Darkest Before the Dawn

The Banishment

"For the sake of your parents, loyal pack members of the Luna Woods Pack. I have decided not to kill you where you stand. Instead I shall banish you. Do not take this as mercy, if I ever see you again on my lands, I will kill you." He said, his face emotionless, his tone strong and serious. I was no longer a pack member in his eyes, but a danger to his way of life. A danger to everyone in this pack. A danger to his authority, to his power, which in his mind is probably worse than all the others.

The words that he spoke hadn't sunk in, I stood there unmoving not able to process how he had just ruined my life. Had I known disobeying him in such a small manner, could lead to the end of any fairy tale life I wanted.

"I will escort you to MY borders, you will take nothing and say goodbye to no one." He told me firmly and despite the circumstances I was happy he told me what to do. I had no idea how to react or what to do with myself. I nodded my head and followed silently behind my alpha...I mean the Alpha of the Luna Woods pack.

Thanks to the wonders of the mind link, when I followed the Alpha outside into the courtyard all eyes were instantly on me, and their eyes were full of hatred. People I went to school with, people who I considered friends, older mothers who baked me cookies and couples who babysat me all now looking at me with nothing but pure loathing. I shivered under their gazes and kept my head down, refusing to meet their eyes, afraid if I dared to look up into the eyes of the people I love, they would kill me with no hesitation. I am a short walk away from being banished, a rogue, and that made me a threat to them.

Once he had led me to the edge of the borders, he turned to face me hesitantly. There was a strange noise as in his human form he brought his claws forward. Sharp and dangerous. I gulped nervously taking in a few panicked breaths. Everyone knows how to distinguish a rogue from a pack member, a rogue can be identified by a scar starting from the left side of their neck all the way down to their heart. The scar is created by the four claws of the rogue’s previous Alpha. It is a warning sign to other packs of their betrayals, a scar that would never heal.

I could see in his eyes past all his newborn hatred for me, that he didn't want to be the one to inflict the scarring wound upon me, to permanently brand me as a rogue. I used to be friends with his daughter. Our mothers were friends, and since birth so had we. We took baths together as infants and we had been friends for many years until she moved away to be with her mate. The Alpha was like an Uncle to me, someone that would look after me when I was in trouble, like earlier today during the attack, he took time to ensure I was okay, but not now.

I looked past his hatred and the fact that he was going to banish me and tried to comfort him with a smile. Trying to say through my expressions that I could never hate him, no matter what he would do to me. He was always the best Alpha, doing his best to do what was right for his people and if getting rid of me was what was right. Who was I to say what he was doing was wrong? Maybe there was something deeply wrong with me, the day I was born I became a ticking time bomb. My mind just waiting for the right day to betray my pack, and that day has come.

I wasn't paying attention when his hand finally moved to strike me, in the corner of my eye his movement caught my attention and I turned at the last and worst possible moment. His claws painfully nicked the side of my face before clawing deeply through my flesh, carving his way through the muscle in my chest and my collar bone. I couldn’t feel the pain, adrenaline coursing through my blood, my heart pounding relentlessly against my ribs.

When I looked up to face him, he looked startled for a moment before his face went hard and uncaring. He shoved me over the borderline and I tripped over falling to my back.

“Goodbye traitor.” He snarled viciously, the sound foreign to my ears and I tremble at the sound. I propped myself up onto my elbows watching a man who I once cared deeply for, leave me to the fate of the dangers of unmarked territory, where an untrained unmated girl like me had a slim chance of living to see the next sunrise.

As he disappeared out of sight it started to rain heavily, pouring down on my shivering form. Delicately washing away the blood that resulted as a consequence of my actions. Pools of water started to form around me, and I looked down into the puddle.

What I saw caused me to burst out into tears. His claws had created a scar over my left eye, blood sliding down my face. I could taste the bitter metallic flavour in my mouth and I spat it out. Wanting nothing else but to be rid of the scar, but it's just like the carvings on my chest. A wound inflicted by an Alpha will never heal.

Within minutes the last of the remaining sun had vanished beyond the horizon and I knew I had to move or die. Rogue don’t often stray so close to border lines so I’d be safe from them if I remained here, but I would not be saved from border patrol, which I’m sure will resume their duties shortly, the Alpha giving me a short window of time to pass into no man’s land, unowned land scattered around the borders of pack land.

I get up from off the ground, mud slipping off me as I walk away from the borderline. Not sure where to go I wonder aimlessly into the woods. I turn back one more time to look at my home, but the pack borderline is no longer in view. It’s in this moment that I decide, to never look backwards again. I march onward, deeper, and deeper into the woods until I can no longer smell a trace of that pack.

All I can hear is the sound of my own footsteps crunching against the leaves and the insects who can now be heard chirping in the silence of night. Cold has seeped deep within my bones in a way it has never done before, rogues have the warmth of their wolf’s fur to keep them warm at night, I do not have a wolf to warm me.

I come across a large tree, its roots crawling across the surface of the soil. It’s in between two large roots that I dig a burrow for myself. Bloods seeps from the edges of my nails, as my fingers frantically dig through the soil, until a child sized hole is created in the soil. I zip up my sweater, tuck the hem of my jeans into my socks trapping my remaining warmth in before climbing into the hole. The burrow kept the wind off of me, as I struggled to fall into a restless sleep. Waking every few hours at the sound of twigs breaking, or owls hooting, or even the feeling of insects crawling across my skin. Though, eventually I fell into a sleep that lasted until morning, the worst day of my life passed, to make room for the second...