So with the new chapter comes another post...

This will be a bit of a continuing series of posts as the story goes on. Because of the nature of the world our main characters live in, their slang is a bit different and since they're all from the same race and more or less share a language, I don't have any convenient way to explain the words. So here it is, the first entry in the Alpha's Dance Dictionary:

Alpha: Leader of the pack. Of course. This is almost always going to be used to refer to the one person in charge of the WHOLE pack, but every so often it may be used to describe a character who has dominance over another character.

Beta: The Alpha's second. Of course. Used rather loosely, especially with the Beckmoor Pack because while Cael, by all rights, is technically supposed to be the Beta, it's Taka who takes the responsibility for it.

Bitch: A word with a lot of different meanings (just like our world, I guess). Bitch is used by Ferals to refer to women. It's not particularly an insult, it's just the word they use (as casually as female or woman). Males can call each other a bitch to imply weakness or subordination (it's particularly insulting if a woman calls a man this, because it reverses the roles).

Clan: A family within a larger pack.

Pack: A group of clans all coexisting under the same leadership. Usually all of the clans are tenuously related. Leads to a lot of literal kissing cousins.

The Council: There are actually several Councils, but when they're referred to in this fashion, the character is usually going to be talking about the local council that presides over their part of the world. Think of them as governors. Above them would be the High Council, who would be more like presidents.

Hunters: Referred to vaguely as a collective, hunters are usually humans who hunt werewolves for profit. Not all werewolves are benevolent.


Now for the different types of werewolves:

I've mentioned three so far: Those who are City-bred, Outlanders, and Ferals.

City-bred werewolves, sometimes live among humans or in entirely werewolf populated cities. They work as merchants, traders, etc. They have a system of nobility and more or less NEVER condescend to their more animal roots. They are usually the most educated, but by the same token, they are also sometimes very arrogant and tend to look at themselves above others of their kind.

Outlanders are much more rustic than city-bred wolves. For the most part they live in small settlements or, when they have a territory of their own, live like nomads. They tend to be very pack oriented, they hunt and gather their food for the most part, but will go to a city or town to buy food when the season is rough. They are the middle ground between the city-bred wolves and...

Ferals. They range from werewolves who live SOLELY as wolves to werewolves who live most of their lives in wolf form but are not unfamiliar with two legs. They are the extreme form of Outlanders, they are very animalistic and aggressive, they are very large by nature, and tend to be frightening opponents. They live solely off of the land and what they can hunt. Keep in mind that they are not evil; they live by a code of their own that sometimes directly conflicts with the laws of the more civilized wolves. Because of their wild nature and the fact that the only authority among them is whoever is the Alpha, they do not fall under ANY Council's rule.

First post!

Hey everyone! This is Fair Winds and this blog is dedicated to my werewolf fantasy piece named Alpha's Dance.

I don't have much to say about this story except that I do appreciate those of you who read. I'd like a few more of you to do so, but I'm not going to beg. This story is mostly just a guilty pleasure and something to refresh me after working so hard on Willa.

There are a few things that I feel I should note right away, though.

This is my first M-rated story.

Begin tangent:

I've said in the past that I think lemons are for people who really aren't very good writers but want readers and know that sex sells. Sex sells big. Even badly written sex.

Now, I'm not saying that Alpha's Dance is going to have a lemon in it. In fact, the chances of that are so far below one percent that they're not even worth mentioning. I just can't bring myself to do it. Sex in books and movies is just this really pathetic way of getting attention--kind of like how emo kids slit their wrists. Sex is rarely if EVER plot relevant unless it has to do with something like rape (and then who the hell wants to read about that exactly?) and in fact, in a lot of cases, it takes away from or just plain RUINS the story. If the couple has sex and you're only halfway through the book, most writers lean towards a lot of relationship conflict that either gets lost in or totally swallows up the whole plot. So, what I'm saying is that sex is a black hole.

Anyways, I digress. In Alpha's Dance, the theme of a woman being weaker and therefore inferior sort of lends itself to sexual themes. Later on in the plot, one of Seath's purposes is going to highlight how sex is treated among wolves and how very little choice a woman has in this matter. This isn't really supposed to be commentary on real life as much as it is on OTHER werewolf stories. Ever notice that there's a lot of rape and abuse in the werewolf genre that is passed off as love? Yeah, that's not happening here. Eris is going to deal with this like she will every other situation: with a lot of defiance and, if need be, a lot of stabbing.

End tangent.

So, despite all of the above, really the M rating is for the gore and violence that's going to take place in later chapters as well as some language and some sexual themes. No full out sex here, peeps. Sorry.

Anyways, thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you in the comments and reviews.