.jpg)
x
My seven stepsisters were, to put it mildly, spoilt brats. It didn't help they were all werewolves, nor did it help they were named after virtues none of them practiced. Angela herself seemed unable to keep her seven daughters - Faith, Hope, Charity, Chastity, Patience, Temperance, and Prudence - in line, despite being a werewolf herself, and her girls ran her ragged. It was for this reason she'd been reluctant to bring them into our house, but their father had passed recently, and his mother didn't want seven little hellions in her home. So Angela had them brought to us, and life turned upside down. Before long, they were running amok, causing chaos and destruction wherever they went, and generally being little pests who delighted in causing trouble. Dad could never seem to bring them into line despite being a werewolf of considerable power, and even Angela couldn't rein them in. The girls wouldn't even give me the time of day, since I was a completely normal, human girl, without even the abilities granted to werewolves who had no wolves. Dad had never seen an issue in it (barring his brief marriage to Mary, who was a pureblooded werewolf from the Night Rivers pack, the most elitist, classist pack this side of the Thames), but my stepsisters saw me as nothing more than a slave, and they treated me as such, ordering me about whenever the whim took them.
But I wasn't going to be terrorised by seven little hellhounds. So I put my foot down, and though they howled, screamed and cried all hours of the day and night, I refused to budge, forcing them to do their own chores and homework. Dad and Angela fully backed me, and, surprisingly, after about six months, the girls began to calm down. They never stopped their disdainful comments, but at least they actually did as they were told, and Angela praised me for bringing her girls into line. "I just didn't let them walk all over me," I told her. "No offence, Mum, but I think you gave them too much leeway."
Angela sighed. "I have to agree with you, there," she said. "Fred was the only one who could keep them on the straight and narrow, but when he died, they got to be too much for me, and I sent them to their grandmother's for a little while so I could clear my head and get on with the business of decently burying him. Amber is a good enough sort, but she didn't have the necessary influence that Fred had, and, God help me, there's seven of them. I thought my doctor was trolling me when he showed me the ultrasound, but the evidence was too real for me to ignore. She-wolves can give birth to multiples, but four or five is usually the amount. At least I could give birth the natural way, and not screaming like human women do." She shook her head. "At least they're behaving themselves. Don't quite know what I'd do without you."
I smiled. "Me neither," I said.
109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZKeqke74Ic
Two days before I was due to graduate from high school, I recieved news that tore me to the heart - Dad and Angela had been on the wrong end of an accident involving a drunk driver, and though paramedics had worked feverishly on them, they couldn't be saved. My sisters were horrified and saddened at this news, having finally come around to treating Angela more like a mum and less like a stranger, and they'd grown attached to Dad as well, who'd given them the stability they'd so desperately needed after losing their own father.
I took the news just as hard as they, but when my grandmother on Dad's side - a cold, snooty woman named Bella, who'd never liked me because of my human status - told me she was going to take me in and have the girls put into an orphanage, I put my foot down. I was an adult, and I could easily provide for my sisters thanks to my part time job as a secretary in Seven Sisters. Bella threatened to take me to court, but Amber stepped in and told her to eat rocks - my sisters were her grandchildren, and no one was going to take them away. Bella told her to eat rocks, since I was her only granddaughter, and the stoush threatened to upset the funeral arrangments. I told them both to eat rocks, and they neither of them liked that very much.
In any case, it didn't matter; Dad and Angela had named me the guardian of my sisters until they turned sixteen, and once that was verified by the courts, I settled down to the task of raising seven girls who were now orphans. I had loads of support whenever I needed it, and the girls did their best to not be too much trouble, seeing as how I was the only one standing between them and their grandmother, who turned out to not be as much of a saint as Angela had claimed. In fact, she and Bella began a campaign to see who could cause the most legal trouble for us, and before long, my life was turned upside down. They didn't bargain on Mum's side of the family helping, and her pack were more than willing to fight legal fire with legal fire.
In the end, the two old biddies gave up, and I welcomed the chance to raise my sisters, now that I had breathing space in which to do so. The girls never really ceased treating me as a lower life form, but they did all their chores without complaint, and they were very helpful around the house, which more than made up for their somewhat dismissive attitude of me. I personally didn't care too much; they were reasonably decent girls, and that was all I could have asked for.
ns 15.158.61.7da2
