Chapter 1: The Hunt
Edited Chapter--WARNING: Mentions of rape and nudity.
I stalk slowly and quietly through the thick redwood underbrush, my toes spreading out wide with each step to dampen the sound. I crouch down low on all fours, slinking stealthily towards our prey. My ears swivel, listening for the sounds of the forest: my family stalking alongside me but meters away, the insects chirping, the trees creaking and swooshing in the wind, and the sound of the herd of elk grazing peacefully – our prey. I can hear them chuffing, chewing their cud, stomping around as they walk and change positions. They are only a couple of meters ahead of us now, and I crouch even lower to avoid detection. This season has been kind to us, and this is the fourth herd we have scouted out this month, and with the Moon Goddess’s blessing, this will be the second herd we earn a bountiful harvest from.
I am now a meter away from the edge of the herd. I continue to swivel my ears as I halt my progress, listening for the others, and waiting for them to get into position. I sniff the air quietly, scenting the air for information. My fur stands on end as I catch a whiff of something absolutely mouthwatering – freshly rained on earth and coffee grounds, a deep and erotic scent catching my attention. Amila’s head perks up in my mind at the smell and she starts vying for control of our body, causing us to almost blow my cover as I begin to urgently inhale some more, but the scent is gone, blown away by the breeze. I swivel my ears again quickly, cursing myself for my momentary distraction, hoping I didn’t just blow the whole hunt for us.
I slowly raise my head up above the horizon of underbrush and grass I am hidden in and from across the clearing, I see several of the elk with their heads raised, chewing their cud almost thoughtfully. Warm rays of sunshine were just beginning to peek through the treetops, the sun just rising over the horizon. It was going to be a beautiful early spring day, with a clear sky and the sun thawing the frozen Montana soil from its deep winter slumber. One elk’s head snaps to look behind them, their ears suddenly standing at attention.
“Now!” I hear my father’s voice through our mindlink.
I see two enormous wolves jump out of the tree line towards the herd of elk on the opposite side of the clearing from me. The larger of the two, my father, is a pitch black wolf, dark as a starless night, with graying patches of fur, a sign of his age. The second and barely smaller wolf is my eldest brother, Callan, his dirty blonde fur a beautiful combination of my mother’s and father’s coat colors. They were both growling and snapping their enormous maws at the elk closest to them. I watched proudly as my brother, who had leapt possibly 3 meters from the treeline and successfully latched his deadly jaws around the neck of the prey closest to him, a large and pregnant she-elk. His youth and stamina had scored him yet another successful kill, praise the Goddess!
Now it was time for me and the rest of my brothers to leap into action. Dad and Callan had startled the herd and sent them running towards us, the perfect trap that was sure to earn us a fresh kill. As the herd ran by us, I turned and began to run with them, looking for an adequately sized elk to jump on. As a werewolf, my superior speed and strength gave me a huge advantage over these stupid and slow prey, but it would give me every advantage to attack from behind the elk, instead of leaping into a running elk and risk getting trampled by their sharp hooves. I saw the perfect target and galloped behind him, a young bull elk whose antlers were just coming in. I kept pace just behind him, waiting for the right time to pounce, and it quickly came. I leapt through the air, salivating as I sunk my fangs into the pathetic creature’s neck and spine, forcefully biting down and immediately severing his spine and felt him go limp in my mouth.
I ducked my head down as I heard and felt the rest of the herd run around us and jump over me and their dead comrade. A couple of seconds later the sound of hooves beating earth quickly died away as the rest of the herd escaped. I dropped my kill, looking down at it gleefully. Between my brother’s and mine alone, we would have plenty to eat for the next week, and with any luck my other brothers would have gotten one.
“Rendezvous!” I hear my father bark through the mindlink.
I lean down, about to pick my kill up and drag him to our meeting spot when that mouthwatering smell hits me again — coffee grounds and fresh rain on dirt. I lift my head up eagerly, sniffing the air urgently, trying to ascertain the direction the scent was coming from. It smelled so delicious it was driving me to distraction.
“We need to go find him now!” Amila told me urgently, racing back and forth in my mind’s eye excitedly, her blonde fur standing on end, and her bright green eyes shining with anticipation.
