The Beautiful Rogue

Three

Chapter Three

Timothee

For the past sixteen and a half years of my life, I have constantly been told of one thing by my grandmother. "You're destined for great things. You're a pure blood. Don't let anyone ever look down on you."

I admit that I later realized how arrogant her words would sound if someone else is to hear them, but she always would tell me these words in her soft, soothing, and reassuring voice. Even with the proud sounding views she instilled in my mind, I thank her for that. Greatly, I do.

I love my grandma. She's all I have left. She told me that my parents were killed protecting me from harm when I was still a baby, so she took me away to safety and we left our home. The place my grandmother told me would have been mine.

There was no way around it but to flee. We were from a very far land. We traveled lands and seas to get here to this new country.

The earliest memory I have was when my grandma and I were living in a small apartment in a new land as she called it. She sent me to school like a regular kid when I was six. By then I already felt different towards my peers. She told me I was. I was confused but I was small, I didn't know much yet. I asked her a lot of times but she would only tell me, "You will know when the right time comes."

I was a short and pale kid. I wasn't sickly. Thanks to the spirits. However, I was picked on by the boys in my class. Thinking back, I think they just didn't know how to tell or show me they liked me, while the girls were open about it. I often got lots of chocolates and cookies to bring home to my grandmother.

She wasn't that old at that time. She still isn't, in my own opinion. At a very young age, I understood that she took the job as a janitress to feed us both. I was never ashamed of that even when some kids at the building would poke fun of me because my grandma cleaned toilets in the lower ground.

As I grew up and entered new levels in school, my grandmother gradually introduced me to defensive martial arts. Damn, she was good at it. She would train with me on the rooftop of our building and as time went by, I became stronger.

She said to me once, "I'm teaching you this because someday you are gonna need to defend yourself. Don't use it for foolish reasons. And one day when you find your forever love, you will need what you learned from me to protect you both."

I was young. I didn't really get what she meant by forever love. I mean, what the hell was that? Until now, I still don't get it. Sometimes when we sit down together and talk about our day, I would ask her the question. She would just smile at me.

She's... a bundle of riddles.

When I was turning eleven, my grandma took us to live with a group of people. They were kind to us. One of the old people in their community was a close friend of my grandma. A long lost friend of hers.

It was odd how a lot of people lived in a big house, surrounded by trees and the forest. Some lived in houses close by but they still would gather around the enormous, mainly made of wood building.

And soon enough, I learned that they were werewolves.

I was not scared of them. I studied about werewolves ever since I was a little child. I was curious. And my grandma would tell me stories about them every night before I went to bed.

A couple of weeks before my twelfth birthday, there was a sense of confusion and uneasiness in the community my grandma and I lived in which I later called the pack. The elder talked to my grandma and I could tell that I was the subject of their conversation. It was something about phasing and coming of age.

I couldn't pinpoint what exactly was the content of their discussion.

A few days later, the pack was raided by a group of vicious rogues. The pack house was nearly reached and the women and children were almost killed. The leader of the pack known as the alpha was able to make the bad wolves back off. Together with his Luna, his beta, and his warriors.

The pack house sat in the middle of their so called territory. They called the perimeter the pack land borders. I learned about this from the only friend I made back there. His name was Chester. He was the second son of the alpha. He's the same age as me. And obviously, he's a werewolf.

Chester turned twelve before I did. It was a much anticipated occasion but at the same time, I felt anxious for some reason. I felt it through my grandma's actions days before. I could understand even when I was young. The pack was just raided. Everyone was still mourning. Though they were looking forward to Chester's coming of age, they were always wary of what's to come.

Yes, coming of age. It's when a werewolf phases or transforms for the first time. That's why later I wondered why my name came up at my grandma's conversation with her friend. Me and phasing were two of the things which don't go together.

That midnight that we waited for Chester's birthday, the pack was yet again, attacked by rogues. It was chaos. Everyone was in a panic. The alpha and the rest of his men surrounded the pack house to protect their family. The women, elderly and children were sent to the underground hideout, Chester and I included.

From where we were, I could hear the fight from outside. I heard growls. Snarls. Angry and desperate howls. And I smelled it. The blood. It was the second time I smelled so much blood. The first one was at the first raid.

I could feel everyone's trembling senses inside the basement. Right when the clock's big and small hands hit the twelve o'clock mark, I saw Chester phase for the first time. And the only time I ever did.

It was a painful sight. I heard bones cracking before he totally turned into his light brown wolf. He howled right after his transformation.

Chester was grieving.

That's when I noticed the silence outside. I didn't hear the nasty sounds anymore. I wanted to go out and check. I was curious. And something was nagging me to go out there and find out what happened. It was telling me not to just sit around, be protected, that I had to do something.

As I stood up and inhaled a sickening burning smell, my grandma stopped me.

"There's nothing you could do. Not yet," was what she said.

Still with the riddles.

I watched as Chester transformed back and he cried. An elder covered his naked body as he sobbed and sobbed. I wanted to come to him and calm him down. Tell him I was there for him. He was my best friend. And he just lost his family.

All of them.

Back then, I was bewildered as to how I knew why Chester and the others were crying. How I knew that all their loved ones were no more, that they died protecting their pack. My senses told me. And something else was telling me. I just didn't know what it was.

All of us who stayed in the basement, kept ourselves there until dawn. No one nagged to go out there. They all waited patiently like they were ordered to. As if they already knew what they had to do when this kind of thing was to happen. As for Chester, he had two elders comforting him.

I was sitting next to him with my grandma right before the dawn came. Only the small children slept. The rest of us stayed awake.

I could feel that whatever is awaiting us above the ground, it would surely separate me from Chester. I didn't want to, but I just felt it was definitely going to happen. I hugged my best friend, afraid to let him go. "I'm sorry this happened." I didn't know why those were the first words that came out of my mouth. They just slipped out.

Chester looked at me with tears forming in his eyes. "It's not your fault, Timothee…... Here, take this. You're my only best friend and I want you to have it." Chester gave me a bracelet. It was a black colored stretchable band with a white half-moon design on it. It was the symbol of their pack. The White Moon.

I thanked him for the bracelet and I wanted to give something back but I didn't have anything with me. My grandma forbade me from having a jewelry but she was okay with what Chester gave me. "It's enough for me as long as you keep this." Chester must have sensed my intentions. I hugged him back again. "Thank you, Ches. It's beautiful. I'll take good care of it."

Once dawn came, we all headed outside. As an elder opened the metal door that led outside, one by one, we witnessed the tragedy that we all dreaded to see.

Everything was gone. Burned down.

The pack house.

The pack members.

Alpha Karl.

Luna Keira. She chose to stay here and fight with Chester's father.

The intense burning scent was the smoke I smelled after all the bloodshed. But who burned everything down? I later understood that whatever happened back there was annihilation.

That morning was the first time I saw the fiercest grieving cries of the survivors of the pack. My insides were gnawing at me for not being able to do anything. At one point I blamed myself. I was very young. And only human. Back then that's what I thought.

"What will become of us now, grandma?" Maybe I asked because for the first time, I felt like I belonged to something. My grandma and I finally found a place to call our home. The apartment we had never felt like one.

My grandma stood next to me and sadly whispered only I could hear, "We are homeless again, Tim. We are rogues."

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