Since I was young I was taught to repress my wolf side. My ears were pointed, my hands were slender and my nails were long, but I didn’t run around freely. I didn’t use my sharp hearing to hunt. I just defended myself as I could and didn’t become a wild and fierce wolf. That’s why humans thought they had the right to do what they wanted with us. They knew there was no one to complain if we died.

However, I had Mia, and she had me too. She was the only one who would miss me at the end of the day. Smiling, I turned to Greta.

“Mia took the bike to be fixed,” I explained solemnly. “She said she had a small accident last night. It didn’t go into details, but… anyway, today she must be with her partner. They left early together.”

“I hope the damaged bike was nothing against a human, or you two will have problems,” Greta warned with a frightened look. “I heard that they are trying to implement laws that can punish us severely, without prior notice, with nothing that can help us. I don’t know if it’s true, because I’ve only heard it from some bad-seeing customers. However, I would be careful if I lived in the city, like the two of you.”

“We can protect ourselves,” I assured with a fragile smile.

“Mia can protect herself,” Greta stressed, giving me a suggestive look. “Don’t forget that your pack didn’t want you around, Luna. Those humans out there won’t forget. And I don’t want to have to collect your body hanging from some tree or open and thrown into a grave. Protect yourself above anything, and all.”

I just nodded. That subject always ended that way. Everyone in the kitchen got goosebumps at the idea that one of their co-workers lived in the city. They thought it was crazy that Mia and I risked so much. I thought so too, to be honest. If it weren’t for Mia’s family, I wouldn’t live in that building full of humans. They didn’t like us. We didn’t mistreat each other, but they didn’t waste sympathy either.

But living outside the city was also a big problem. Mia said that the worst thing about being in the midst of all the people who hated us was to hide and keep us trapped in a burrow to make it easier for them to get revenge. Revenge was the right word, no matter how much we had never done anything against humans. Neither us nor our ancestors.

Nobody knows how it all happened. No one knows how that world came about. We knew that there were Gods, that there were heavenly creatures that we needed to respect. Angels could be seen at some times of the year, in pagan celebrations. However, we didn’t know our origin. We didn’t understand why creatures and humans lived together. Why did no one interfere to defend us?

Mia said we were too strong to have to respect humans and unknown creatures, but I just laughed. I didn’t think I was strong. I didn’t even know my strength. A wolf without a pack is a weak wolf. And I didn’t turn into the full moon. It wouldn’t transform me if I felt hate or sadness. I’ve never transformed. I wasn’t like Mia.

That night, while I was leaving the hamburger restaurant earlier, I was thinking about how I thought Mia was lucky to still have her pack around. As much as her relationship with her mother was not one of the best, there was still the benefit of having wolves as brothers and the eternal protection of the alpha of her pack. Not to mention her partner.

Mia was one of the few wolves I knew to have found an alpha as a partner. Not that I had known wolves enough to know about their intimate lives, but with a keen sense of smell I was able to smell the bond of partnership between two people, and Mia and Clynton had that. It was beautiful to see how they treated each other with respect and admiration, as if the flame of love never went out, even if they had been together for years.

I didn’t have a partner, I didn’t have an alpha to protect me, let alone a pack to call family. I was a lonely wolf, risking my life every day in the world taken by humans to have the chance to live. But humans cared little about my useless life and did everything so that I would never forget that I could be massacred by them when they wanted.

Proof of this was the fact that at that moment, walking innocently home, I knew I was being followed by a group of drunk humans.

As much as I used to hide my ears with a cap, no matter how much I disguised my smell with human perfumes and walked with that instability full of stumbling as some humans used to do, they still could differentiate me. Maybe it was my height, always a little bigger than girls my age in human years. Maybe because my brown eyes were too big for my small face.

They always differentiated me from an ordinary person.

“Hey, kitten… or rather, bitch,” mocked one of the men, rushing his step to reach me. “Stop running.”

I wasn’t running, I was walking faster, but my long steps threw me many meters ahead of them, and that made them think I would be afraid. Yes, I was, but it wasn’t a good idea to let them notice. However, I continued the long stride and concentrated on crossing the street.

It was not a deserted path, there were pharmacies and convenience stores along the way, people waiting at the bus stop, but all being human, it was the same as being alone in a desert isolated from the world. No one even bothered to look in my direction. Typical human behavior.

I tried not to worry about the sounds of the steps behind me.