“Find who?” I asked her, leaning down to grab my elk and drag him back to the clearing.
“Our mate!” Amila once again tries to take over primary control of our body, but what she said caused me to freeze in my tracks.
“What?” I said somewhat stupidly.
“Althea!” I hear my father bark through the mindlink again.
I jump, slightly startled from my daze, looking back to see my brothers and father in the clearing with their kills. From the looks of it, at least two of the rest of my brothers were fortunate in bagging a kill as well. I stuck my nose in the air again, searching for that scent, but it was gone again. Amila started whining pathetically at the loss of the scent, but I shook my head at her mentally, dismissing what she said for now.
I grab my dead elk by the base of his skull and drag him towards my brothers and father, dropping him at my father's feet in the clearing where the elk herd had previously been eating. My father dipped his large black head towards me in approval.
“Shift so we can skin and butcher these. Your mother is coming with the twins now.” My father informs us. We all knew the drill by now, but father believed overcommunication is better than under.
We all began to shift back into our human form. My bones began to break, my joints disconnecting, my muscles stretching and shifting as the magic of the Goddess allowed my wolf form to shrink and become hidden by my human body. The shifting process is excruciatingly painful. There is lore from all over the world discussing lycanthropy, but none really seem to agree on the origins or reasons for werewolves. Some cultures believe that man made a deal with a witch practicing dark magic, seeking the power, cunning, stealth, speed, stamina, and strength of the wolf’s form. Others believe the shift to be a curse from the Gods, as punishment for man’s cruelty and hubris. My father and mother have told us many of the different stories regarding our origins, but never indicated to me which one was the true reason for our condition. To me, it made sense that the shift would be painful. Power and strength come at a price, and those too weak to handle the pain did not deserve to have a wolf reside in their soul.
On your first shift—which for me was when I turned 12, the age that father says most wolves will shift for the first time—it can take anywhere from five to fifteen minutes to complete the shift, the whole time in agonizing pain. Father shared a story of a wolf taking a whole hour to shift before completing the transformation for the first time. Every subsequent shift takes less time to complete and over time you learn to relax into the pain instead of brace against it.
Our wolves are separate souls from us, but by sharing our bodies, they are able to lend us their abilities. Each wolf has a unique personality from the person they reside in, but just like with mates, the Moon Goddess pairs you with the wolf you are born with for a reason. I can see Amila in my mind’s eye, and have conversations with her like I do with my family. She’s insightful, observant, sassy, and playful, which contrasts a bit with my more reserved personality. I like having a second set of eyes and ears in my life, and I can’t imagine life without her here with me.
I completed my transformation, standing upright, stark naked, as did all of my brothers and my father. Being naked comes with the territory, and as such none of us had any sense of modesty or embarrassment at our state of nudity.
My father, Rori, is a massive Sigma male, a rogue with the strength and status potential to be an Alpha of his very own pack. He stood at a hulking six feet and six inches, with the wingspan in his arms and shoulders to match. His entire body is an accordion of muscles and sinewy fibers. His hair is as black as midnight, streaked with silvery threads, the only indication of his age. In human years he looked like a spry and virile mid-twenties to early thirties. In reality, he was older than that, actually forty in human years. His dark green eyes, so dark they sometimes looked black, were full of wisdom; his skin tone is deeply tanned, from many years spent out in the sun. While a massive and strong man, my father is one of intellect, and has always preferred to banter instead of fight. He jokingly tells us that it’s the reason he’s a rogue and not an alpha.
My eldest brother, Callan, is the first born of seven children, and in stature he compares closely to my father. Standing at six feet and five inches, he is every bit as muscled and sinewy as my father is. His shoulders are broad, legs and arms long, every muscle taught and fit. His complexion was just the opposite of my father, taking on the fairer tones closer to my mothers. Wavy dark blonde hair, kept cropped short above his ears, complimented his stunningly blue eyes. His face was symmetrical and evenly proportioned, with deep cheekbones and a strong jawline. In every human town we go to, the women would always stop and stare at him, and my other brothers. As the eldest of us seven however, he is the most severe and stoic. He naturally leads when my father is absent. He is calculating, analytical, logical, and a master strategist. When he was only sixteen my father began letting him plan our hunts and our migratory routes and patterns. He is so adept at it, we haven’t had a run in with an unfriendly pack since I was fourteen, being two years his junior. Currently, he was staring off into the distance, uncharacteristically distracted.
