Wolf girl, p.1
Wolf Girl, page 1
Green Dryad Books
P.O. Box 3285
Petersburg, VA 23805
Copyright © Tieste Williams, 2017
All rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written consent from the publisher, except in brief excerpts for reviewing purposes.
Published in the United States by Green Dryad Books.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to events or persons living or deceased is strictly coincidental.
Summary: A girl who was raised by wolves leaves her pack to find out what happened to her birth mother but meets a new family of werewolves who show her that there is a lot more magic and danger in the world than she than she ever imagined.
ISBN: 978-0-9983041-0-6
eBook ISBN: 978-0-9983041-1-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017911703
Book Cover by Indie Designz
This book is dedicated to all those who ever believed in my dreams. Thank you! Your support means the world to me!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Acknowlegements
Chapter 1
IT ALL STARTED eleven years ago on a warm morning in June, when I was only seven. It was barely light outside, the sun a light glow against the blue curtains on my window. As I lay in bed, I was awakened by the sound of my mother calling my name.
“Mom?” I asked.
“Rachel, sweetie, get up. We have to go.”
“Where are we going?” I asked. She ignored my question and told me to get dressed. Before I could make sense of what was happening, she had taken my hand and rushed us down the stairs and out into the morning air.
Once we were outside, my mother broke into a sprint. I had no choice but to be dragged along as she held my hand tight.
“Mom?” I asked again, as the trees whooshed by us in a blur.
“Rachel, honey, I’m going to leave you with Brian’s pack for a couple of hours. I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?”
“Okay. But where are you going?”
“I can’t tell you right now, but you’ll understand soon.”
“Please don’t go,” I begged.
“Honey, I have to. I have something very important to take care of, but I’ll be back.”
Without exchanging another word, we ran into the very middle of the forest. The canopy of leaves above almost entirely blocked out the rising morning sun, casting shadows among the damp earth. Then five dark figures emerged from the trees.
“Brian!” I exclaimed. He gave me a wolfish grin as I raced over to bury my face in his thick brindle fur.
Brian was the alpha of the pack, and also one of my favorites among the wolves, along with his mate, Kylia. He was a gray wolf with broad shoulders. He held both his head and tail much higher than the others, a sure symbol of his status. The only other wolf allowed to assume that stance was Kylia. She shared the responsibilities of pack leader, but Brian had an air about him, one that was particularly assertive. It was easy to see why he was the alpha.
Hello, Rachel. Kylia, the alpha female, was smaller and more slender, with glossy black fur. She carried herself with the same assertiveness, but she was also very warm and caring, with a motherly vibe that made her easy to love. I smiled as she greeted me with a lick. The rest of the pack greeted us with a chorus of hellos.
“Please take good care of her,” my mother said.
Of course, Brian replied. You two are practically family.
“Be good, Rachel.” My mother kissed my cheek. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I love you.”
“I love you too, Mom.” And she closed her eyes for a second, with a look of sheer concentration on her face. There was a bright golden flash that caused everyone to look away, and when it faded, she was a large black wolf. She looked me in the eyes with an emotion I did not understand, and then she turned and left.
After that, I never saw my mother again. I was raised by Brian, Kylia, and the rest of the pack, and they quickly became my family.
Kylia had always been my favorite. She was like a second mother to me, while Brian had become the father I never had. The wolves raised me for many years—eleven, to be exact. They taught me how to truly survive in the wilderness, a trait that I had not yet fully grasped. After all, I lived in a house. We got our food from a grocery store. There was no absolute need to hunt unless we wanted to. We were safe and well fed in our little home.
Everything in the wild was different. Living in the wilderness was about opportunity and survival. There was no more refusing to eat a certain food because I didn’t like it. It was hunt and eat or starve. Living in the wild was all about survival of the fittest, and survive I did.
Being raised by the wolves was a unique learning experience that I will never forget. It became part of who I was. However, living in the wilderness has never erased my memories of my “human” life. Despite the years that have gone by, my mother’s disappearance still continues to haunt me.
I asked the wolves about her, about what truly happened, but no one was ever able to provide me with the answers I needed, not even Brian, who had been the closest to my mother out of all the wolves. He said that the only thing that she had told him before she left was that I was in some sort of danger, and that she needed them to protect me at all costs.
What that danger was, he didn’t know. Apparently my mother was always very secretive about her past. She’d moved to Alaska when she was just twenty, and he’d known her since he was a pup. In fact, she had been the one who had gifted him with the name Brian. Though she never went into her past or spoke much about her family, Brian had a feeling that something had happened, that the past she had run from so many years ago had finally caught up with her. That was all he could tell me.
Though I loved my pack, when my adoptive mother and father died, I saw no more reason to stay. I needed answers, answers that they could not give me. So I left my home, the wolves that I have come to know as my family, my teachers, everything that I knew. It was time to find out why my mother never returned to me like she had promised.
