie, Alyssa, and Alex. Triple A as they liked to be called around the pack. They were no good and trouble to me, but the pack leaders loved them and were sure she would be the next Luna once a replacement alpha had been found. “You again!?” Allie, the leader, shrieked in her fake high-pitched voice, “Why are they still letting you touch our things? I mean, they say you clean it, but it smells of a mute b***h all over the place.” she pinched her nose in fake disgust. Her cronies snickered behind them at the bad joke. Rolling my eyes, I went to walk past them and continue my chores, but that made Allie angry. She let me past her just a small fraction before pulling on my hair and throwing me to the floor. Stepping over me, she looked down with a face full of rage, “You will NOT walk away from your future Luna, Freak!” She snarled over me, “Know your f*****g place you filthy piece of trash!” Then she grinned from ear to ear, it made her look diabolical as she seemingly came up with a brilliant idea in her mind, “Better yet... Alyssa, the trash dumps, they get emptied today, right?” skank number 2, Alyssa, nodded with a matching evil grin on her face. Allie waved her two hench people over and they all grabbed me by the arms and legs and lifted me up off the floor. Fearful of what they might do and there was no one there defending me or my well-being, I began to struggle viciously. I jerked around so violently that I made them drop me, my body hitting the floor with a loud (and painful) THUD. Snarling as she lost her grip on me, Allie went and aimed a kick at my side, causing me to fall into a coughing fit. “Don’t f*****g move or I'll kill you.” she said quietly to me before making the other two stooges lift me again. Barely able to breathe from her kick and my coughing, I had no choice but to oblige to her demand. Unable to fight back, they had no trouble with taking me outside to the dumpsters and dumping me in. The pack houses leftovers, trash, and other unmentionables that had been thrown away were smeared all over my clothing. I was hopeful, thinking that someone would see them and stop them, but of course, no one interfered. No one ever interfered. I closed my eyes in dismay as I awaited the unwarranted punishment for my existence. My ears twitched as I heard a jangling sound, then heard Allie let out a curse “s**t! The lock isn't here...” A moment later the lid opened, and she peeked inside with a sneer, her perfect hair swinging down over her shoulders, “We are just going to wait until the trash guy comes to get you. If you even TRY to escape.” she looks at the girls behind her, out of my sight, and smirks back to me, “we WILL kill you, you freak!” She slammed the dumpster shut and I could hear them cackling about it as they walked away. I just sat there staring at the lid, wondering why they all treated me this way. Angry tears rolled down my face as I sat there in the pack's trash. What did I do to deserve this? Why did I have to deal with this, and God damn it, WHY CAN'T I TALK! I put my head on my knees and started to cry silent tears. I should’ve just let them kill me... at least then I’d be okay... I wouldn’t have to deal with this anymore. For a second, I thought about just climbing out, but for what? Why bother trying to climb back out of the same misery? Feeling defeated, I leaned back against the dumpster wall and waited for the trash collector to come take me to the edge of the land for the human trash collectors to pick up my and my companion's trash. That’s how it worked here. We collected our trash every week and then it would get hauled by an Omega with an ATV to the edge of the territory where the humans were paid to keep us on their routes for pick up. We also ordered from them food we couldn’t raise or grow for ourselves. For all our “superiority”, I couldn’t help but notice how much we relied on humans for supplemental assistance. As the hours went by at an agonizingly slow rate, I heard the multitude of people passing the dumpster. I had a feeling that if I made some kind of noise, maybe someone would stop and help me... but I couldn’t guarantee that. I could not guarantee that any one of the people passing was either a friend of the trio of evil skanks, or even one of them. Another hour passed and the ATV finally came. The sound of whistling as the groundskeeper got ready to drag the dumpster to the territory edge. I could hear the clank of the hook as the groundskeeper attached the trailer with the dumpster on it to their tow hitch and a moment later, felt the jerk of us moving. I thought of just climbing out now and making a run for it, but I am still in the pack’s territory, and I don’t want to give them a reason to hunt me down and use the ‘we thought she was a rogue’ excuse. May as well not give them more of a chance to have the pack kill me off. Who knows… maybe a life away from here, even in the human world, might be nice. I spent the trip fantasizing about what it would be like to live in the human world. 