My second eldest brother, Sage, was standing over his kill, as he had landed another she-elk, this one young but not pregnant. Her meat would be soft and tender. Sage, as the middle child, is the glue of the family it seems sometimes. He always has a smile on his face, is always cracking jokes and pulling practical pranks on all of us. Despite his tendency towards humor, he is also fiery and impulsive, but sensitive and compassionate, having the ability to draw each of us out of our shells, becoming each of our personal confidants in which we trust to vent and complain to. He is fiercely protective of all of us, but then again, we’re all protective of each other. Sage stands as tall as Callan, with a slightly leaner build. He is fast and agile, clever and cunning, more like a fox than a wolf sometimes. His features seem to be the perfect meld between my mother’s and father’s. He has my father’s raven black hair, worn long unlike Callan, down past his shoulders, but he has our mother’s crystal blue eyes; my mother’s angled and sharp cheekbones, but my father’s strong jawline; my father’s heavy browline, but my mother’s thin and delicate nose. As with all my brother’s he is strong, muscled and sinewy from years of hunting, hiking, and fighting. I watch him as he playfully pushes my younger brother, and the fourth in line, causing him to nearly trip over his own kill.
Had Sage pushed Callan over, Callan would have ignored Sage completely, but Luam–our fourth–laughed and tossed a pinecone he had snatched up at Sage’s forehead, smacking him square in the middle of it. Luam is our peacemaker, true to his name. He looks most like our mom out of all of us, with golden, wavy, blonde hair that hangs to his shoulders, and stark, crystalline blue eyes, a short and thin nose, with high cheekbones and a round, soft face that hides his strong jawline a little bit. He is still very attractive, drawing in the quieter, more sensitive females whenever we go into towns. Luam stood just as tall as Callan, but had a heavier build and frame. He might be physically stronger than Callan and Sage but their experience continues to allow them to beat him in their wrestling and sparring matches. Despite his size and strength, he is a true teddy bear. He is calm, compassionate, empathetic, and understanding, always seeming to understand and relate to everyone’s side of the story, making him the perfect negotiator and ultimate compromiser. Despite his tendency towards peace and quiet, Luam is a skilled and talented warrior, capable of extreme and terrifying violence. He was the one who killed that rogue who tried to rape me. I remember while I was lying on the ground bleeding, he had pinned the rogue, who seemed much smaller in comparison, and had spent several minutes tormenting him by sinking one claw at a time into various spots all over his body, ripping his testicles off with his teeth before finally ripping his throat out. He made sure the rogue died in agony for what he did to me. Luam is the epitome of the warrior in the garden.
My other younger brother, Nikith or Nik for short, sniggered gleefully at the pinecone hitting Sage’s face, pretending to look away when Sage turned to face him, mock outrage on his face. Nik is our fifth, and looks most like our father, with his wavy ebony hair, cropped short, just below his ears, and my father’s deep moss green eyes. A strong and stout jawline, short and deep cheekbones, and a short and wide nose that flared whenever he laughed or was annoyed. He stood just an inch shorter than his elder three brothers, but made up for this in raw muscle, being just as beefy as Luam, and almost just as fast as Sage. He was perhaps our most ambitious and creative sibling, always coming up with clever schemes and inventive ideas to make our lives a little bit easier, or sometimes a little bit harder when the plans backfired. He built us a leather punch to make it easier for us to sew the hides we get from our kills into clothing, and managed to con a nice lady in a town in Canada out of a sewing pattern for a real bra for me and mom. He found a way to give us hot showers, something we all crave the luxury of when far away from civilization, and even fashioned us cutlery and plates to use when we were camping in a temporary location. He sometimes would talk to me about his visions for a better future for wolves and other creatures, living beside humans in the same kind of luxury so that we wouldn’t have to do these long stints in the wilderness.
I personally like our vagabond ways, flitting from town to town, spending weeks in the wilderness far away from civilization, but Nik is a man of convenience and modernity. He felt if we could have it we should. This gets him into trouble with the humans and other packs sometimes, almost resulting in his death when he ticked off the wrong Alpha of a pack nearby here, in eastern Montana.
