"Half breed..."
"Mutt..."
"Outcast..."
"Omega scum....."
The insults flew over him, adding to the general din of the denning area. They sounded so often that they were lost on him, barely noticed. He passed on, snarling at those who came too close, though it did him no good. Their words were threats, and it was only his mother's place as Betaess that stopped them from chasing him out. No one wanted him..... No one wanted a half-coyote for in their pack. Coyotes were weak. The truth, however, was far from it. Melandru had inherited the better genes of both species. He was light and fast, yet had lost none of the wolf's size and muscle, or it's endurance. They called him the Sly One, which was another of his hybrid traits. He did not have to rely as much upon others when making a kill, his coyote and wolf intelligence blended well, and with his speed and new founded ability to climb trees, he knew inside that he was better than these inbreed wolves. Someday he would prove it. Someday he would show them, show them how much better he really was. And then he would find a place where nobody cared about his blood, where nobody cared except for how good he was. Find a place where he would be accepted. Melandru, with a hidden sneer at his own malicious thoughts, slipped through the denning grounds without letting anyone goad him into a fight.

*************************************************

And so it went, and had gone, for the first two years of his life. Kicked around, made fun of, scorned, he took it all- and gave them their scorn back sevenfold. This may not have been the right way to go about it, but his venom and utter violence toward his own kept most of them away.