Chapter 2
I woke up to the bright morning sun and yawned. It was time to start moving again. After a quick stretch, I walked through the forest, taking in every detail of the land. It was slightly warmer today as the season began to move closer and closer to the end of spring. A few more flowers had popped up, and the trees were beginning to regrow their bright green leaves.
Birds perched on tree branches, chirping cheerfully as they greeted the new day. The forest seemed to move in a bustle with small and large animals alike; but as the hours passed I realized that something was wrong, that the forest had grown silent. I stopped, cocking my head to the side to listen.
I heard movement, but it soon stopped, aware that it had alerted the many animals to its presence. There was only silence, and then—boom! I turned to look in the direction of the gunshot.
As wolves, we are taught not to trust humans. Humans killed for no reason, but simply for the sake of killing. They often took from the earth without giving back. They littered, polluting our homes. They chopped down too many trees, leaving many creatures homeless.
That put me in a difficult position, as I am half human, but the wolves told me that so long as I remained in my wolf form, I would be treated as one. I knew that there were truly some good people on this planet, but we were taught to keep our guard up. Only the wolves are our family, our brothers, our sisters, and we’d never kill our own kind.
I listened closely to the sound of the hunter’s footsteps. He was getting closer. The air grew tenser as the other animals hid in the undergrowth or crouched in their burrows. I peeked out from behind a slender tree, and we saw each other at the same time. The hunter raised his rifle from his side and I realized that previous gunshot had been meant for me. I took off running further as he fired his rifle again.
I stopped behind a large Sitka spruce, hoping that I had lost the man, but soon I could hear his footsteps again—no, there were multiple sets of feet moving through the forest. The pair of feet that I could hear approaching were from a different human, a male by the sound of the heavy pounding of his feet. A female’s footstep would be lighter. I began to panic as he got closer, but then it occurred to me—the men were after the wolf, so all I had to do was change into my human form. How was I supposed to do that again? It had been so long.
The human male’s footsteps grew louder. Think Rachel, think. I thought back to my blurry memories as a seven-year-old child. How had I done it? I had to want it, I remembered. I pictured my wolf body turning into a silhouette of a human, as I did not know what my human face looked like any more. The transformation took longer than I remembered, most likely because I couldn’t visualize myself as a human, and also because I was out of practice, but eventually it came.
I could see the bright, yellow flash of light through my eyelids and when I opened them, I saw my naked torso. Long straight black hair hung over my shoulders, stretching down about an inch past my hips.
My arms and legs were slender and fair, and my fingers and toes ended with translucent nails. I took note that the a ir was cooler in this body, as I did not have my fur. The man was right behind my tree now, though the sound seemed to be duller somehow. I guessed that my human ears weren’t as sharp as a wolf’s. The hunter stepped out in front of me and gasped.
“Oh my! Here, put this on.” The man spun around and took off his jacket, which he held out to me without looking back. I sniffed at it—the fabric reeked with the salty smell of sweat, mixed with cologne. I stared at it, unsure of what to do.
“Go on, take it.” When I didn’t respond, the man turned and wrapped the jacket around my shoulders. “Come with me, honey, and I’ll take you some place warmer,” he said.
I didn’t move, as I had no plans of going absolutely anywhere with him. He noticed, and then added, “And we’ll also get you something to eat as well.” My stomach growled in response, and I slowly got up. Whoa! I stumbled and fell against the man’s arm.
“Are you okay?” he asked. I nodded, concentrating on keeping my balance as I put one foot in front of the other.
The man took a small black phone out of his pocket and called one of the hunters to tell him to end the hunt. After he ended the call, he kept looking back at me as I trailed behind him—checking to make sure that I was still there, I assumed. Though it was a little difficult for me, I soon found myself gaining more confidence as I continued to walk on two feet. I watched the man’s steps the whole time, until I was able to mirror his movements.
I took notice of his features for the first time. He was a brawny man, with short dark brown curly hair and a thick beard to match. He had dark brown eyes, and skin that was slightly tanned. He appeared to be in his late thirties. I stopped abruptly when I realized that he was leading me out of the forest. Would this lead me closer or farther from where I needed to go?
“What’s wrong?” the man asked as he stopped and looked back at me again.
We’re leaving the forest? I asked, but the man didn’t respond. He didn’t even acknowledge that I had spoken. Maybe he hadn’t heard me? I repeated my question, but again the man did not respond, and I found myself beginning to grow angry. Who did he think he was? First he disturbed the peace in my home, and now he couldn’t even answer a single question?
“What’s wrong?” he asked me again, and then it hit me. He hadn’t been ignoring me—he lacked the ability to telecommunicate the same way animals did. I flushed, embarrassed by the fact that I had jumped to conclusions without realizing the full facts.
