Return of The Alpha Heiress-Chapter 67: Clarissa – Rogue

A year had passed since I was officially exiled by the Greens. I had been living in the Grack Forest, a stretch of wilderness lying between the Black Pack and the Grey Pack.

With my healing ability, my eyes and tongue had grown back. My right arm and left leg had regenerated as well. My left arm and right leg were still in the process of healing.

I used wooden prosthetic limbs and wore a long cloak to hide them.

Those prosthetics were useless whenever I shifted, which was the main reason why I almost never did it.

To survive, I relied on traps instead of hunting in wolf form like most rogues did.

Even so, I never caught less prey than them. Like today, for example. My traps had caught three plump hares.

"Rissa, you caught a lot again today!" The voice of a little girl, no older than five, pulled me back to reality. She ran toward me with a wide smile, showing her tiny teeth.

I nodded, took one of the hares, and cut off its right hind leg. "This is for you."

I handed the thick piece of meat to Ella.

She jumped in delight, thanked me excitedly, then ran back to the treehouse where she lived with her father.

I used to think rogues were one-eyed, fierce-looking werewolves with constant killing intent and sour tempers.

But the truth was, rogues were no different from ordinary werewolves. If you didn’t know they were rogues, you might think they were just hunters passing through the forest or travelers who had lost their way.

That sweet, normal little girl was a rogue too, just like me. She and her father had been banished from their pack when Ella was still a baby. I didn’t know the exact reason. Among rogues, it was an unspoken rule not to ask about life before exile.

I continued walking until I reached a cave. This cave had been my home for the past month.

Inside, a single lamp powered by an orb-extraction device served as the only source of light.

An elderly woman with hair fully turned white lay weakly against the cave wall. In front of a crude table made of packed earth, a middle-aged man sat smoking a hand-rolled cigarette.

"Rissa, you got a lot of hares today?" The man’s eyes lit up when he saw my catch. "I went hunting with Eson earlier. We got a wild boar. We can trade the meat for other supplies."

"That’s good," I replied with a nod.

I lived in this cave with Rudy and his aging mother, Maria.

As rogues, we didn’t truly have a place to live. Even in this forest, we weren’t welcome.

Once a month, warriors from the Grey Pack and the Black Pack took turns sweeping through this area, hunting down any rogues they found. Those who were caught were tortured until they were barely alive, then thrown back into the forest.

Most of them died on their own afterward.

That was why some rogues banded together. Their main purpose was simple: someone had to stay on watch around the clock for incoming warriors.

Many rogues, quite a lot actually, chose to live as lone wolves. They were usually strong enough to protect themselves.

For the first ten months, I had lived that way too. Whenever the warriors came, I pretended to be dead. My crippled body made the act convincing.

But once my left leg grew back, it became harder to fool them.

Last month, I was almost captured. I fell into a cliff, and my prosthetic arm shattered.

Rudy was the one who saved me and brought me to this group. He offered me a place to stay in the cave. Building a treehouse would have been troublesome, especially since we would have to abandon it the moment the warriors appeared again. So I stayed with Rudy and his frail mother instead.

Fortunately, this group had only been formed after the most recent warrior raid, so I wasn’t the only outsider here.

That attack made me realize how weak I still was. I had no choice but to join other rogues and train harder.

Carrying the hares and pieces of wild boar, I headed to the river behind the cave to clean them.

"Hey, when are our left limb growing back?" Loodie’s voice suddenly echoed in my head. He loved appearing out of nowhere.

’Tonight,’ I replied.

Regrowing body parts took time. I needed to recover my strength, and sometimes my power alone wasn’t enough. Moonlight was necessary as assistance.

Tonight was the perfect time.

...

After dinner, I left the cave. Rudy never asked why I always went out, because I always came back with something. He naturally assumed I was hunting or foraging.

As I stepped outside, I passed the tree house where Ella lived with her father, Eson. He was smoking a handmade cigarette under the tree.

"Training again tonight?" he asked. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

After joining this group, I once saw Eson practicing with a spear by chance. I asked him to train me, and he agreed easily.

We usually trained at night. Sometimes, I trained alone.

"I’m just going out to check the surroundings," I replied, so he wouldn’t think I wanted to train.

He nodded and didn’t ask further.

Before I continued walking, I asked him, "You just came back from Grey Pack, right? What about the information I asked for?"

"No new information," he replied.

I nodded and let out a heavy breath. Without saying anything else, I continued on my way.

Some people who lived near the forest secretly traded with rogues. Information was one of the things they traded.

Earlier, Eson had told me about Alpha Green’s family. They looked happy and perfectly fine, as if I had never existed in their lives.

Adrian and Shannon would officially get married at the end of this year since they had graduated from the academy.

Larry was still in the capital. I still hadn’t found a way to contact Tony, Larry’s man.

While the Greens lived smoothly, Alpha Brown’s family fell into trouble.

Alpha Ryan testified that I was the child kidnapped by those two criminals. His testimony directly contradicted the so-called "investigation results" obtained by Alpha Will.

Because of that, Alpha Ryan was accused of being an accomplice.

As a result, Brown Pack had suffered greatly over the past year. Tisha was even expelled from West Wolf Academy.

I felt deeply guilty for dragging them into this. That guilt only strengthened my hatred toward Alpha Will. How many people was he willing to sacrifice just to make his plan succeed?

Soon, I arrived beneath the banyan tree.

This banyan tree stood far from our group and any other group. There were no other trees nearby, allowing the moonlight to shine directly onto me.

"Let’s begin," I said.

Loodie howled excitedly inside my mind.

I focused my healing power on my hand. The moonlight touching my body was absorbed into my skin, helping my hand regenerate.

An unbearable pain exploded in my left arm. Regrowing my own limb hurt far more than when someone else did it for me.

Every time I went through this process, it felt like I was about to pass out.

But Loodie always kept me conscious with his arrogant words. I endured it thanks to the arrogance of my own inner wolf.

After who-knows-how-long trapped in agony, the pain slowly faded.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead. The cold air failed to cool the burning heat spreading through my body.

When I looked down, I realized I finally had both hands again.

"Alright. Just one leg left, then we can go find the Lycan King and take the position we deserve," Loodie said excitedly, his arrogance unchanged. "Just wait. I’ll tear apart our old man’s inner wolf." He laughed like a devil.

I only shook my head and smiled faintly.

Even though he was arrogant, I knew Loodie was right. I was ready to crush them into pieces as well.

I turned back, but I hadn’t gone far from the banyan tree when Loodie stopped me. "A group of powerful werewolves is coming this way."

My heart panicked instantly. "It hasn’t even been a month yet. Have the warriors come again?"

I rushed toward our group’s location, but the strong presence was coming from our side.

"Run, now!" Loodie ordered, his voice filled with panic.

I panicked too, but my body refused to move. I couldn’t leave Rudy and his frail mother behind. I couldn’t abandon Eson and little Ella.

As I hesitated, Loodie told me that Eson and Ella were heading toward us.

Moments later, Eson appeared in my sight, carrying Ella in his arms. She was covered in blood.

"What happened to her?" I asked anxiously.

"Rogues from another group attacked us," Eson said. "They weren’t just after our food supplies. They wanted to capture us and eat us."

I stiffened at his words.

"We need to find a safe place first," I said quickly. Then I spoke to Loodie in my mind.

’Find us a safe place.’

"I already have. You didn’t even need to ask."

Guided by Loodie, we moved toward the safe place.

...