THE ROGUE WOLF

by Klaire London

  THE ROGUE WOLF

  Copyright © 2020 Klaire London

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by: JM Beckett

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  PROLOGUE

  1 | Alpha

  2 | King

  3 | Competitors

  4 | Caged

  5 | Nightmare

  6 | Ruptured

  7 | Empty

  8 | Sacrifice

  9 | War

  10 | Chaos

  11 | Scars

  12 | Storm

  13 | Cold

  14 | Desire

  15 | Azra

  16 | Feelings

  17 | Panic

  18 | Battle

  19 | Mate

  20 | Deathmatch

  21 | Finale

  22 | Fractured

  23 | Void

  24 | End

  Epilogue

  INTRODUCTION

  Aurora Thompson is a rogue. Having fled from her pack at the age of twelve, she has lived a life of peace and isolation from the packs since.

  But when her group of Rogues is attacked by a pack under the order of the dying Alpha King, and Aurora reveals her true identity, she has no choice but to compete in the Alpha Trials.

  Against one hundred other alphas, Aurora must compete to become the next Alpha Queen against her will. Losing will mean death. Winning will mean a life she doesn't want.

  Amongst the chaos, a complex and dark love flourishes. If only it wasn't with the one person Aurora had sworn never to forgive...

  ◆◆◆

  PROLOGUE

  Rogue

  ❝When you look death in the eye, and death blinks first, nothing seems impossible.❞

  Rogue. It's a word that's been circulating this world for as long as I can remember. It's the word that haunts children as they sleep, nightmares flashing visions of beasts with bared teeth. It's the word used to describe monsters that are only mentioned as whispers around an ominous campfire.

  Rogues are always portrayed as werewolves who have been stripped from their humanity, so that the pure monster within the werewolf's soul is the only thing that remains.

  I have a different opinion.

  There are some rogues who are bloodthirsty creatures. They kill for sport. Unless you have a death wish, you never want to go up against one. You will lose, alpha or not.

  But there are other rogues that are not the mindless beasts you would imagine. There are those who have fled their packs because of abuse. Others who have run away because they simply don't feel as though they belong. And there are those like me that, well, didn't have a choice.

  But I am still a rogue. Packless, to be more precise, yet I'm still classed as a mindless animal, although I'm pretty sure that I'm sane.

  I don't particularly like talking about my past, but there's a point in your life when the pain of loss becomes bearable. Of course the scars on my soul will never truly fade, but with time, they will heal.

  My history dates back to five years ago, when I was twelve years old. I wasn't a particularly special werewolf. Just a young girl who was often looked over. No one saw what was truly inside until my first shift.

  Being a female, it was rare for me to be able to shift. At the time I couldn't believe that I, an average female werewolf, was able to shift. Nor could the rest of my pack. Half wanted to kill, and the rest wanted to protect me. The situation didn't end well.

  My mother and father gave their lives to protect me, but it wasn't enough. With her dying breath, my mother had pushed me into a river, which had carried me miles South to a lake in Aurora.

  I can't count the number of times I almost died that night. It was a miracle that I was still alive at the end of the trauma, as if fate had pushed me that tiny bit further into the complexity of life.

  I blink away tears, eyes burning, heart in flames. I was stronger than this. I could have always killed myself one way or another: there was no one left who cared about me. But I didn't. I had survived for a reason, and I was going to discover that reason.

  Frustrated, I stand up, almost whacking into a branch above my head. God, why was I so clumsy? Hopefully I was growing, but that didn't mean that my limbs needed a mind of their own.

  I lean forwards over the water's edge. The sun was beginning to set, scarlet rays painting the mystical landscape a gentle pigment of crimson. There was no wind, and the only sound was the birds calling for the night. The trees were covered in a soft blanket of fresh snow, frost spiking the bark of long slain trees. The scene was tranquil, and for once, it felt calming. It felt as though I was home.

  The clear and perfectly still water of the river provided the perfect mirror. As I glanced into its fathomless depths, I could clearly see the hazel of my eyes glare back at me.

  I wouldn't consider myself pretty. Perhaps striking, but not pretty. My rich mocha hair drifted into my face, my angular nose and freckles along the bridge of the feature being partially covered up. My lips looked somewhat paler than usual, but they had never been my most prized feature.

  I sit back on my heels, and splash water into my face, clearing the muck and dirt from my skin. The water cascaded down my face, dropping to the floor, my ears able to pick up each patter as they landed.