“Are we leaving the forest?” I asked softly, using my voice for the first time. Adjusting to my new form would definitely take some work. For years, the only sounds that had come from my mouth were yips and growls. It felt strange using my voice in this way.
“Of course,” he responded. “You didn’t expect to stay out here in the wilderness alone, did you? Honey, it’s not safe and we need to get you into some clothes. Where are your parents?”
I turned away with no intention of answering his question, because truthfully, I didn’t know. Well, I knew where my father was. I remembered back to when I asked my mom about him, after just having played with the wolf cubs and their father, Brian.
We were sitting on the couch watching television. My mother was young at the time, only twenty-three years old. Her long black hair was not as thick as mine, so I must have inherited it from my father.
“Where is my daddy?” I asked. Her blue eyes instantly saddened, and she picked me up, placing me on her lap.
“Rachel, your father died before you were born.”
“Oh,” I said, saddened by this news. “How?” I asked.
“Wolf hunters,” she said, and I instantly knew that she was not talking about hunters of regular wolves, but us half wolves with the ability to shift from wolf to human at will. “Your father was a very brave man, Rachel. He died to protect us. Without him, you wouldn’t have been born, but you must always be careful not to tell the wrong person what we are. Often humans don’t understand what is different from them and they become fearful.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know, sweetie, but what they become fearful of, they destroy. That is why you must always keep what we are a secret. Do you understand?”
I nodded, and she smiled. “Now go upstairs and get ready for bed,” she said.
The man seemed to understand that he would not get an answer, and he walked on, leading me out onto a gravel road and a rusty black truck. There was a second blue car parked behind it, and I figured that it must have belonged to the person he had been talking to on his phone.
Where are we going? I asked. Again he didn’t respond, and I reminded myself that I needed to speak aloud. I repeated the question using my human voice.
“To my house,” he said as he opened the passenger door. He waited for me to step inside, but I hesitated. Was this truly a wise decision? My pack had taught me not to trust humans, and I knew that they were right. Just look at how I had gotten here. I had been forced out of my wolf form into this unfamiliar human body because he’d seen a wolf and intended to kill it simply for the sake of killing.
We wolves are predators, yes, but we hunt only for nourishment. Humans don’t eat wolves. They made us into prey simply to make trophies out of our heads, and they didn’t even play fair!
I lost a brother to these killers. Ocher was his name, and he had never had a chance. His only line of defense, his teeth, were useless as the humans shot at us from a helicopter in the sky. I remembered looking back and seeing the red puddle of blood that had belonged to a wolf I had once considered my brother. But we had had to keep moving lest more us suffer the same fate. Ocher had been shot dead, and there was nothing that we could do. He was barely an adult, and one of the nicest members of my pack. I was only eleven years old when I saw this.
Up until then, I had been very friendly with humans, despite my pack’s warnings. I hadn’t believed them when they told me that so long as I remained in my wolf form, I was just a “dumb” animal to most humans.
So instead of doing what a “dumb” animal would do, I decided to be a smart animal. I took off running away from the man’s truck. I heard him calling after me, and then his footsteps as he ran down the dirt road, but I ignored him and continued to run.
It wasn’t an easy feat on two legs, and I admit that I fell down a lot, but I never stopped or slowed down. I continued to run until I no longer heard his voice, no longer heard his footsteps trailing behind me. Only then did I crawl into the undergrowth and return to my dominant form.
The change was much easier this time, as I had a better idea of what I was doing. But I still had to keep moving. The man may have been searching for a human girl, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t still carrying his rifle, or that he wouldn’t kill a wolf if he came across one, so with a bit of reluctance, I got up from my short rest and began to move again. I was determined that this man would never get another glimpse of me, human or wolf.
Chapter 3
I woke up with the dawn, still exhausted from the long journey from the day before. And I was starving. Life is a lot harder when you’re on your own.
When you’re part of a pack, almost anything can be your prey—deer, mostly, but also moose and elk, although we generally hunted the young or the sick. As a lone wolf, I was limited to mice, voles, possibly a rabbit if I was lucky. There was strength in numbers, and unless I was able to form a new pack, I would probably starve to death.
But my main focus was to find out what had happened to my mother. Had she been in some kind of trouble? Was she even still alive? These were questions that I asked myself on a daily basis ever since I realized that she wasn’t coming back.
In the beginning, I was confident, or at least hopeful, that she would return for me. When Brian suggested that we move on to new hunting grounds, I had protested. What if my mom couldn’t find me again? But with all the time that had passed, I could see it in Brian’s eyes that he no longer had any hope for my mother’s return. I cried myself to sleep on many of the nights that followed our departure.
My life changed pretty dramatically after that. Eventually I began to live my life like the wolves who were quickly becoming my new family, and I never bothered to return to my human form again. That Rachel was buried somewhere deep inside of me. I wasn’t sure if she would ever return, or if it was even possible when I had already changed so much.