30 minutes later, we were at the edge of the territory, and I was jerked from my daydream. As the dumpster came to a halt, I heard whoever it was driving unhook the trailer and leave on the ATV. I wasn’t sure what I should do but I knew I couldn’t go back or they might actually kill me. Another hour passed and the human garbagemen came and collected the dumpster. As the dumpster was lifted by the truck and dumped into the gaping hole of the trash abyss that was the trash compactor, I fell in with the garbage and did not care that he did not see me falling in. I was very happy that they had not decided to compact the trash just yet. I felt the truck jostle as it went into gear and started to drive away from the territory… I stifled a sob as we drove away… not out of sadness, but for happiness. I had never been away from the territory; I had never thought I was ever going to be able to leave it. With my parents gone… I had always felt trapped there. It made it worse that I was treated like a pariah there. It was not easy, but as we drove further and further away, more trash was dumped. As the pile grew, I climbed the bags so that I didn’t become a corpse among the garbage. Sitting atop the truck, ducking away when cars passed us, I watched to avoid anyone seeing me sit dangerously on top of a garbage truck. However, when we neared a beautiful redwood forest, I decided to climb down the back of the truck as the driver stopped and loaded the next haul of trash on their route. As he drove off, I snuck off into the forest to find a river or body of water to clean the garbage off myself with. This area of the woods was HUGE. I was blown away by the beauty and size of it, and for a brief moment, I was worried that I was going into another pack’s territory. This feeling lasted for a moment as I needed to find water before hiking to the nearest human city, I did not think that humans would like a smelly girl walking around. I don’t know much about humans, but it can't be that different than dealing with the pack members... hopefully, they weren’t as bad as the wolves in the Little Lake Pack. I trekked through the forest, and about two miles in... I found a small body of water and sighed in relief. Happily, I disrobed the filthy rags that I had for clothing and began to clean them as best I could in the clear water. As I scrubbed, my eyes scanned the wood line around me, trying to get the ratty clothing clean, or at least attempt to make it look like clothing again. When I had gotten the clothing free of as much grime as I could, I hung them on the branch of a low-hanging tree. With another scan of the wood line, I gingerly stepped into the water, still nervously looking around, before I lowered myself to my neck in the refreshingly cold water. With a sigh of relief and a soft sob, I began to scrub myself with my nails; trying to get all the filth I'd collected off my skin with a fervent need. Hundreds of little red marks on my skin later, I stood up and looked down at my body, happy to not smell like a dumpster or trash anymore. I took a moment to stop and stand there in the forest, my feet still in the water. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, lifting my chin to the sky as I exhaled. For the first time in my entire life, I was free. Free of torture, free of ridicule, free of being a slave to the pack. Tears fell down my face as my body, for the first time in forever, was allowed to relax more than it had ever been allowed to before. Sniffling, I wiped my eyes as I went to take my clothes off the branch, annoyed they were still damp, and put them on. Once dressed, I began to walk again, in no particular direction. I couldn’t help but notice just how peaceful the forest was as I made my way further in. I smiled as I walked, happy to have the freedom to just roam, never having been able to do so before. In my old territory, I would have been punished for taking a moment to myself… I would have been brought back, beaten by Alyssa or one of her goons, and forced to cook dinner now. Shaking my head at the invasive thoughts, I took a deep breath and kept going deeper into the woods, ignoring the thought that I should stop and walk to the human city like I originally planned. A few miles into the woods, I began to get an uneasy feeling as I was walking. The thought of someone watching me was real and it made the hair on my neck stand, every instinct in my body was screaming to run and hide… but I had never been that great at running or hiding, I had the scars from the beatings to prove it from the triple-A group. Looking around, I began to walk quickly in a different direction. I started to breathe heavily as the stress of the unknown began to get to me. I picked up my pace, but it was to no avail as four exceptionally LARGE brown wolves were suddenly in front of me, snarling and baring their very long and sharp teeth at me. The immense size of them alone made the guards of Little Lake look like pups and, while I couldn’t prove it definitively, their wolves seemed to make the ground shake right underneath me. Wide-eyed, I opened my mouth to scream, like the normal reaction would be, but only silence was provided, and I started to run away. Bobbing and weaving through the trees, I was stupidly optimistic that I would make it away… and then I was cut off by the largest wolf I’d ever seen in my life. It towered over the other four by at least 3 feet and its fur was as white as fresh fallen snow. It had bright silver eyes that seemed to stare into my soul, but my eyes were focused on the teeth being bared at me as it snarled loudly, the sound echoing throughout the forest, causing birds to scatter in the sky. My breath caught in my throat as I skidded to a halt right in front of it. My eyes began to flit back and forth as I looked for an escape route, fearful of the fact that I was either in another pack's territory or there were rogue wolves. Regardless, I was done for. The four smaller wolves began sniffing the air and walked up to me, circling me, before one of them shifted back to their human form and walked swiftly up to me to hold my upper arm tightly. He was a handsome man, I had to admit, with a tall stature, broad shoulders, and long brown hair that seemed rather shaggy. He had a strong chin and a sharp jawline. The most noticeable thing about him, however, was the large scar that marked his face. It went from the top left of his head to the bottom right of his jaw and it was a jarring sight. I stared at him, frightened and fascinated… that is until he glared down at me and shoved me around by my arm to look me over before addressing the white