Alpha Rogue Chapter 5

After my coffee break, I went back to the library. I ignored the computers this time and went to the books section. The lycanthropes stories were in the myth and fables section.

The first book I found was about lycanthrope origins. From the synopsis, I figured it told a story of how lycanthropes came to be. The other books were about stuff I had already read on the internet, so all my attention went to the origins book.

The book told the legend as follows:

A long time ago, there existed only humans and animals. Over time, there emerged a selected number of people who could manipulate nature. These people were collectively known as witches.

For a long time the different factions (humans and witches), lived in peace. The humans even consulted the witches when they fell sick.

So it happened that during one harsh winter, when food grew scarce and people started dying of hunger, the elder of one of the different human clans went to a witch for help. This elder implored the witch to turn the members of his clan into wolves for as long as the winter lasted so that they could survive. He didn't want to lose any more people.

The witch agreed to the clan elders' request. So on the next full moon, the witch cast a spell that turned all members above the age of sixteen from that clan into wolves. They would hunt together and bring back food to those who stayed human. She gifted the new wolf pack with telepathy to ease communications while they stayed in wolf form. She also gave them super strength, speed, heightened senses of smell, sight, taste, and touch. If they got injured during a hunt, she gave the wolves a healing ability.

The clan leader became the alpha of the pack. A title that is still observed to this day.

The witch had drawn energy from the full moon to cast the spell. It said that this is the reason why wolves howl at the moon.

The transformation of the clan was frowned upon by other human clans. They suddenly became distanced and unconcerned about the wolf clan, as they now called them.

As the winter went on, the decision of the clan elder to turn his whole clan into wolves proved very insightful. This was because the clan was able to fend for itself. The fur coat protected them from the bitter winter cold. The claws and sharp canine teeth simplified hunting as did the speed and the other gifts.

As a sign of gratitude the wolves both provided and protected the witch and her family. But as fate would have it, there was a side effect that no one saw coming. The wolves began losing touch with their humanity. The more they stayed in their wolf forms the farther away they drifted from their humanity. The wolves developed a primal instinct that made them only live for the hunt and the kill.

It was during this transition that the unimaginable happened.

It happened that the witch who turned the said clan into wolves had sent her eldest daughter on an errand to procure some herbs. On her way back, the girl happened to stumble upon some of the wolves. On sighting the wolves, the girl was gripped by a sudden terror, mostly because of the stories circulating in the village about how the wolf clan had turned vicious.

The wolves caught the scent of her fear which drove them into a primal predatory mode. Without the slightest hesitation, the wolves attacked the poor girl and tore her to shreds. It is said that her screams were heard all the way back to the village.

Back in the village, a group was chosen to investigate the screams. When the group got to the scene, all they could find were bloodied pieces of clothing and a bracelet.

They took those items back to the village immediately. The rest of the villagers had gathered around at the market place awaiting the news. When the investigators returned to the village, they went straight to the market place to show their findings.

The witch whose daughter had been killed recognized the bracelet immediately. She went into a wild fury. She asked one of the investigators to take her back where they had found the bracelet. When they got there, the witch was able to find the herbs she had sent her daughter to find. Surprisingly, the wolves that had done the deed were still hovering around. The witch found them and in her anger, she struck them dead. She went ahead to curse the wolf clan so that their ability to transform into wolves became their eternal burden.

The curse dictated that the clan was to be forever altered to become both human and beast. The herbs the girl was taking home to her mother were made to be toxic to the wolf clan. The curse was going to take effect as soon as a child of that clan turned sixteen. In addition to that, the clan was cast out of the community and sent out to live in the woods.

As the pack was growing too big, the alpha saw it necessary to split it into different packs. The alpha's family became wolf royalty. Each of the new smaller pack chose their alphas who in turn answered to the alpha king.

Throughout the centuries as the wolf clan spread out to the world, the wolf people accepted their destiny and sent out to make the best of their situation.

These castaways learned to make their curse into an advantage by training themselves to control their shift.

The alpha king's title was passed down through generations, as were the other alpha titles.

It turned out that the alpha king title was more than just a title. Wolves from the royal bloodline were stronger than the other wolves. This helped a lot in establishing a hierarchy. The royal family and their pack were on top of the hierarchy. The rest of the packs had to battle it out by challenges where one alpha could challenge another alpha for their position on the pyramid. This system ensured that innocent lives were spared since the pack didn't have to go into actual battle with one another.

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I quit reading the book at that point. I figured I had all the information I wanted plus I was itching to confirm the theories that I had read about that day. So I made a copy of the book and printed my earlier computer research. After that, I headed home. It was already too late when I got home. I ate dinner, hit the shower, and got to bed. The last thing on my mind before I dozed off was the big white wolf from my dream.