Chapter 1: The meeting

Chapter 1: The Meeting. 

Ruelle’s POV

“Maybe if you spent less time waning in the woods, you would know what it feels like to be useful to the pack”

Thessa’s words echoed in my head over and over, as I haunched in my wolf form by the clearing in the woods. Unlike my sisters, Valka, Seren and Thessa, I wasn’t a fighter. They were warriors, protectors of the Reach as they liked to call themselves, but not me. I was the one who stayed behind while they fought. At first I was being protected from the war. My Father always dismissed the idea of me going to war with the rest of the Protectors. But then I reached a certain age where I had the liberty of choice and I willingly chose to stay behind. 

Needless to say, my sisters never liked that idea. They always retuned high on victory with proud glints in their eyes. Being the daughters of the Alpha of the Silvermane Pack, it was unheard of that they went into battle and lost. 

And they always found a way to rub it in my face. 

The thoughts remained as I trotted to the little river dividing the fields, staring down into it. 

My wolf stared back at me with a calm knowing, a silvery white furry phantom that I sometimes wondered how I was a part of. An inherent shield that turned into the most comfortable shell whenever I needed to get away. My very first protector and most untroubled state of being. 

My wolf had no worries, save for where to go and what to eat. She was graceful, delicate, not meant for battles, wars or the trouble that comes with it. 

It was almost uncanny, how different she was.  I would say it is because I am different, but I always believed she had a mind of her own.

I lowered my head to drink from the lake, momentarily distorting my reflection in it. There was a warm shift in the atmosphere while I drank, the wind carrying the whiff of a  very familiar scent. 

   ‘Knew I’d find you here’ My mama’s words curved through my thoughts. I raised my head and turned, watching her with warmth as she strutted to my side in her wolf, a spectacle covered in thick, deep bronze fur, with streaks of gold whenever it caught the sun. 

I haunched beside the river and watched as she drank from it, her tongue slowly sticking out to lick her muzzle when she was done. 

    ‘Where else would I be, Mama?’ I replied. 

Since we were both in our wolf, our conversation unfolded in the quiet language of telepathy, thoughts brushing against each other like wind through leaves. 

   ‘You aren’t wrong for being different, little moon’ She cooed, using the pet name she called me as a child. ‘You just need to find strength in your uniqueness. You sideline yourself and act surprised when others follow suit’

    ‘I have no interest in proving myself to anyone, Mama. Especially not to my sisters. You know they will sideline me anyway. Besides I am not a little girl anymore, their words don’t affect me’ I looked towards the river to hide the twitch in my ears.

We both knew that was a lie. I had been out here in the first place because of their words. 

Mama looked at me calmly and if she sensed I was lying, she didn’t show it. ‘If you say so, little moon.’ She stalked towards me until her muzzle was directly beside me, leaning slightly against mine. ‘And I never told you to prove yourself to anyone. But soon enough you would need to learn to defend yourself even if it is against your own sisters’

I nuzzled back against her, a faint whine slipping out. 

‘Your Father is back from the coast and is asking for you. You should return soon’. She turned to leave at the same time my ears snapped up to the faint rustling of leaves. My wolf immediately became alert, posture lowering into a crouch as my focus zeroed in on the source. A rabbit. 

I hadn’t caught anything since dawn and my wolf was starving. The hunger and excitement coiled into determination as I dug my paws into the earth, my senses narrowing into a sharp, predatory edge. And I watched, waited and listened. 

At what seemed like the perfect moment, I launched forward, breaking into a sprint. The rabbit broke from the bush in a flash, adding to my excitement. My wolf didn’t like to sneak. She loved the chase. There was this high a predator got from chasing prey it knew couldn’t outrun it. Made the hunt more fun. 

The trees blurred past me as my vision tunneled in on the sprinting rabbit, calculating each frantic twist. The rabbit veered swiftly into the bushes and I followed without hesitation, the sudden movement reducing the distance between us. 

The rabbit darted again but this time, it wasn’t fast enough. 

My wolf surged forward in a flash, claws shooting out mid-leap and landing with vigor, hooking past fur and flesh and holding it down beneath my weight. In a swift, practiced motion, my jaw closed around its neck, teeth sinking in deep and final. 

