Awakening The Sliver Wolf

I sat next to the grave, holding the flowers I brought. I just stared at the name on the stone, tears flowing freely from my cheeks. 

"It's my birthday, mum," I whispered, my voice barely audible as I stroked the name on the gravestone. 

Isla Hale. 

My mother, my world, my everything. Dead, gone, and left me all alone in a world where I do not belong. 

"It's my birthday," I said again. "And no one remembered. Not even father. He didn't even look my way." 

My twenty-one birthday. 

The tears were flowing wildly, my vision blurry. 

It hurts. It hurts so much to live like I'm invisible, like I'm nothing, a nobody. 

My father doesn't even see me, not really. He doesn't look at me, doesn't care. My stepmother treats me like dirt under her shoe, and my stepsister is even worse. 

The only one who cares is Lucas. 

Just thinking about him makes the tears slow down.  

Lucas. My boyfriend. 

The reason I still get out of bed every morning. 

We've been together for three years, and Lucas has been nothing but supportive, loving, and helpful. 

Even though the pack and my own family treat me like I'm worthless, Lucas has been there, offering his strength and love through it all. 

He was like glue keeping me together. 

My pack members and family saw me as weak, all because I had no wolf. 

I was born without a wolf despite my Father and Mother being full blooded wolves. 

Some people call me an abomination, a curse. 

Things were different when Mother was alive.  

I was loved then, seen as a person. But then she died, and everything changed. Father changed, the pack members changed. 

Then he went ahead and married Lila-my stepmother-and my life became so much worse. 

She came into my life, took my Mother's place as Luna and made my life miserable, along with her daughter. 

Turned me into a slave, and Father never batted an eyelash to her cruelties towards me. 

It hurts, it hurts so damn much. 

I pounded my chest, trying to get the pain to lessen, but it didn't, it just increased until I felt like I couldn't breathe.

"Why did you leave?" I shouted at the gravestone. "Why did you leave me alone? I can't do this without you, mum. I just can't. You told me to be strong, and I am trying, mum. I am really trying, but it hurts. It hurts so much." 

I cried and cried, the pain in my chest getting worse, but I just kept crying. 

And then I felt it. 

A breeze, a gentle breeze. It would have been a normal breeze but it wasn't. 

It has a smell-apples and lilies. 

It smelled heavenly, it smelled peaceful, it smelled like home, it smelled like Mother. 

I wiped my eyes and looked around, wondering if I was losing my mind. Nobody was here, and even if someone was, it couldn't be Mother. 

She was dead, gone from my life. 

The breeze, though, whispered a different story. It wrapped around me like a comforting blanket, soothing my aching soul.  

It felt like a caress, a silent promise that I wasn't alone. 

"You're not alone." The breeze kept whispering, and for the first time in five years, I felt like I wasn't alone.  

Mother was with me, always and forever.