Three slashes made by Vampire claws crossed my left eye—from my eyebrow to my cheekbone.
That mark was the reason Isis introduced me to makeup. It was my desperate need to somehow erase the reminder of my parents’ deaths from sight… the reminder of my very first failure. It was also the reason I started every video with the foundation already covering my face… but my mask was gone now, leaving only pain and regret in its wake.
I was only a cub when they died, unable to even hold a single memory of the tragedy that forced our lives to change forever. Still, that mark had successfully made me feel responsible because every time I looked at myself in the mirror, I was reminded that I somehow survived when they didn’t… And I hated myself for it.
Picking up a broken container of makeup remover, I swiped the bit left inside and spread it over my face, until Isis’ reflection joined mine.
“Don’t you know it's bad luck to look at yourself in a broken mirror?”
“I don’t think there is anything else that could go wrong in my life…”
“Yeah, well. Don’t tempt fate either!”
A humorless snort escaped me because although I wasn’t superstitious, like her, chances were whatever could go wrong for me already had.
“It’s not your fault, baby girl. It never was,” she added, knowing exactly what was in my heart.
Slowly, I turned to face her as she used a tissue to gently wipe off the remnants of my foundation. Isis’ hand swiped over my damaged skin lovingly, her expression saying that no matter what, I was special to her.
I lost myself looking at her, because unlike me and the rest of the shifters here—with fair skin and German descent—Isis’ skin bore a deep, tanned hue that made you think she had put gold shimmer all over her body. Her dark brown hair fell in a wonderful mixture of perfectly formed curls and defiant messy waves down her back. Or what she calledcrazy woman’s hair. It was like her strands couldn’t quite decide what to be, so they were everything all at once.
Her eyes were as dark as her hair, but filled with a light that made them shine bright golden in the sun. Sometimes, I imagined she might even look like the Egyptian Goddess she was named after. Truth be told, it wasn’t Isis’ exotic features that made her so beautiful, it was her loving soul and the relentless inner strength she possessed.
She was forty-four years old, so by no means an old shifter, but she had been through so much in her life and never let it define her.
Just as she threw in our Alpha’s face after she arrived, Isis fought against the mate he forced on her, his then Beta, and bested him. Even after his claws ripped through the tendons and nerves of her right arm, she never stopped fighting for her right to choose the life she wanted and knew she deserved. The moment she killed him, she won the right to be a lone wolf, and no one couldevertake that away from her, not even our Alpha.
Unfortunately, the wounds in her arm were so deep that not even her Wolf Shifter powers, or Witch magic, could fully heal her. A mark created by a torn nerve now sat on the back of her arm, restricting her movements, and reminding her of that day, but that had always been one thing that united us. In a strange way, we were both broken.
Her disability didn't stop her, though, if anything, it made her determination stronger. It restricted certain things for her, yes, but she never saw her limitations as a weakness, pushing through every obstacle that came her way. No matter what, Isis always kept going, and I admired her for that. One day, I hoped to be as strong as she was, inside and out, but that was impossible for an Omega like me.
“You are going to make me blush if you keep looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” I asked, feigning confusion.
“Like I’m the awesomest, most bad-ass shifter in the entire world. I mean, I am, but still. I’m humble, you know…”
That brought a chuckle out of me, because although she joked about it to make me smile, she was very humble. Still, I knew she had become an Alpha she-wolf by her sheer will to survive, but I’d been too small to watch it all happen.
“Will you tell me what happened after you won that first challenge?”
Sighing, Isis nodded. “Well, your uncle sentenced me to exile or death for my ‘disobedience’, yet I refused to leave the mountain. After my pack was slaughtered in Egypt, I nearly thought I would die from the pain. But then I crossed the world, looking for others like me, and eventually ended up here. I just knew one thing. I couldn’t leave what I had found here, and not everyone was an asshole like Arnoldt.”
I shook my head, yet I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“So, I fought over and over again for my right to be here. For my right to live the way I wanted to live… Honestly, winning all those challenges transformed me into something I never even dreamed I could be.”
“I’m sure you were an Alpha from the start, you just hadn’t discovered it yet.”
Appreciation engulfed her features. “Eventually, he withdrew the kill order, but sentenced me to ‘eternal servitude.’” She made air quotes and rolled her eyes like it was the stupidest thing in the world. “And yet, my mission to raise and look after you, ended up being my biggest blessing.” Her soft hand cupped my cheek, a thumb caressing my skin.
The rest I knew well. Feared by the pack after such a feat, she was left alone to roam the mountain and the human world alike, which in turn, kind of opened the door to our shenanigans.
“You know, I could challenge your uncle and win,” she added. “The only thing is I’d have to deal with all those stupid hunters defending the ‘Alpha’s honor’ afterward, and ain’t nobody got time for that. Besides, I don’t want to ruin my nails with his blood… They have glitter.”
Her brown eyes shone with mischief as she wiggled her sparkling nails in front of me, but she accomplished what shehad set out to do, make me laugh. Our chuckles mixed in the air, and I shook my head at her dark humor.
Until I learned Isis wasn’t one of us, but an Egyptian Shifter, I’d always thought theShadow Born Packwas the only magical shifter race that existed. Granted, I didn’t truly know anything because I had never stepped foot in the human world, so there was that. I guessed the Witch that created us made her pack before she made ours.
