The Exiled Alpha | ✓

01 | Chosen Luna

Snow crunches under my feet as I walk along the mountain path. The hoot of an owl mixes with the faint voices of people partying in the valley below. I envy them. They get to celebrate the exact thing that's caused me three mental breakdowns and a stomach twisted with dread.

I sigh, slowing my pace. I can't stop it at this point. But I'll sure as hell stall for as long as I can.

Maybe the alternative isn't so bad. Being invisible and ignored might be better than being tied to a narcissistic asshole.

I come to a high point in the trail and step off of it. A moth flutters up from a patch of tall, dead grass. It dances around in front of my face for a second before disappearing up into the black, starry sky until it's too small to see anymore. Likely off to hide somewhere else. I'm jealous of its freedom. It can hide from its problems. I can't.

Through a gap in the trees I look down to where the pack members are preparing in the clearing. Their bonfire is burning bright and tall, disrupting the otherwise black shadows and creating a spot of warmth among the cold landscape. Even with the distance, I can see the snow sparkling in the firelight.

A beautiful winter night has never looked so ugly.

• • •

4 Days Earlier...

"This one or this one?"

I wonder if squirrels live in neighborhoods. If a squirrel lives a couple trees away from another, does that make them neighbors? Or what if a squirrel builds a nest in a tree that already has one? Do they fight or do they coexist?

"Adrienne? Opinion?"

They probably get along. They probably go over to each other's nests and ask to borrow sugar. No, not sugar. Acorn dust... like squirrel cocaine.

A hard smack to my leg makes me jump.

"OW! What the hell?!" I rub my burning thigh and give Aimee a death glare. What did I do to displease Her Highness now?

"You aren't even paying attention! You're laying there staring at the ceiling like a washed up cucumber," she accuses. So maybe I'm not giving her my undivided attention. She has a fair argument there. But in my defense she can usually carry on a conversation just fine with herself as long as I give the occasional nod and grunt of acknowledgement.

I realize she's standing in front of me, holding a silver and black dress in each hand. After a quick game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe I point to the black one in order to avoid further abuse.

That simple action is all it takes to perk her back up.

"Great. I thought so, too," she says. She hauls the dresses back across the room, hanging the silver one in the closet and draping the black one across the back of an armchair.

"You know I really wish you would go to this party with me. Make some friends. It would do you good to talk to someone else besides me for once," she lectures as she plops down at her vanity. She opens a small glass bottle and starts smearing skin-colored paint on her face. It matches her cocoa tone perfectly.

"I'm starting to regret doing that much," I grumble in return. Aimee is the only person I truly consider a friend. I've known her for about as long as I can remember, though it wasn't until about a year and a half ago that we became close.