We had each managed to take down an elk, all aside from my father. This was a blessed hunt indeed. We would be busy for the rest of the day skinning and butchering our kill, preparing it to be packed back to camp. Fortunately we had started our hunt early, so we should be done by mid-afternoon. We have done this so much and so often, we were all highly skilled and adept at this task, allowing us to move through it quickly and efficiently. Sage bent down and grabbed the pinecone Luam had chucked at him and tossed it at Nik, who dodged it easily while tossing a stick right back at Sage. My father’s eyes glinted with amusement, while Callan inspected all of our kills.
“Mine was pregnant,” Callan’s deep and commanding voice tsked disappointedly.
“That’s almost twice the meat for free!” Nik’s musically tenorred voice quipped.
“I suppose it couldn’t be helped,” Luam sighed sadly.
“Its meat will be the most tender, and your mother will surely have use for the baby’s hide,” my father’s richly deep and exotic voice assured us all.
I nodded, knowing its hide would be soft having never been exposed to the outside world. It would probably be used to replace or mend worn out undergarments.
The sun was just now breaking over the tree line, and I turned my face towards its light, opening my arms wide to welcome its blissful warmth on my skin. There was a soft and pleasant breeze blowing in from the northeast, causing my hair and the tall grass to tickle my skin lightly. I suddenly caught that scent again, coffee grounds and freshly rained on dirt, and I excitedly turned my nose further into the breeze. In a daze I took several steps towards that elusive scent.
“Althea?” I heard Luam’s silky soft but deep voice calls out to me.
“Do you guys' smell that?” I ask absently, almost in a trance. My mouth was watering so much I was almost drooling, and the longer I smelled it, the warmer my chest and core seemed to get. The breeze was steadily tantalizing me with the scent now, and I continued to walk in unsteady paces in the general direction it seemed to be coming from.
“Yeah… but where is it coming from?” Callan asked, walking up beside me with his nose in the wind, his eyes closed as he inhaled deeply.
“It smells delicious,” I sigh, “like fresh coffee and the earth after it rains.” I feel a hand on my arm, and I turn to look at my father, confused.
“I smell almonds and dark chocolate, with hints of roses.” Callan sighed deeply, his voice uncharacteristically whimsical.
“Althea, Callan, are you alright?” he asks us, his eyebrows scrunched slightly, his tone concerned and curious. I look back at my other brothers and see their faces all have similar expressions on them. I scrunch my own eyebrows, concerned now too. I turn to face the breeze again, looking for the object emitting that smell, the breeze having picked up and bringing it to me stronger than before.
“Do you not smell it?” I asked them again as I strained forward against my father’s grip, feeling almost compelled to go and find the source of this mouthwatering scent.
"We need to go find him!!" Amila urges me again, encouraging me to start running in the direction the scent is coming from.
My chest and core became even warmer, and I felt the lips between my legs moisten as this scent turned on something primal within me. I can hear Amila, my wolf, whimpering in my mind. My father steps in front of me, grabbing my shoulders and examining my face with worry now etching his masculine features. He looked behind me, at my brothers I’m assuming, before locking eyes with me and firmly shaking his head, no.
“None of us smell anything like that, Althea. When did you start smelling this?” he asked me, almost urgently, glancing at Callan, who had opened his eyes now but was still moving into the breeze, which was coming from the North.
The breeze suddenly died down entirely, that amazing smell dying with it. For a few moments I desperately sniffed the air some more, trying to find the scent again, but in its absence, I shook my head as if clearing it from its haze.
“I… first noticed it during the hunt… just before you and Callan pushed the elk towards us,” I answered him hesitantly. “I almost blew my cover and missed the cue,” I recall with more clarity, my mind becoming clearer the longer that smell was gone. I watch as my father’s face contorts, only momentarily before he hides it, into surprise and then understanding, before he wipes his face clean of emotions. What was that about? Does he know where that smell is coming from?
“None of us smell that,” father said firmly. “You might be smelling the town upwind from here,” he said, louder as if to help my brothers hear, but I knew they could hear him regardless. As a wolf, your senses are ten times that of a human. He nodded his head with conviction, as if that settled the matter. I would have argued with him, but my mother and twin brothers came out of the tree line and into the clearing from the North.
