Primitive Instincts

Chapter 17

I tried to draw back into the darkest part of my mind to pretend this might are wasn't happening. I couldn't watch as my very own wolf betrayed me, it felt like she just stabbed a dagger in my heart.

I understand that she must feel the same way about me trying to reject my mate, but she knew why I despised Hunter. Ever since that goddamn day any hope of friendship was crushed. He destroyed his chance at love like he murdered mine.

*Flashback a couple of years ago*

It was just your normal elders meet and greet at the Timber Pack. It was old spiritually enriched land said to have been home to the very first werewolves. I thought it was nice, the people oddly open and warm to strangers. Old buildings and brick roads gave the city an antique feel, it was like taking a walk hundreds of years ago. Even the way some lived would be considered out of date, it had the highest rate of people who still worshipped the old ways. That's why it hosts the ritual of the elders.

Every 5 years the elders of all the pack members in North America would come together and pray to the Moon Goddess. This used to include all werewolves from young to old, but as tradition began to die out the numbers dwindle until it was only the old stubborn folk who refused to live any other way then what the old rules said.

While some generations still have strong ties to the Moon Goddess they've gone into hiding from the abuse of intolerant people who constantly undermine their beliefs. It's disgusting to think just a simple thing as religion can cause so much hatred.

Grandma taught me when I was young to not be bothered by what people might say of her. The first incident I witnessed when I was 8, Grandma and I came back from the market to find her house covered in eggs and toilet paper. The hooligans spray painted rude words on her door, being only a pup I didn't know what the words read but from grandmother's reaction they were rude.

Her home was broken into and precious relics and religious artifacts laid broken on the floor. I helped her swept up an shattered moonstone wolf carving she loved into the garbage. Her eyes grew misty when they fell onto her ripped up scrolls on the history of the Moon Goddess.

That night I went to work, taping back together the strips of paper. It took me the entire night, but when the sun peaked over the mountains I was finished. It made Grandma so happy to see her most prized possession work so hard to fix something she loved.

"Things are just things my little duck, they get old, break, lose their value. These scrolls never once told me how good my cookies tasted or how much they loved me, that's why you are my greatest treasure."

She was my hero and role model. As time went on I began to ignore the rude comments people would make when they saw her walking, even the people who insulted me for walking with her I'd just keep on walking. It used to make me really mad when they'd laugh or whisper in their friends ear about how Grandma either needed to get with the times or disappear like all the other believers.

That's until the day grandma said "People will always have something bad to say about you, either you can spend your life trying to please them or let them talk their useless words and live how you wish, not them."

When the time came for someone to escort her to the Timber pack I was the only one who volunteered, not even her own daughter wished to humour her mother's beliefs. She hadn't gone in quite a while because no one would take her, being an elder she was still a valued part of the pack and couldn't be thrown into possible danger without a protector. So I decided since I was old enough I would let my Grandmother go, she said it would be her last chance since she felt her time was coming to an end. I wasn't going to let her die without fulfilling her final wishes.