Prologue
From the Journal of the beta of Greywind
First son to an Alpha, I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, to a life of ease and plenty. I never did without warmth, food, possessions, or love. But still, it was not a life without its challenges.
My mother, bless her, had survived the streets by thievery and cunning until fate bettered her life, brought her an opportunity to be a partner in a gaming hell. Fate intervened again. She met my father; they fell in love, turned out to be true mates. They married.
But marriage does not always wash off the taint of one's past, and my mother's scandalous beginnings landed upon my shoulders. I was made to pay for her transgressions, for crimes of which she'd never been found guilty, as well as the audacity of rising above her station.
Away at Alpha school, small for my age, on numerous occasions at night, I would awaken to discover my head covered by a burlap sack as whispering bullies carted me outside, stripped me bare, and tied me to a tree. A sign was hung about my neck: son of a thief.
During sports matches, I would find myself at the bottom of a scrum where the bruises left from random kicks and flailing fists to my torso were easily explained away as the price one paid for being involved in sports, rather than punishment meted out by those who saw me as less. I was trounced upon in darkened corridors.
Assignments I worked to perfect often went missing before I could hand them over to the schoolmaster.
I bore these insults and transgressions in silence, never telling a soul, determined that the she-wolf who gave birth to me would never know what price I paid for her acquiring the love she deserved.
Heir to a large pack, I would one day have prestige and power, so these deliverers of ‘justice’ were careful to keep their identities hidden for they knew they played a dangerous game, but the final move arrived sooner than expected when one summer I grew in height and breadth. I learned to fight back, with fists that were quick and hard. I boxed, I wrestled, and while my peers might not have come to respect my mother, they did in time come to respect me... or they paid a high price for it. Until the late night pranks stopped. The bruises appeared no more. My papers were left where they lay when I completed them.
Respect, it seems, is not granted by birth, but must be earned.
By the time I reached manhood, I was held in very high esteem indeed. My mother's past was but a fading whisper on the lips of those who no longer mattered.
Yet I was determined none of my children would be burdened with the sins of either parent. I would live my life above reproach, without scandal. And the she-wolf I take to my mate and future Luna will be as pure as freshly fallen snow.
