Chapter 1

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the

Wolf is the Pack.

Rudyard Kipling

22 years later

Annie ran through the train station, swerving around the Friday rush hour commuters and school children as fast as she could. Trust her to be late, although to be fair, it had been a hell of a week at work with Fresher’s week and all and she hadn’t counted on her taxi finding itself in gridlocked traffic navigating the small Northern town where she had lived for the past twenty years or so. Jumping out of the taxi, Annie saw the train already idling in the station. Dashing along the platform, trying to find her carriage, her inner wolf’s voice encouraged her to move faster.

“Hurry Annie…..wait it’s this one, you’ve run past….go back.” her wolf urged in her head.

Annie skidded to a stop and turned about. Scuttling back to the carriage she’d just passed, she jumped on board and dumped her bags on the luggage rack. Checking the seat number on her ticket, she proceeded down the carriage until she found her seat. Luckily no one was sat in the other seats yet so she shuffled sideways into hers by the window, plonked herself down and gave a long sigh of relief. Soon the train filled up and Annie found herself surrounded by travellers heading to the airport with multiple suitcases and revellers travelling for a night out in Manchester.

“I’m looking forward to this trip” her wolf commented. She could sense her wolf’s excitement but the feeling wasn’t rubbing off on Annie. While she still felt part of the oldest wolf pack in Northern England, the Lunar Meadows Pack which dated back to Norman times, she had lived outside it for so long she no longer felt the pull to return. She had left when she was 20 years old, when she could no longer stand the pitying stares, the stares that said ‘poor Annie Lovell, her parents must be devastated’. Not that any of it had been her doing, but it continued to make her feel like a failure. Still, she loved her family and tried to visit a couple of times a year, so it wasn’t like she had gone rogue or anything, it was just… uncomfortable for her to be there. Annie had left, worked her way through university, teacher training college, and at forty- two, was now a senior lecturer in Ancient History. Even if she said so herself, she had made a pretty good life for herself in the human world, she had bought a house, had many friends and enjoyed an active social life. Humans were much more private about their personal lives, nobody in the human world batted an eyelid at an unmarked or unmarried childless forty-two-year-old and that was just how Annie liked it.

 Her thoughts were interrupted by the blowing of a whistle, doors being slammed shut and the lurch of the train as it pulled out of the station.

Once the train had left the urban sprawl and was wending its way through the green countryside, Annie continued her musings. At least they were only staying in her home town for one night she thought to herself, as Saturday morning, she, her sister Amelie and brother Jacques, along with some of their pack would be driving up to the Scottish Highlands for her niece’s wedding. This wedding was a big deal, Amelie’s daughter Aimeé was marrying into the mighty Reiver Pack, the largest pack in Scotland. Packs from all over the country would be there but no one outside her own pack would know her, she would be just like any other wolf and hopefully, there wouldn’t be any awkward questions like… ‘Why are you forty- two, childless and not yet marked?’

‘It’s going to be fine Annie’ soothed her wolf, sensing Annie’s apprehension. ‘You get to wear a nice dress, eat great food and drink expensive wine… she joked, everyone knew how rich the Reivers were.

‘Thanks Sabine’ she answered sardonically, suppressing a smile. That was the thing about being a Were in the human world, you had to be careful not to give yourself away. No reacting to conversations you were having with your wolf in your head or losing your temper and shifting into your wolf form the middle of the supermarket for example. There was no room for mistakes, it was a fine balance of skills which Annie had honed to a tee.

‘Promise me we can go for a run in the hills before we come home?’ begged Sabine, ‘It’s been a while’.

‘Sure we can, and you’re right, it’s been far too long since we really stretched our legs’ smiled Annie

Forty minutes later, Annie was lumbering off the train with her luggage at Manchester, navigating across the vast station to make her connection with the little local train which would carry her across the Yorkshire moors, back to the home she barely knew anymore. When she alighted at the station, Jacques was there to meet her with a big smile and an even bigger bear hug.

“Good to see you little sis” he grinned

“You too big brother” grinned Annie pulling him in to another hug. Jacques was forty- four, over six feet with the same chocolate brown hair as herself. Like Annie, he didn’t look his age, looking about thirty with no sign of greying or thinning of his hair. His physique didn’t give his true age away either, he was as toned, strong and as fit as he had ever been.

Jacques loaded Annie’s bags into his car and they began the 30-minute drive to the house. Whilst winding round the country lanes Jacques filled Annie in on all the wedding news. Aimeè, he told her, was already in Scotland, having been there since meeting her mate at the Moon Festival Ball a few months ago. Jacques’s teenage daughters were also in Scotland as they were to be bridesmaids, so they had a free evening at Amelie and Patric’s to drink wine and catch up. Once they had arrived and had hugs all round, it turned out to be a wonderful evening full of laughter and love. Annie’s siblings had never judged her for the decisions she had made or the life she chose to lead, they simply loved her, as she loved them.

“So glad you could come” Amelie whispered in Annie’s ear as they hugged before turning in.

“Of course I came, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world” whispered Annie returning Amelie’s hug.

Annie and her sister were very alike in looks but that’s where the similarity ended. Annie was tougher than her sister, Amelie was a sensitive soul who had suffered the most when their parents died. Even once she had found her mate, Amelie had continued to live in the family home, persuading Patric to move in rather than moving to Patric’s town as was the norm. Their parents were aged and needed looking after, especially their father and Amelie had felt she couldn’t leave them. Annie’s mother had been in her late thirties when she met her father, and her father had been almost fifty. They had spent all of their adult lives looking for each other, both of them thinking they would never meet their mate. Consequently, they had pups later in life, three in quick succession.