  Sometimes, being a werewolf is amazing. But life is short. Many die from disease in their early years, and those who survive often die in battles for territory or control of a pack. The truth is that demise is inevitable being a werewolf, but some manage to postpone their sell-by-dates for a little longer.

  Sighing, I turn away from the stream and the peace it offered. It was time to head back to my temporary home.

  Five years ago, when I hauled myself from the lake, I wandered for miles before finally collapsing and accepting death. That was until they found me. The supposed 'Rogues' had taken me under their wing from then on, and I have never looked back.

  "Aura?" Someone asks from within the forest, almost causing me to jump out of my skin. It sounded as though an atomic bomb had been blasted right next to my ear. Sometimes I hated the sensitive senses you were automatically gifted with when born a werewolf.

  Taking my sword in my grasp, I head back along the path, and come face to face with Noah.

  "God, you scared me Noah. Don't you dare do that again, otherwise..." I trail off. Would I really hurt him?

  Just like me, he was seventeen, and not to mention, extremely good looking. It was difficult to not be swayed by his endless brown eyes and matching shade of hair.

  Noah raised an eyebrow. "Otherwise you'll stab me?"

  I nod. "If you insist."

  "You wouldn't do that." He argues. Although he was my closest friend in the Rogue pack, he still got on my nerves. I preferred to be alone: it gave me time to think.

  "You seem to be underestimating my personality." I state, continuing to trudge up the well-worn path. The walk to camp only took two minutes, but it was best to walk and talk rather than waste time.

  I hear the sharp snap of a twig as Noah parades behind me. "You can put your sword away now, Aurora. It's not like anyone's going to jump out from behind a tree."

  I roll my eyes. This was the true Noah - the guy who thought he could save the world. "Just because you have a bow and arrow and an arrogant personality, it doesn't make me incapa
ble of protecting myself." I retort, refusing to place the blade in my belt.

  "I am not arrogant." Noah argues back. I can't see his face, but I can imagine his jaw dropped and scrunched features so that they somewhat resembled a scowl.

  I shrug my shoulders. "If you say so." If this was his attempt at flirting with me, he had failed miserably.

  "You can be such a bitch, you know that, righ-" Noah begins, but the friendly conversation is sliced like a knife as a scream fills the empty air.

  "Crap." I murmur as the wails continued to glide through the air like the whistling blade of a hurled axe. I knew that cry. It was Lily, the child of one of the Rogue couples.

  Why would she be screaming? It's not like anything in this territory would want to hurt her.

  I sniff the air tentatively, and the aroma drifting through the forest is enough to make me shrivel my nose in disgust. This was the one time I let my guard down, and they had to attack?

  "No, no, no..." I murmur, sprinting down the rest of the path, feet thumping against the compact earth, heart racing so quickly it feels as though it wants to break out of my chest.

  Blood rushes through my ears, almost deafening me. Almost. The screams are still as prominent as ever. It was as if I was surrounded by pre-corpses, all screeching at me to make it stop. To make the pain stop.

  The seconds draw out into a millennia, each agonised breath taking a century to complete. Every footstep takes longer than humanly possible.

  When I reach my destination, I almost collapse to my knees. The tents I had called home for the past five years were alive and being hungrily devoured by flames. Werewolves carrying an assortment of weapons were shooting anyone down in their path. And the place was alive with people. People screaming. People running. People dying.

  A girl runs past me, and all I can do is grab her arm and demand, "What the hell's going on?" Because that's all that I can do.

  The girl looks terrified, but I would if I saw my face right now: masked with hatred, my features contorted into an unrecognisable creature. The face of a true rogue.

  The teenager - who's name I recall to be May - tries to tug away, but it's useless. She is too weak, and my rage is too strong. "T- they told us to move out of their territory, but we refused to. Aurora, we need to go. They'll kill us all."

  I release May, her strawberry blonde hair gushing after her like a flowing river. "Run. Find safety. I'll hold them off for as long as I can." May stares at me for a second, but every second we wasted, another innocent so called 'Rogue' died. "Go!" I order, and she does as she's told.

  I wasn't the most senior member of the group, but I had gained respect due to my skills with a sword, and my background. Many did not know about my ability to shift since it was a secret I didn't like to share around, but they all sensed that I was powerful.

  The rogues I had grown up with all run towards the North and the cover of the mountains, no other pack wolves in their way. All I had to do was buy them as much time as possible: they would never be able to outrun the pack warriors. If this was the reason as to why I had survived that fateful night, then so be it. I will die, and that will finally be the end. The end of the suffering. The end of the torment.

