Henrietta's POV:
I didn't lie when I told Sir Cornel that I and my brother became strays three years ago. But I did lie when I told him that I couldn't remember anything from my life before becoming a stray.
My brother and I were the illegitimate children of Alpha Adam, the Alpha of Highbrow pack in the South. He and my mum, Sherry, had a secret relationship which produced me and my brother.
Because my dad was already married and his Luna was a fierce woman who would not hesitate to kill my mother and us if we were ever discovered, we had to stay hidden.
But dad really loved us. He always made out time to come visit us and be with us. I remember crying and complaining to him once because we couldn't go to his own house to stay but dad calmed me down, telling me that very soon, we would be able to come see him in his house.
I believed these words until when I turned eight. It was on the day of my eight birthday that I realized just how complicated our ties with my father was and how our life would be in so much danger if anyone else especially the Luna found out about our existence. So, we had to stay hidden and quiet.
And to be honest, I didn't mind this too much because dad never made me or my brother feel rejected. He always came around, he always visited. He always showered us with gifts, love and care.
For as long as I have lived, I was exposed to the power struggle that existed in our world. From the North to the East to the South to the West.
In this world, only the strongest packs thrived and the weak ones were erased from the world.
Even in the South, there were still internal power struggles between the various packs for supremacy and it was not abnormal for a pack of wolves to be lynched and ambushed. This was life here. This was normal. Any pack that was destroyed was said to have finally lost the battle of life.
And in my father's case, the danger was doubled. Not only was he fighting for survival and supremacy amongst the Southern packs, but his pack was also sworn enemies with all the packs from the North.
I heard stories of how the Northerners had mercilessly butchered some of my father's pack members after kidnapping them when they had gone for a wedding celebration happening in another Southern pack that was cool with the Northerners.
Everyday I prayed to the gods to help my father become the strongest Alpha in all of the South and to finally squash the North. When I was eight, the Highbrow pack was the third strongest pack in all of the South.
Things didn't turn out the way I prayed and hoped that they would, because one night, a night that started off peaceful and calm, a night in which my father was visiting us, turned into calamity and disaster.
I was startled up from sleep by a heart wrenching and bloody growl made by a pack member.
I knew what that sound was. It was a signal. A signal that indicated that war had started and once again, my father and his pack had to fight for survival.
My mom panicked, my brother started crying, I cried too but not outwardly but in my heart, I heard my dad tell my mom that we should lock the door and stay in the house. But if we felt the battle approaching our house, then we should flee. Dad pressed a necklace into my hands and kissed me and my brother on the head. He hugged us, kissed my mother and dashed out.
I let go of my brother, found a corner in the living room, knelt down and began to pray to the gods.
"god Lycan, god Lunaria, god Thritus, please give my dad victory. He isn't a bad man. Please", I prayed earnestly.
As we stayed panicking in the living room, mum suddenly started packing a few things together for us to flee, the battle hadn't ended yet and was sounding not so far off from where we lived, so my mum had to get ready. As she did this, I watched her. She was crying and muttering silently to herself. I could tell that she was praying.
Then suddenly, what we were fearing the most happened.
"No!!!! Alpha Adam!!!", someone screamed from afar. My mum slumped to the floor. I understood exactly what that shout meant. My dad had been killed.
"Why didn't you answer me gods? Why?" I cried, asking our so-called gods in disappointment.
My heart broke. My world shattered. My dad was dead. I would never see him again. I screamed, I shouted, I picked up a scissors and started chopping off my hair, I threw the scissors on the glass table, shattering it. I was filled with anger towards those that had killed my father.
I wanted to kill them, end them, destroy them. And so, I headed towards the door, determined to bring justice to my father when suddenly, a hand grasped my arm tightly.
"What do you think you are doing Henrietta?!". It was my mum speaking, her eyes alarmed.
"I am going to punish those who took my father from me!"
My mummy looked at me pitifully, she started crying all over again and shook her head.
"My daughter, you can't. You would be crushed. What's done is done."
"No mum! No", I tried to break free from her but she didn't let go.
Amidst the struggle, we heard another powerful scream coming from behind our house.
My mum panicked!
"They are attacking from the back too?!" My mum screamed.
Immediately, she picked up Benji who was crying silently in a corner, carried him and asked me to run ahead of her.
And so we rushed out. We hadn't gotten so far from the house when we heard an explosion sound. We looked back to see that our house and the three houses closest to ours had just been bombed!
I screamed in horror but mum urged me to keep running. The war was now happening everywhere. As we ran, we heard blows, sword clashes, guns, explosions, wolves flying in the air, angry growls, dead naked people, pieces of silver bullets, all of it. But we kept running.
And suddenly, a gun shot rang out close to us and mum screamed and fell to the ground.
"Mum?!" I screamed. "Mum no!!!!" "Mum please!!! Oh God!"
My mum who had now become weak from the bullet that had pierced her chest, spoke faintly to me.
"My Reeree, here, take your brother and get away from here"
"Mum no! We won't leave you", I said crying.
"You have to"
"No mum"
"Listen to me Henrietta, I don't have much time.", mum said and placed her hands on my head and on my brother's head.
"You and your brother will survive. You will live. You will become great werewolves. Your enemies shall all crumble. This cruel world wouldn't take you two prematurely. I bless you my children. It is well with you two."
Then she kissed us and breathed her last.
I screamed at the top of my lungs and I felt near suffocation. I have lost my mum, my everything. In one night, I have gone from being a happy child with two thriving parents to an orphan.
I knelt down, swaying forward and backward, covered my ears and numbed myself to the war sounds and gun shots and fightings that still saturated the air.
"Mum, where did you leave me to go? What do you want me and Benji to do?!"
"gods! How cruel can you be huh?! How dare you take away the only people in this entire world that my brother and I had. How could you?!"
"Mum, mum wake up! Wake up!", I screamed. I looked at my younger brother and my heart broke even further. The collar of his yellow shirt had torn. There were cuts on his legs.
His eyes were swollen as he had been crying so much, even up till now.
I didn't know what happened to me at that moment, but all I know is that looking at my brother, I made a decision. I chose to be strong. I chose to be responsible for the both of us. I had to live. Because that's the only way my little brother can also live.
And so, therefore, I stiffened my pain, closed my heart, picked up my brother and we fled..
We kept running and running until the war cries were far behind us. I recognized an uncompleted bungalow building some distance ahead of us and so I ran into it with my brother.
But I had to be on high alert. Before settling down, I made sure that no one else was in the building with us. Thus satisfied that we were now relatively safe from danger, I put my brother to sleep and I slept off too.
We were discovered in the morning by a group of workers who had come to commence their work for the day on the building and that's how my brother and I became strays.
But the life of a stray and a packless person in the South was cruel. You were beaten, punished, made to work, underfed and no one really gave a fuck about you. No one.
And so, that's why I made the decision to come to the North with my brother. For a better life. For a safe life. But I knew the risks. I knew that the Northern packs despi
sed my father's pack. And because of this, my brother and I had to keep our true origin and identity hidden.