wolf. “Alpha, what should we do with her?” He asked the white wolf, his hand still firmly grasping my upper arm. My eyes darted back to the gigantic white wolf with fear. This was their alpha? Just my luck. The alpha stared at me with a weird look and walked towards me slowly. Its nose was in the air as it appeared to be sniffing something only it could smell. The wolf lowered its head quickly, its eyes staring at my and the guard’s direction. Its eyes narrowed as it seemed to growl in our general direction, to my dismay. I closed my eyes as I began to shiver violently as I realized that this may be my final moments... damn it! Why didn’t I just go to the human city as I planned? I wouldn’t be in this situation and even if I was homeless, at least I’d be ALIVE! With my eyes closed, I heard the wolf growl again, but this time it seemed directed elsewhere. I frowned as I felt the guard loosen his grip on my arm and I heard him move away from me. Nervously, I opened one eye and looked at what was happening, surprised I was still alive. To further my surprise, the alpha had apparently shifted back to his human form. My throat felt tight as their alpha began to walk towards me, almost as if he was hunting. His feet moved in precise spots, and he barely made any noise…even in the forest full of dried fall leaves and broken branches. He walked with confidence and purpose towards me, looking so strong, even in his human form. My mouth dropped open, still silent as I was unable to make a sound of disbelief, awe, or any other sound that I am sure many females made when in his presence. He was absolutely the most handsome man I had ever seen… and that included the alpha and the pack house members in the Little Lake Pack. This alpha had all black hair and silver eyes… the same color I saw in his wolf... which was unusual. Most wolves have different colored eyes than their human counterparts. His skin was a soft tanned color, he had a tribal looking sleeve down his right arm, and he was VERY fit. I blushed as I realized I was staring at the man. When a shift happens, the clothing is either removed prior to the shift, or it’s destroyed when you shift. There was quite a bit of him that was showing at the moment. I had to stop myself from drooling just looking at him. As he continued to walk towards me, I noticed that he was staring back at me. His brow furrowed as his eyes scanned me, looking me up and down, his gaze looking eerily… hungry. It made me severely uneasy and reaffirmed the possibility of my dying in the forest. I was unable to move with my arm still in the firm grasp of the guard. I began to squirm, attempting to somehow break free… arm be damned. The guard's grasp tightened in response, and I winced in pain. The alpha had made it to us, as I winced, and his face showed anger. I was unsure what for. Perhaps he was angry a random mutt was in his territory, or maybe it was because they thought I was a rogue and he was angry that I had not been killed yet. Either way, this was not going the way I wanted it to go, and I got more fearful as the seconds ticked on. My eyes widened as he stood in front of me, staring at me. No words were spoken, and everything seemed to stand still. “Alpha, what should we do with the rogue?” The guard asked, looking dutifully at his leader. “If you prefer, you can leave us to her… you don’t need to dirty your hands with one measly mutt.” The alpha's glare was mesmerizing as his silver eyes looked, what felt like, into my soul. Minutes passed and his guards began to fidget, unsure where this was all going. The alpha looked at the guard holding me and nodded his head at my arm. This must have meant letting me go because, a second later, I was free. My eyes darted back and forth between them all and I took off running. I could hear the alpha shouting something, but the adrenaline was pumping and all I could hear was my thoughts racing, telling me to make my escape before they killed me. The forest was a labyrinth of trees and shrubbery as I made my way through it, never slowing down or stopping. My side was in pain, and it felt as though I was fighting a cramp, but I had to keep going. I had to survive and reach the human city. Once there, I could blend in with the derelicts and just fade into the crowd, forgotten by the supernatural world entirely. I finally came to a stop after what felt like miles. Gasping for breath, I doubled over with my hands on my knees, retching from the lack of available oxygen. I took in large gulps of air as I frantically kept looking around, afraid that they’d be there soon. As a human, I could never DREAM of outrunning them if they chose to chase me… which was a likely occurrence considering they thought I was a rogue. My body stiffens as I hear a howl in the distance behind me. The sound makes me jump and I begin to run again, sprinting through the forest. Ducking, and weaving through the branches and shrubs until I find a cave-like dwelling. Knowing that they’d sniff me out in seconds… I quickly went in to see if there was any water I could hide in. Not seeing any, I began to turn around... until I stopped in my tracks with the realization of my scent giving me away. I started to tear off my clothes and run again, throwing my clothing in different directions, and then changing my direction. I did this until I was in my underwear, and I was lucky enough to come across another lake. It was a decent-sized lake, so I just dove in and swam to the middle of it. I scanned the area, listening for the howls of the pursuing wolves. It did not take long for me to start hearing the howls, as they got closer… I prepared to dive below the surface. Bracing myself, I waited until I could physically hear them before I went under and found a root to hold onto. Hopefully… I wouldn’t drown before they left.