The struggle ended as quickly as it began, silence falling over the woods once more. I stood with the rabbit caught in my mouth, trotting back over to where my Mama stood, quietly observing the scene. 

    ‘I would give it to you, but this is my first catch’ I told her, slyness coiling through my words. 

    ‘Your catch - your kill, little moon’ she crooned, a proud glint in her eye as she turned to leave. ‘Don’t be too late’

I settled into a sit, my eyes wordlessly following her retreating frame until she was out of sight. With a thud, I dropped my kill unto the grass, my tongue sticking out to lick my nose in one smooth motion. After making sure there was no more movement in the bushes, I lowered my head and began to eat. 

The clouds had gathered and the sun was hidden behind them. The foggy weather was my cue to get back to the Hold, so I trotted quietly over to where Morra waited with my clothes. 

My handshade, Morra, has been with me for as long as I remember. A few years older than me, sharper in many ways but loyal to the bone. I see her as more than a servant but a friend. The capable, calm and committed friend I never had. 

   “Here you are, my Lady” she voiced in near whisper, her lips curving in a smile as she sticks a pile of folded clothes out to me. I take the pile in my mouth and pad over to the nearby tree, placing it down while I shift. My posture straightened, limbs shortened and fur receded until I could feel the cool air against my bare skin. Then I began to dress. 

Morra is smart enough to bring casual clothing since I would eventually have to take a bath as soon as I get to the Hold. The thought carries with the reminder that I am supposed to meet with my Papa and I am suddenly filled with a sense of urgency. 

Papa doesn’t like it when he is kept waiting. 

Once I am fully clothed in the long flowing dress Morra brought, I step out from behind the tree so she can zip me up. I skip the shoes because I would much rather walk barefoot to the Hold so I can feel the grasses slip through my toes. It is one of the little joys of my life. 

   “All done” Morra says behind me, combing her fingers through my now ruffled white curls. 

   “Did Papa ask of me?” I ask her, holding up my dress and hopping towards the edge of the woods. 

She responds but her words are blurry as my eyes land on something that makes me stop in my tracks. 

   “Well I haven’t seen this in a while”. I muse in a whisper as I crouch down before the little withering flower. 

I went around plucking these little flowers as a young girl, although they only grew once in a few years within the Reach and I had no idea what they were called. All I knew was that they were the prettiest I’d ever seen and I loved to collect pretty things. I stuck them in a jar of water for a while in my bedroom until they eventually withered and Mama ordered they be thrown out. 

I haven’t seen any since then. This is first in a few years and it doesn’t look very good. There is barely any life left in it despite the rain and constant sunlight. I assume the soil of the Reach is no longer conducive for it. 

    “What is it, My lady?” Morra asked, crouching behind me and following my gaze to the dying flower. 

   “An old friend” I told her, tilting my head slightly as I stare at the little flower in contemplation. I didn’t plan to use my powers today. But then again, it’s not like I ever do. 

  “Do you plan to revive it?” Morra asks, reading my thoughts. 

I was born with an itch. An itch to give life to the things and sometimes people around me. This itch eventually transformed into the ability to revive dying things as long as they still had a little life in them. Almost like a healer, it was confused with that when I was a little girl just discovering my powers. But only this was transactional. I had to take life from something else, something less significant and give it to the dying thing. 

I didn’t use my gift a lot because I’m not in love with the idea of taking lives to revive others. Nothing deserves to die. But in situations where I did use it, it was on something small. Things that I didn’t have to collect from anything else in order to revive them. Things that required just a touch, a breath or sometimes a whisper to do the trick. Like birds, plants, insects and flowers. 

My sisters also had their gifts. Valka, the eldest, had strength so unyielding she could lift a felled tree over her shoulders and make it look like nothing more than a branch. Seren was quiet, but her silence was full. She saw, heard, and scented more than the rest of us combined, catching the shift of wind or the snap of a twig miles away as if it happened under her own paws. Thessa could never stand still, and the gift of raw, lightning speed ran in her blood, she was a blur through the trees, gone and back again before you could even blink.

