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An Alpha's Tale

Epilogue

Abagail took a deep breath of the mountain air, hands on her hips, a bright smile on her face. Mountain air was so much cleaner than the air in the city. The morning was cool and crisp but neither Abagail, nor her dog seemed to mind. The dog clearly part Chow Chow with his purple spotted tongue, danced at the blonds side ready to go, ready to run and play. He knew this place, he knew this was his time with his owner when the stupid one wasn't here to upset her, and she wouldn't leave him to do whatever she did when she left. His human looked at him and said,

“Okay Petri, I get it.” she looked around for a stick, saw a good one and snatched it up, waving it she said, “Ready boy? Ready? Go fetch!”

She threw the stick down the path and watched as her best friend chased it tail wagging. She trotted ofter him and wrestled the stick from him when he brought it back, rubbing his head and scratching behind his ear. She straightened and bopped his hip and said

“Tag!”

The blond took off running along the path, her blond pony tail bouncing between her shoulders. Petri barked and chased after her, and the game was on. Human and dog play tag as they made their way towards the river that Abagail had swam in every year since she was a freshman in high school. She'd been coming to this forest for a long time, she loved it and felt at home in the trees. More so than the urban jungle she spent the better part of her time in. Neither had ever encountered anything more dangerous than an old mountain lion in this part of the forest, neither felt that they were being followed, being hunted.

Petri stood down the path from her panting and dancing waiting for her to throw the stick again, when something big jumped out at his Abagail. She screamed in fear and pain, he charged with a growl befit a protector and attacked the beast. He heard his Abby screaming for him to stop to run but this thing, this monster wanted her blood. He would die before this thing hurt his Abby. He didn't hear her feet pounding away back towards camp.



Chapter 1

She lay low to the forest floor, watching, waiting, like any good hunter, she was waiting for her prey to come to her. She could smell the doe, just outside the clearing she watched, it was close. The wind continued to blow in her favor as the deer came into the clearing just as the predator knew. But she didn't attack, not yet, it wasn't time. The deer slowly walked into the clearing, head up, looking around, she knew it was dangerous in the night, but she wasn't smart enough for the thing hunting her. She lowered her head, and chomped on some grass. Blood pumped through veins, air was pushed in and out of lungs, then a cry filled the night air. The blood pumped slower, the air stopped, and the blood stopped, and the doe died.

The light of the moon made the clearing glow, there near the edge, just barely within the light stood a massive wolf, over the cooling body of a deer. In the faint light of the moon it was hard to tell what color the wolf actually was. It could have been gray, but it could have been any color. If light could play tricks on a person, moon light could play even more tricks. But no trick of the light could change the intelligence in the wolves eyes, nor its immense size, no normal wolf got that big. The beast let out a howl of thanks to the moon before going down to feast upon the doe.

After eating her fill the wolf licked her chops and taking what was left of the deer up in her powerful jaws and started off into the forest. Now in the darkness of the forest the wolf's color was even more difficult to tell, but she was a shadow as she moved soundlessly through the trees. Even with the burden and the size of the animal, she moved with grace. After crossing through a river that washed the deers blood from her fur, the wolf trotted into what was clearly a camp. A fire burned in a fire pit, there was a horse tied to a picket line, and it didn't shy away from the wolf. A tent stood not far from the fire pit, and there was a tarp unfolded on the ground, its corner held down with stones. The wolf walked to it and dropped the deer in the middle of the tarp. The great beast then lay down and started to change.

It was not painless, but the wolf made no sound as joints popped, bones changed shape, and fur vanished, while hair grew. There beside the remains of the wolf's kill knelt a red head woman. She trembled for a moment then straightened up. She was slightly above average in height, and a little thick, a little over weight. Her eyes were green unlike the amber tone of the wolf, her hair was a dark auburn and brushed her shoulders. She looked to be in her mid twenties, and was not traditionally beautiful, but if she smiled, and it reached her eyes, she might pass for a plus size model. She stood naked in the middle of the forest with no one to witness but the horse as she strung cord through the eye holes of the tarp and pulled the deer up into a tree, as if it was a loaf of bread, instead of seventy five pounds of dead deer.

Once the cord was secured she went to the horse and stroked the beauty's face a moment before walking to the tent to take some cloths and a bed roll out. It would not rain tonight, and the weather was pleasant and she didn't like the prospect of being ambushed. Not that she was running. Tents muffled sound and blocked visibility. She donned the sweats, and rolled the bed roll out before stretching out on it with a yawn. The moon still called to her, but now it was time for rest, not for the hunt. She was full and tired now.

