My medium-sized basket was almost full of mushrooms, which wasn’t bad for a morning’s worth of work. I headed east while keeping my eyes open for more mushrooms. Packs occasionally traded with rogues along the pack borders, and there was a pack just to the east of me.

This pack allowed me to cross their border if I was heading to their market. People rarely considered runts to be dangerous. In some ways, it worked out in my favor. In other ways, runts were considered a burden and nuisance – and that aspect caused me nothing but trouble and grief.

I slowly walked through the marketplace. My heart always worked overtime due to my nerves whenever I had to enter a pack’s territory. As a rogue, I had no protection from the guards or fighters if someone decided to attack me. The pack members mostly ignored me, as if I were a clump of dirt.

I had lived near this pack's border for several years now, so my presence wasn't exactly a novelty. This Alpha allowed me to come to the market whenever I chose in exchange for the promise that I would not cause any trouble and would give a howl if I thought I saw something dangerous heading toward their borders.

I walked towards an elderly lady. She looked up and smiled as she saw me. She greeted me, "Ah, Jade. Nice to see you this lovely morning. The western border is quiet, I hope?"

I smiled at the kind, elderly lady and replied softly, "Good morning, Mrs. Elderan. It is good to see you looking so well. Things have been pretty quiet, although I have seen a black bear on and off throughout the week." I kept my voice quiet and soft. It made me look somewhat meek, but it did seem to keep most people from trying to use my words to pick a fight with me.

This lady had always traded fairly with me. She replied, "I will just let the others know to keep an eye on the younger children, just in case the bear decides to wander in this direction. What do you have for me today?"

I opened up the lid on the basket and came forward where she could see it more easily. She inspected the contents as she responded, "Will the usual trade work?"

I nodded and she turned around to bag several loaves of bread. It was dense and grainy, the kind that filled you up fast and kept you full for a long time. She didn't question if the mushrooms were edible. At this point, they rarely bothered to check if anything I brought in was edible.

In the beginning, they had inspected everything when I first started trading, but after a year they had ceased their endless checks since every scrutinized object turned out to be edible. At the age of twenty-one, I had spent almost half of my life as a rogue and had been taught by quite a few rogues I had met over the years. I knew almost every edible thing in the forest.

We talked for a bit before someone else approached her booth. I bid her farewell and turned to head back to no man's land. I kept an eye on the others as I slowly walked through the busy market. The slow walk was to avoid drawing attention to myself.

There were two people sitting on a bench kissing. I wasn’t surprised to see that they had turned out to be mates since I had been sure of it even before the girl had turned eighteen last week. They just had that look about them and had somewhat gravitated towards one another even before they were old enough for their mate bond to appear.

I glanced around, but didn't see either the Beta or Alpha. The two men were probably out meeting other Alphas and working out trades while dealing with the endless world of politics. I could see their mates helping out with the market, although I had expected to see them here. The Beta and Alpha usually dealt with policy and relationships with other packs while their mates, while the Luna and Beta female usually concentrated on smaller details and events within the pack.

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I watched a heavily-built man walk across the path ahead without glancing at me. He was one of the pack's Enforcers and was probably heading over to break up a growing argument at one of the booths. The Alpha and Beta relied on Enforcers to keep the peace if they weren’t in the immediate area.

Enforcers enforced the law and helped keep the peace. They were skilled fighters and could usually equal an Alpha's speed and strength if a fight broke out. A pack usually had one or two Enforcers at any given time and they almost never went outside the pack’s borders. Like Alphas and Betas, they were born with their powers in their blood. One simply could not choose to become an Enforcer.

I nodded politely to one of the pack's Omegas. He nodded back and kept going, obviously on a task of some sort. Packs rarely abused Omegas anymore since it caused the pack to become unbalanced. Omegas may be the lowest ranking member in a pack, but their presence helped the other pack members to relax.

People could get a bit uneasy with so many higher ranking and powerful pack members constantly around, but if an Omega was relaxed, it meant that everything was calm. Omegas practically had a second sense for trouble, particularly if the Alpha was irritated, and they could pull a disappearing act in seconds. If an Omega looked nervous and left the area swiftly, then it was a wise idea to make yourself scarce as well.

Oddly enough, the Alpha and Beta traits were usually hereditary, while the Enforcer, Omega, and runt genes were only inherited by their children about half of the time. The other half of the time, they randomly appeared in normal families. No one in my family had ever been a runt; I had appeared randomly out of the woodwork.

I had no problems with Omegas, and about six years ago, I had joined a pack for a year and had been assigned the role of Omega. It was uncommon for someone to be assigned to the Omega role, but not unheard of when the person in question was a rogue that the pack didn't particularly want.

I had left when the old Alpha had died without an heir and neighboring packs started closing in. That stint as an Omega had given me quite the set of skills capable of detecting and avoiding bad situations. The skills had remained even though the designated rank had disappeared.

I was almost out of the market when my ears picked up whispering.

"There is that runt again."

"Not sure why she is allowed in here without a guard since she is a rogue."

One of them snickered. "So? She is a runt. She might chew on your slippers, but she is incapable of doing any other damage."

I pretended that I didn’t hear them as I ignored their insults. I refused to rise to their bait. Anything I may say would rile them up and attract attention. In an argument between a pack member and a rogue, the pack member would come out on top, regardless of who was to blame.

I didn't want to think about the consequences if an Enforcer, the Beta female, or the Luna got involved. That would be brought to the attention of the Alpha – and anything that caused him additional work was trouble for me. This bunch always did this if they saw me. They were five older teens that obviously lacked something constructive to do with their time.

I failed to see why they always tried to antagonize me. Admittedly, as a runt, my wolf form was next to useless in a fight and my human form was weaker than the average werewolf in human shape, but I had been a rogue for nearly a decade.

I had picked up numerous tricks over the years on how to beat or evade an opponent at a distance. If they went out to no man's land, I could watch them for hours and they would probably not even know I was in the area. But, we were in a market on their pack lands – and that changed everything.

"It isn't like she will ever find a mate, so I don't know why she keeps coming here to trade. Too bad she doesn't go bother some other pack."

"Maybe she is seeing if someone who lost their mate will take her in."

"Like that will ever happen..."

I gritted my teeth silently as my anger stirred slightly. I knew the old saying that runts rarely ever got mates, but they didn't have to rub it in. Look at the Enforcers, they also rarely ever found their mates, but no one ever looked down on them for that. It was terrible to watch couples happily in love, knowing that you would likely never have that chance.

Besides, those who lost their mates rarely ever got over their loss to the point where they could consider marrying another who also lost their mate. The mate bond was a powerful thing that defied logic.

I took a deep breath, but picked up nothing except the usual smells of the marketplace. No trace of an unusual alluring scent. Such a smell was usually the first sign that one's mate was in the area.

I was finally out of earshot and at the edge of the forest. I picked up my pace to a jog; it would be half an hour before I would reach the pack's border and re-entered no man's land. At this point, all I wanted was to enjoy the quiet of the forest away from people who enjoyed seeing another person in pain.