“Father,” Callan turned around and started to argue, but was cut off by my father. He looked at me, giving me a knowing look as he fell silent. Did he know where the smell was coming from? Why was he smelling something different than I was?
“About time!” my father called out, uncharacteristically impatient, to my mother. I turned to follow him as he strode past me towards the rest of our family, looking at my mother’s beautiful face. I see her smile at my father, before it falters as she quickly looks at me. As she notices my smile shift to a concerned frown, she quickly smiles at me, raising her arms to wave at us in greeting.
My mother, Eir, is a stunning woman and we are all blessed that she is our mother. She is shorter than all of us in stature, standing at five feet flat, she weighed maybe one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. How she birthed all of us out of her tiny body is beyond me. She has long, almost white blonde hair that hangs in waves down to her knees and she often braids it intricately in beautiful arrays. Her crystalline blue eyes are so blue and deep you feel like she is staring into the depths of your soul when she gazes into your eyes. Her body is curvy and voluptuous, despite being slender, but is still strong as every wolf is. She is a healer at heart, and has spent her life pursuing all methods of healing arts. She is kind, compassionate, understanding, and caring, always eager to help those in need, even at her own expense. She is also fiercely protective of all of her pups and her mate. She went head to chest with an Alpha of a pack in Minnesota and earned the twins freedom as a result. She has even stood up to our father while protecting one of us from his never-ending teasing and badgering.
Mother is riding on Viggo, the first born of the twins, in his wolf form. She often stays in human form now, as living a nomad lifestyle means we have a few belongings that have to be packed along with us. I asked mom if she ever misses being in her wolf form, and she tells me it’s been easier to stay in her human form since the twins were born. Wolf pregnancies can be difficult due to our supernatural existence, and multiples add an extra risk even for wolves with their superior strength. The twins were definitely not kind to her body in-utero, earning their names upon birth.
The twins are identical in almost every aspect, except for their hair and eye colors, and their polar opposite personalities. Their bodies, movements, habits, and mannerisms are almost entirely the same for the both of them. Mother named them opposite but complementary names after their birth, due to their personalities which they made evident from the womb.
The eldest of the two is Viggo, and Pax was born second. Viggo’s hair is jet black like our fathers, cut short above his ears, but with mother’s crystal blue eyes. His facial features are like Sage’s in their balanced mix of our father’s and mother’s best features: sharp, angled cheek bones, a strong and deep jawline, a short and thin nose, and perfect almond shaped eyes. He is bold, energetic, competitive, decisive, and wildly intelligent, but also impulsive, emotional, suspicious, and volatile. He is prone to fits of violence when angered and can be viciously cruel towards our enemies. He lacks empathy to almost an extreme, any kind of transgression taken personally no matter the reason for it. He stands as tall as Callan and weighs just as much. He is smart enough to present a challenge to Callan during sparring but his volatility and emotional approach to fighting makes him no match, being easily bested over and over, which feeds into his anger. He is young and has much to learn, but overall he has a strong sense of right and wrong, and justice. He would make an excellent enforcer and warrior in a traditional pack, as long as Pax was there to balance him out.
Pax is Viggo’s mortal opposite. He has the same facial features and body build as his twin, but his hair is our mother’s near-white-blonde colored hair, also cropped short above his ears, and our father’s almond shaped, deep green eyes. He is relaxed, calm, even-tempered, quick-witted, logical, and also frighteningly intelligent. He has managed to best Callan and our father on one or two occasions due to his strength and intelligence. He is sometimes the only one capable of calming Viggo when he gets into a fit of rage, and is able to keep the lid on during tense situations. He has a tendency to let things slide even when they shouldn’t and is sometimes too laid back, making him lackadaisical and flaky. He never takes anything personally, and would rather bow out of a real fight unless he’s forced to engage. He is Viggo’s perfect match in every way. The twins have the ability to telepathically communicate like mates do, without the traditional mindlink. I am curious as to how their mate situation will look and work out. It is possible they could share one, but they might get separate ones; only the Goddess knows what she has planned for them.
