Moonstruck

𝓸𝓷𝓮 | The Girl in the Parade

Red, red, red. That was all Ellie could see. Scarlet streamers and banners, pierced through with golden shafts of late afternoon sunlight, cast a blushing rosy glow upon the face of each spectator in the crowd. The very air, laden with crimson confetti and savory scents from food trucks lining the crowded streets, vibrated with jubilant roars and cheers of, "Sanguine! Sanguine! Sanguine!" For what was meant to be a funerary procession, the parade oozed with ostentation—though Ellie had to admit that the werewolves could indeed put up an impressive display. After all, the Sanguine Pack needed to remind all its protectorates, including Ellie's usually sleepy backwater hometown Rosette Village, who was in charge. Even in the face of all the carnage caused by the war.

Ellie remembered when she had first heard the news from the tinny, staticky little radio perched askew atop the cluttered kitchen counter while having breakfast with—to her dismay and disgust—her stepfather. The recent battle at Sangria had been perhaps the bloodiest of all so far; it had resulted in the death of tens of thousands of people, over half of them Sanguine werewolves. Including the Alpha and Luna of the Sanguine Pack.

"It's a shame they're not letting the Beta take charge," her stepfather had said, spraying her with spittle as he wolfed down the omelet Ellie had cooked for her mother—not for him. "Instead, we're all gonna have to listen to some random kid who disappeared to who-knows-where for two years and suddenly decided to turn up again just because he felt like it."
Ellie ignored him, tilting her head to listen closer to the radio. At the ripe young age of sixteen—only a year older than Ellie—Seth Reagan, the nephew of the late Alpha Asher, was indeed the youngest Alpha in modern Sanguine history. Nonetheless, he was a far better choice for Alpha than his father, Beta Caleb—who, in Ellie's opinion, deserved to be castrated. But it came as no surprise that someone like her stepfather—Jack Aston, or as Ellie thought of him, the Jackass—would think otherwise.

"Hey, you!" Jack had said abruptly, almost startling her into overturning her cup of coffee. "Isn't the Pack starting to recruit humans now? An affirmative action kinda thing? Maybe we should ship you off to the House so you can shoot your shot at that boy."

"I'm not human." Nor interested in that boy—or any boy, for that matter.

"You're as good as. Better try and mate up than mope around the house everyday like your good-for-nothing mother, right?"

Ellie had left the kitchen table in a hurry and ran to her mother—not to seek comfort, but to find someone to restrain her before she could get into serious trouble for assaulting the Jackass.

A soft, cool hand slipped into Ellie's, snapping her out of her musings. She tore her eyes away from the parade and glanced towards her mother, who gave her a small smile. "What are you thinking?"

Ellie frowned. She didn't like how cold her mother's hand felt. How pale she looked, how wan and drawn. Her mother's light olive complexion, so much like Ellie's, did little to hide the toll the past year had taken upon her.  Even their shared caramel-brown hair and hazel doe eyes, once the pride and joy of the Bellamy family, looked ill-fitting on her now. The fact that Ellie's mother probably hadn't gotten a restful night's sleep since the last blood moon didn't help, either.

"Are you okay, Mom? You look tired."

Her mother merely squeezed her hand in response and returned to watching the procession. Ellie followed suit, and found herself scanning the procession of scarlet-clad, straight-backed werewolves, their faces both triumphant and sober, almost as if she was looking for something—but for what, she didn't know. Just as the rose-hued sun touched the tops of the trees lining the crowded, cobblestoned streets, she saw him: Seth Reagan. He was standing upon the final float in the procession, bedecked in traditional Sanguine regalia—blood-red robes—that stood out in almost painfully sharp relief against his marble-white skin. Even from a distance, he looked immaculate, proud and haughty, and so tightly wound up that something in him seemed half-feral.