“See you all tomorrow.” Annie called to everyone and a chorus of ‘goodnights’ followed her up the stairs leaving her with a warm feeling of belonging, something she hadn’t felt in a while.

Annie awoke in her childhood bedroom to the scream of her phone alarm. Hitting the off button, she took in her old room. Amelie had re- decorated it since their father died some twelve years past. Until then, her parents had kept it just as it was, perhaps in the hope of Annie’s return. However, whilst sad to see her go, Annie knew her parents understood why she had chosen to leave.

She sat up, her head throbbing from the copious amounts of wine her brother, sister and their respective mates had drunk the night before. They probably should have had an earlier night, but it had been an age since they were last all together and it had felt good to talk and to be part of the family again. As for the rest of the pack, well, she would have to wait and see. Not every pack member was going to the wedding, Annie’s family were obviously going as the family of the bride, the Alpha of Lunar Meadows, Henri and his Luna Betina, their children, also the pack’s Beta and Delta and their respective mates and children would also be in attendance, as was tradition. Annie glanced at the dress she had hung on the wardrobe the night before and smiled, she loved this dress with its matching shoes and bag. Midnight blue satin halter neck, which came to just below her knee, stilettos and clutch bag, which totally complimented her pale complexion. The toner she had put on her long brown hair earlier in the week had given her highlights which would look lovely when her hair was piled on top of her head in a classic style. As Annie climbed in the shower she realised for the first time that she was really looking forward to this wedding.

‘About time’ said a sleepy Sabine in her head.

By 7 am, they were on the road in Patric’s people carrier. The Alpha and his family led the way with the Beta and Delta and their families following in their vehicles, with Annie’s family bringing up the rear. While watching the countryside flash by, Annie began mulling over what she knew about the Reiver Pack. She had never been to their territory herself as she hadn’t gone to the Moon Festival Ball this year. The Moon Festival was a major event in the werewolf calendar, a chance to give thanks to the Moon Goddess for their continued survival and prosperity. Each year a different pack would host the Festival Ball and this year had been the turn of the Reiver Pack. While many un-mated wolves used the Ball as an opportunity to try to find their mates, it was also a time to reconnect with old friends, make new ones, establish alliances and generally do business. Annie had missed the Ball this year (and most other years if she was honest), so had never met anyone from the Reivers but she knew of their reputation.

The Reiver Pack were originally known as The Border Reivers, as they lived on the border between England and Scotland, and the old Scottish word ‘reive’ meant to rob or plunder. The pack consisted of both Scottish and English wolves and they raided on both sides of the border with no regard for the nationality of their victims. There was certainly much written about them in human history books, but what Annie found perplexing was that not one single human seemed to have realised that the Reivers were wolves, no mention of them being extremely tall, muscular, vicious or violent, the things humans usually noticed about werewolves when seeing them in their human form. Human historians simply attributed their behaviour to the lawlessness of the border region allowing the wolves to keep the true nature of their species well hidden.

    Reivers raided in family or Clan packs where blood ties were unbreakable and loyalty to the pack was everything. They had a blatant disregard for authority and would delight in outwitting the armies of both sides. Their success and growing numbers inevitably led to feuds between the Reivers themselves, leading to what the humans called Clan Wars. It seemed the Reivers were bloodier and more vicious with each other than they were with their human counterparts with murder, arson and pillaging common in raids upon each other. Their demise came with James VI accession to the throne in 1603 and the union of England and Scotland. Little mercy was shown to the troublesome and lawless Reivers and many relocated to the Highlands, the last part of Scotland to be brought to heel by the English. The Reivers remain there to this day and continue to grow and is the strongest, richest pack in Great Britain. It was not clear how they had become so wealthy but Annie had her suspicions that the source of their wealth was not entirely legal. Though they still feuded with neighbouring packs, they had successfully remained hidden from the human world.

Annie wondered if her niece knew exactly what she was letting herself in for marrying into this warrior pack. Aimeè had accepted the mate bond so she must be happy with the Goddesses’ choice for her. Annie knew all too well that mate bonds while allegedly absolute, were most definitely not, although to reject a mate bond had serious consequences for both involved. Given the reputation of the Reivers, had Aimeè felt unable to reject this wolf even if she wanted to, worried that a rejection could start a feud with the most feared pack in Scotland? There was no way their little pack could possibly defend itself against the Reivers. The pack was small, only a couple of thousand members,  though all the warriors, both male and female were trained to protect the community and ran patrol like any other pack, in reality it had been at least one hundred years since any of her members had any reason to fight.  No one had tried to take over the Lunar Meadows Pack as there was little to gain from a forest, a patch of land and a few towns in the middle of nowhere in North Yorkshire. Lunar Meadows territory was a pinprick in the landscape compared to other packs, so generally, they were just left alone.

“Annie, this is the last food and toilet stop before we get to the Reiver territory” Jacques voice cut into her thoughts.

“Yeah hang on, I’m coming” Annie replied snapping out of her reverie and climbing out of the vehicle.

“Well, I guess we will be there soon and we will find out for ourselves.” said Sabine

“That we will.” replied Annie, an uneasy feeling settling in her stomach.