Pax was wearing our gear in saddle bags across his back, like a large, predatory horse. My mother dismounted Viggo in a graceful and lithe movement, her head only reaching Viggo’s wolf’s shoulder blade once standing upright. She glided over to Pax and removed the saddle bags, both of them shifting simultaneously once their burdens had been removed. We all reconvened around what was left of our kills.
“Quite the haul today! You all did well!” my mother crooned, smiling proudly. I couldn’t help but notice that she kept throwing furtive glances in my direction.
“The Goddess has blessed us this summer,” I smiled warmly around my family, all of them nodding appreciatively at my statement. My father and mother have gone to extreme lengths to educate us in all fields, including our heritage and origins. My parents weren’t religious by any means, but they had instilled in us a sense of spirituality. Out of all of us, I feel that I am the most spiritual however. I’ve always felt the most connected to the Earth, like she and I are part of each other, and that the Goddess is watching me especially.
“Yes, and now it is time to use our bodies to take advantage of this blessing,” my father boomed quickly. He turned towards my mother and informed her, “The she-elk Callan fell is pregnant, I assume you have use for its hide?”
“Oh,” my mother’s face saddened a little bit, “well that’s unfortunate. But, yes, I will have use for the little one’s hide. If I am not mistaken your shoes need mending, as do Callan and Sage’s undergarments. They have been waiting the longest for mending, and everyone else can wait a little longer.” she decided.
“I will tend to the baby myself,” She said as she reached into the saddle bags and began handing out clothes to everyone, before bringing out the knives and hide scrapers.
We make most of our clothes ourselves out of the leather from the hides of the animals we hunt. My parents have unique skills but no licensure of any kind to practice in the human towns that we may run across. Father used to be a blacksmith before he left the pack he was born into, and mother was a healer and seamstress before she met father, skills that still get put to use with our nomadic ways. Occasionally we visit older towns along our migratory route, towns that still stick to the old and sleepy ways of wild and country living, being too small to keep up with the modernization of the rest of the world. The residents of these towns are often willing to trade with us in exchange for leather, meat, or manual labor, so we are able to collect various tools and luxuries from time to time. The items for our portable shower are some such things we’ve traded for. Baked goods and pastries are delicacies we occasionally get the privilege of having in exchange for labor and meat.
“Well then let’s get to work!” father proclaimed, clapping his hands together after donning his clothing.
We all wear leather and hide pants, or shorts in the warm weather, with moccasin boots, and various tops. My top consists of a covering for my breasts that ties behind my neck and at the base of my shoulders, leaving my midriff, most of my back, and shoulders exposed. Most of us prefer wearing clothing that can be easily removed so we can shift quickly when needed. My brothers wear an assortment of tank tops or open chested vests, while the twins usually opt not to wear anything but pants unless we go into human towns. As wolves, our temperatures run much higher than humans, and we are able to better regulate our body’s responses to the environment, giving us less of a need for clothes.
We all quickly got to work. Years of hunting, killing, skinning, gutting, and butchering these animals had given us all the skills and experience to complete these tasks quickly, efficiently, and expertly, with minimal waste. We had ended our hunt just after sunrise, and we were finished skinning and butchering the animals just before the sun reached its peak in the sky.
My elk took me longer to complete than normal. That elusive smell kept snaking on and off the breeze, tantalizing me with its mouthwatering scent, driving me to distraction. My father had called me back to my task many times today, and I noticed several times him and mother locking eyes knowingly. I will have to ask my mother about that later, when my brothers and father aren’t around.
Everything was wrapped neatly in the hides we had skinned from the animals and was bound in cured leather strips. Viggo and Pax would be hauling the bounty back on their backs, and my mother would ride on my father, the rest of us would shift and run back in wolf form. It would be the quickest way to get there, as we could easily run there in the same amount of time as the distance. We all shifted after securing the packs to Viggo and Pax and prepared to leave.
The wind picked up again, bringing that elusive scent back to me. My wolf’s head snapped in the direction of the scent, its many peculiar notes becoming much sharper now that I am in wolf form – hints of cedar wood and firewood smoke mingled with the coffee and rain. Before I could stop her, Amila took off sprinting northeast in the direction of the smell as fast as she could.