  The grip of my sword is cool to the touch, although it's been nestled in my fist for the past five minutes. I don't care. Nothing burns like the cold, and that scorching was the only thing fuelling both my adrenaline and fear.

  An arrow glides past my head, not aimed at me, but aimed at one of the other packs members. Noah. Even I had to admit that he was a good shot.

  Another pack wolf falls to the ground, white snow stained scarlet. I didn't have time, but I took those few seconds to study the fallen warrior. Just as suspected, he was a member of a true pack. But we had never threatened them, so why were they attacking us? Why did they want us to move?

  Faces that I grew up with glance my way as they attempt to run. That was the thing about our tight knit community: you never left a soldier behind. But I had to buy them time.

  "Run," I shout, signalling for them to head towards the mountains. They don't hesitate to charge in the direction of my hand.

  Noah comes to stand beside me, arrows flying from his bow every second or so. I raise my sword, readying myself for battle. The pack members had not noticed me yet, but with Noah slowly but surely dwindling their population, I would soon be their next target.

  "You hold them off." I tell him, the adrenaline pumping through my bloodstream at such a high concentration that I can barely think straight. I can barely even feel fear. "I'll protect the others."

  Noah nods, his supply of arrows dwindling low. I wonder how long it would take for him to run out of arrows and resort to hand to hand combat. I don't know the exact number in minutes, but I know that it'll be soon.

  Two of the pack wolves break out from the other fifteen or so werewolves, swords in hands, running so fast that they appear to be a blur.

  Without hesitating, I follow the two men, gulping when I realise that both were almost double the size of, and older too. But that didn't stop me. When you've already conquered fear in your life, it's easy to conquer it again.

  "Hey!" I shout, causing both to turn in my direction, snarls worn on their worthless faces. They growl, but the closest one to me is immediately cut off as I chuck my sword and it embeds itself straight through his chest.

  The other wolf, unexpectedly, looks unaffected by the death of pack member, but his growl begins to grow as he charges towards me, sword in tow.

  Crap. Well congratulations, Aurora, you just lost your sword.

  I sprint towards the werewolf, reducing the meters between us. He swings out his arm, sword lashing towards me, but just at the last second I duck under the blade and slide on my knees somewhat, just escaping my head becoming decapitated.

  I stumble to my feet, grabbing my sword from the chest of the fallen warrior. The man was not yet dead: I had missed his major organ by a few centimetres. Even so, he would be dead soon, and part of me thought that he deserved it, because who in their right mind would have the objective to kill children?

  Turning around, I come face to face with my opponent. He was ghastly looking with a burn across most of his face, and a claw mark running from his eyebrow to his cheek. This werewolf had been through a lot, and I knew that my chances of getting through this battle alive were slim.

  The man sniggers at me, his beastly face becoming even more hideous, if that was even possible. He didn't look much older than me. Nineteen, perhaps? But I didn't care. He wanted to kill me, and I wanted to kill him.

  "Are you gonna cry, bitch? Because if you do, I might take it easy on you." The man snarls, rage fizzing through my body like wildfire.

  I never cried. Yes, I almost did earlier, but I couldn't remember the last time I formed tears.

  With a battle cry, I swing my sword around with all my might, hoping that the battle would be short, and that I would come out victor. But my opponent smashes my dreams as his sword meets mine, a metallic clang filling the frost-bitten air.

  Frustrated, I swing my sword again, but to no avail. Of course I knew what I was doing with such a weapon, but my body was so pumped full of chemicals, I could barely make a sense of the world around me.

  For a third time, I slash with my majestic blade, only for it to be knocked out of my hand by the extreme force exerted from the blade of my opponent.

  I grit my teeth, not even thinking for one second before ploughing into the man head first, arms outstretched, animalistic cry tearing from my throat.

  The man's body was hard, but I was able to knock him back by a few meters and cause him to drop his sword. My head hurts from the impact, but I don't care. I had already lost one family, and I wasn't going to lose another.

  A fist meets my stomach, and I release my hold of the monster, coughing blood from my mouth. If I wasn't angry already, I was completely and utterly enraged, my eyesight blurry, my wolf beginning to show.

  I didn't have
anger issues: I just used my indignation to fight. It allowed me unleash all of the locked up feelings I had been stowing away for years.

  Powerless, I stagger back, the man closing in. He was so close, I could almost smell his breath and reach out to tickle him under the chin.

  The man smiled, pleased at the situation. His hands were no longer fists, but tensing fingers that could snap my neck at a moment's notice.