According to Papa, his Mother had possessed supernatural powers in her reign and so these gifts were passed down from her. Although Papa and Mama didn’t possess any supernatural gifts, they had abilities that set them apart. Papa’s bite could tear through a limb in a single snap, and Mama’s voice could still the fiercest wolf in its tracks.

With the slow and deliberate touch of my fingertips on the withering petals of the flower, I exhaled slowly, feeling the energy flow through me and into it. I watched content as the petals slowly lifted and the color returned, bright and alive. 

   “Well done, my lady” Morra smiled. She has witnessed me use my abilities several times, but doesn’t fail to commend me every time. It’s one of the reasons why she’s so dear to me. 

My eyes return to the thriving flower, however I am suddenly pricked with an unfamiliar feeling. One that I cannot place. It is neither a scent, nor a sound, or even a smell. But a pull. Not strong, but soft enough to know it’s there. I raise my head and look around, my eyes flitting aimlessly in search of the source. I feel a pull to dying things sometimes, things with little life in them. But this is different. Stronger. 

I skim through the woods to no avail. Nothing is out of place, no human or animal in sight. Just the gentle whooshing of trees and chirping of birds present. 

I shake my head as if to discard it, my eyes meeting a seemingly confused Morra. 

   “Is everything alright?” She asks, her brows furrowed as she scans the woods herself. 

    “It’s nothing.” I respond, rising to my feet and dusting off my dress. “We should leave” 

I start  towards the path with her on my trail, nothing but the hum of trees and the crunch of leaves under our feet filling the air. But as we near the edge of the woods, I feel it so strongly again. This time stronger than the first, as though its source is getting closer. 

I stopped walking so suddenly, Morra almost walked into me. 

   “My Lady?”  I can hear the confusion in her voice.

    “You should carry on.”  I turn to her, “I won’t be long”

Morra hesitated, but didn’t question it. She slowly gave a reluctant nod and walked ahead. I waited till she was out of sight before I turned in search of whatever it could be that kept calling unto me. 

I walked deeper into the woods before shifting into my wolf, deciding that I would be much stealthier in her. I had no idea what, or who could be within those woods and I needed to be prepared for anything. 

It wasn’t until I began to hear the crunch of leaves and caught the unfamiliar scent of metal, leather and the unmistakable musk of wolf, that I paused. Silently, I leapt and clawed my way up the nearest tree, settling among its branches to watch from above.

From my spot on the tree, hidden between the leaves, I watched as three men came into my line of vision, going in the direction I came from, towards the Hold. The one in the front was a tall, burly man with a smooth gait. From his frame alone, there was no telling he would be a large wolf, jet black hair framing his face and eyes so green I almost assumed they were glowing. 

They might have been. 

He walked like he knew exactly where he was going and for some reason I couldn’t doubt that. Even from my spot on the tree, I could see the way he scanned the trees with such certainty, like he could hear the sound every single leaf made. 

It was only a matter of time before he saw me., and I couldn’t place whether it was that fact or something else that made my heart race just by looking at him. 

The one beside him matched his pace with stealth, his eyes forward and jaw set. The last two trailed behind in a steady pace, their movements just as smooth and quiet. They had the movement of predators rather than people. 

 They were about to cross directly beneath the tree I was perched on, when they all stopped. Like clockwork, their heads turning and stances turning slightly defensive. 

“Something is up there.” A voice said with so much certainty, I began to feel foolish for choosing this as my hiding spot. 

I had expected it, but it didn’t stop the racing of my heartbeat and the ringing in my ears. I had no idea who these men were or what they wanted. They could be rogue wolves on the hunt for all I know. But I wasn’t raised a coward. And I wasn’t the intruder here, they were. This is my turf. 

And I didn’t mind showing them that. 

With that thought and the courage I had no idea I possessed, I jumped down from the tree in a flash, landing with my paws spread and head bowed. 

The air was thick with tense silence, my heartbeat thundering in my ears now that I was about to face them. But as soon as I raised my head and my eyes locked with his, my ears pricked forward and tail lifted ever so slightly. I was caught off guard but in the best way. 

He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.