Total Reject

At eleven years old Aluma received the news. She wanted to cry, she wanted to be allowed to grieve her parents. However, she didn't know how to. How to process, how to get over everything she saw. The adults around her looked down on her with pity. Something she would come to despise in the following years.

Her father. He had been a monster. The very worst of their kind. Every human that said werewolves were more beast than man, could be proved right in his actions. In his treatment of his family. His mate, she had wanted to be free of him. However, he held her captive, aided by the mate bond that forced attraction between the two. His daughter, Aluma, had been terrified of him. Walking on eggshells, wondering what would set him off next. There was no pattern. No rhyme or reason to his anger. That's what Aluma had thought when she was younger until she noticed the bottles that pilled up around the house. Her father, the monster, the big bad in Aluma's story was gone. She wasn't sure what happened next. Was she to mourn him? How could she, only relief surrounded her upon hearing he was gone. However, she would later find out his body was never recovered. It was an assumption that he was dead. No true confirmation was achieved.

On the other hand, her mother. That was a true loss. Her mother had always painted a smile on her bruised face for her daughter. Her mother that had protected her from the beatings and the full wrath of her father's rage. Her mother that had cared for her, clothed her, fed her. It hadn't been without difficulty. Her mother would hide money from her father, enough for food and the occasional clothes when Aluma needed them. Back to school shopping had always been hard, and Aluma, over the years, had noticed the guilt in her mother's eyes when Aluma's gaze lingered on something she wanted that was just too much money. Over the years Aluma had attempted to hide when she saw things she wanted from her mother, with little success. But they would both pretend that it worked. Her mother tried her best and did everything she could to support her. Aluma felt guilty for the building resentment that had started to grow over the years towards her mother, for staying with her father. The man that would put them both through hell. Aluma wanted to grieve her mother. She truly tried. She tried to cry. Tried to react as others thought and told her she should. However, she couldn't bring herself to. No tears were ever shed.

It wasn't long after her parents' death, only six months, it was her twelfth birthday that something shocking happened. Aluma had been in the packhouse, in her room. Her friends had wanted to do something for her birthday, but Aluma refused. It was no longer something she wanted to celebrate. Not that she had ever really celebrated the day before her parents' death, but at least then she had her mother attempt to put something together. Now though, she saw no point. She was a product of an unhappy relationship, forced upon her mother she was sure. Now that her parents were gone, Aluma would forever run from her birthday.