By moonlight's shadow

She could still see them laughing together as Papa was telling stories to her little sister as she closed her eyes. “You know baby girl, the ones who say that the sky is the limit are so wrong…You must never listen to them at all,” said her father with an indulgent smile. Her mother was chopping the chicken breasts in order to make them tender while cooking, along with vegetables for the stew. She looked at them and suppressed a smile nodding her head. “Why Papa? It is so large and so blue, I want to touch it always….it is so far away, isn’t it Papa?” asked her little sister, whose white hair was neatly braided behind her head. Their father burst out laughing. He had a full-bellied laugh and such a good-natured smile that no one would understand the ferocity of the killer that lay hidden beneath all that cuddles and laughter. She loved all of them so much that it felt that her heart would burst. “Of course it is far away darling….but when there are footprints on the moon how can you say that the sky is the only thing you can reach?” asked the Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack. Her little sister looked at him in amazement and broke out in a series of giggles. She pulled up her head from the essay and rose up from the table taking the sheaf of printed papers in her hand and handed over it to her father gesturing him to read it for his opinion. Her little sister went to her table and started sharpening one of her pencils with the pen-knife that was kept there. Suddenly she cried out as she had cut her finger. She took the finger of her sister in her mouth to suck off the blood and she could hear her mother cry out saying no in the background and her father’s frightened gaze at the vision unfolding before them. She could not remember anything after that. Only that she had woken up in the back of a car with blood splashed all over her clothes and a strange man looking at her with curious eyes. She would never forget what he said,” Don’t worry, little one…I shall always keep you safe.” That was the only thing she remembered from that night.