A Kink in the Tail

Chapter 1 - Lycans v Werewolves

I hope you enjoy this story. 

To understand the world in which Adam lived I need to explain a couple of things. Also that things like snobbery, elitism, indifference, bullying and shaming are not exclusive to the human world. There are always those who will shun others who are different and who think power is everything. So...

Firstly of all, important fact number one, a werewolf is a combination of two souls human and wolf, a symbiotic relationship. Whereas Lycans are Wolf who can take a human form, a singular being. It is a fact that Lycans like to press.

The next fact is that werewolves mate with their own kind and on occasion other magical creatures, even humans. The Goddess can be capricious in her choices. Their bloodlines are impure with every generation adding to the mix.

The opposite applies to Lycans. Their unique culture centers around the fact that they are purebloods, direct bloodlines to the original Lycans, who were created by an angry God. It was meant to be a curse but Lycans see it as a blessing. Since the beginning, every Lycan mating, birth, and so on has been recorded. Volume upon volume setting down the history of the Purebloods sits in the Hall of Ancestors in the Homeland. Every Lycan born into a high-ranked family, every lowborn can trace their lineage back to one of the Originals. They mate only with their own kind, with no exceptions.

The Lycans gloat about their superiority because of the last thing you need to know.....the first werewolves were turned by Lycans.

.....

Adam, the eldest son of a high-ranked Lycan family, hates the way he looks, whether he's in his human shell or himself, he is flawed. In his human form, it's the discolouration around his left eye that makes him stand out. It's impossible to miss. No dark glasses totally cover it and even with his long dark hair falling over the left side of his face, the eye is still visible and distracting. A patch of bluish-tinted skin, crisscrossed by a web of delicate veins goes from his eyebrow around his eye to the top of his cheek. It stands out boldly against his pale skin. The whole thing is made worse by the bright blue eye. Yes, just one eye, the other is brown. It gives him a freakish appearance.

He's used to watching people's facial expression change when he removes his sunglass. They  try to hide the fact their startled and then try even harder to ignore the blue patch but in the end, their eyes return and stare at it. He could cover it with makeup and contact lenses but who wants to spend their entire life hiding what they look like? After all, it wasn't even his true form, this shell was camouflaged to survive in a predominantly human world.

This was the package he came in, he was stuck with it and although he hated it, he wasn't ashamed of it. People had to accept him or bugger off, that included his family.

At one time he thought perhaps his family might forgive the aberration in his human form, and that he would be pushed aside quietly but not disowned altogether, but there was no forgiving an imperfect Pureblood Wolf.

The problem was his tail or should I say lack of tail. Instead of the bushy thick tail of a Lycan wolf, he has a small curly thing that looks more appropriate on a cute dog. When he first jumped free of his human shell, only eleven years old and excited to see what he truly looked like, all hell had broken loose. When his parents caught sight of his other problem, his mother fainted and his father flew into a rage. They called it a deformity. He was immediately taken out of school and handed over to carers. They washed their hands of him. An Alpha Lycan, a Pureblood, with a deformity was a disgrace and his father never let the opportunity pass to let him know that he had caused him to lose face with their pack.  As firstborn his destiny was to be the future Alpha of his family, that honour was stripped from him and his younger brother became the heir.

Adam's punishment for dishonouring his ancestors and tarnishing their bloodline was immediate and without consideration for his tender age. Any chance of a normal life ended there and then.  from that point on he was home-schooled, seldom left the house, and had little contact with anyone other than his carers. Adam thought he may as well have been in prison.

Abruptly freedom came a few months shy of his 18th birthday when his parents in a panic realised he could find his mate among one of the high-ranked families, or business associates, when he came of age.   Their shameful secret would be exposed.  They came up with a plan without consulting him.  

Adam suddenly found himself on the other side of the world, at a University as far as possible from the Lycan Homeland or any other Lycan community.  

.....

So...three years on Adam is living in Perth, completing the last year of a boring Arts degree. He's settled in a nice apartment in one of the best suburbs. All thanks to the large allowance his parents send him each month to stay away. He hasn't set foot in the Homeland in all that time and can't imagine ever seeing his family again. His only regret is that he will never find his mate.

When Adam arrived he would have balked at the idea that he could be happy in such an alien place. So different from Arcadia that he might as well be on another planet.  At first, he had felt even more alone and out of place than before, if that was possible.  He was Wolf and needed his pack. Even locked away he had felt the pack around him, occasionally catching a stray thought from one of the other members.  It had been enough.   

Adam didn't go into exile alone, although in some ways he wished he had.  A werewolf by the name of Constantine Rizo was sent by his family to act as his servant/bodyguard.  Adam knew that in reality he was his keeper and his sole purpose was to spy on him and keep his family informed.   They disliked each other from the moment they met and over the three years nothing changed.  When ever Constantine's eyes fell on him Adam saw his parents and because of this he never dropped his guard and Constantine, in turn loathed the cold, freak of nature.  

Exploring his new home, it didn't surprise Adam that his strange appearance had the same effect on people on this side of the world as it did on the other. There was always a double take and then people would look away embarrassed.  However, what did surprise him was how the attitude of the humans he interacted with daily changed.  After a while, there were no more awkward staring contests or flinching away from his bright blue eye.  Instead, they started to greet him with a smile and chat, looked at him and something he had not encountered before, make eye contact.  He realised that humans were far more adaptable than Lycans, so different from his family who steadfastly held on to their hate and ignored his existence.  

Making eye contact is such a small thing but strangely empowering.  Months into his exile Adam gathered up his courage and started to make the most of the precious gift his parents had unwittingly given him, his freedom.  Soon he started to think being thrown out into the human world may have been the best thing that could have happened to him.  

To the readers who shared their opinion on what I should write next...it looks like most of you are into W'ers...or in my case Lycans.  Here we go.