As the sun rose the next morning, the fire was out and the woman was stretched out just as she had been when she fell asleep. In the forest, somewhere a twig snapped and the woman was sitting bolt up right, looking, listening, scenting for the source of the sound. It was quite, the wind wasn't blowing right, and the forest was still. Then there was a rustle, under growth moved, and the fickle wind changed direction, bringing her the scent of wolf. Wolf, blood, pain and fear. Forest green eyes brightened to an amber color as her own wolf rose to the surface. Blood, pain, fear, these things meant prey, meant a meal. But wolf, that did not mix. She did not claim this territory, did not mark it as hers, but this stranger was in her space, and her wolf didn't like it any more than she did. She wasn't running but if the wrong person found her, she would have to. In a moment the woman was bare and changing. Not a sound came from her as mouth as her body popped and groaned with the change as her anatomy rearranged itself. She surged to her feet once the change was complete and shook herself before stalking towards the sound she'd heard, the movement she'd seen, and the scent she could follow as her prey as it wondered, as if confused. What she had been expecting was not what she found. Her quarry could not elude her, when she found what she chased, she found a bloodied and dieing dog, it tried to stand, growling softly. But she could tell this animal was no danger to her, his mouth bled from where teeth had been until very recently. A mutt, not a wolf. The human pushed to the front, this was not prey this was a pet. She sniffed at the dieing animal and felt pity, he was afraid, in pain, and. . . sad.

There was nothing that could be done for the house pet, a wolf had attacked him, and he had lost. The wolf leaned down and licked the dogs face once, wishing him better luck in the next life, and ended his pain. She then lifted her head and tested the air. If something attacked a house pet, this far away from homes, it meant that someone else was out here, someone who was missing a pet, if not having fallen victim as well. The wolf trotted off following the trail the dog had left. It was odd, the trail, it was as if he had been looking for her, for he had followed the path she'd taken as a human. The smell of wolf around her camp must have made him confused into running. The dog carried the scent of a human, she could not determine if the fear and pain she had caught were all the dogs or not.

In the spotty day light, it was clear that the wolf was black, black as pitch. Though she had scars under her fur, one over her shoulder caused her fur to have a dirty dishwater gray slash, and there was a white splash on her tail. Despite the disturbance in the color of her coat, the wolf moved like a shadow. It didn't take her long to figure out where the attack had happened. She scented around the path where it was clear canines had battled. What she was reading in the tracks though, did not tell a story of battle, but of a game. The wolf had been playing with the mutt, toying with him. She growled, and followed the dog's scent before he had been attacked, it took her a little longer to find the human's scent. Female, blood, pain, terror. The wolf stirred, but the animals' eyes were forest green, not a color found in wolves. She followed the scent and put the tale together.

Hiker, female, alone but for her dog. She had been walking with him at her side when something, the wolf attacked. He, she could scent the wolf now, had bitten the humans arm and was knocked aside by the dog. She ran, the dog tried to protect her. Had been played with. The dog had wondered off, confused maybe? She couldn't tell, the dog had wondered away while the wolf went after the human. The wolf trotted down the path following the scent of the wolf, and of the humans blood. The next scene she had to reconstruct wasn't as difficult. The woman had run, she hadn't made it back to her camp. She'd been knocked to the ground and attacked, by the blood, violently. But there was no body. This was not a natural wolf attack, there was a werewolf like her out there. Not like her, but crazy, rouge, dangerous.

She may not have any claim on these woods, but she would not have a dangerous wolf out there that was attacking people. It would draw attention, and that was bad. Most did not know, did not want to know, about the supernatural things that walked beside them on their busy sidewalks, that made their food or drove their taxi's. She followed the trail until night fall, having lost it twice as her prey zig-zagged over the river. What she came upon was not pleasant to her, nor to her wolf. Another camp, this one for more than a single hiker, was trashed. This was a bad sign. If a rouge was attacking people, he was trying to change them. The wolf growled low in her chest and doubled her efforts to find this monster before he could hurt anyone else. It wasn't long until she found the wolf's den. It smelled of pain, death and fear.

The black wolf was not so arrogant as to charge into the cave where the wolf and his victim hid, for she could in fact smell them. The female with the dog, and those who she'd scented in the second camp she'd found. She called to them all, a howl that would send chills down anyone's spine filled the night and echoed into the cave. She didn't have to wait long for the mad dog to come to her, to her challenge. It took only a glance at the wolves eyes to know he was mad, mad with blood lust. He gave her one look, snarled and attacked. It did not matter that she was larger than he, it did not matter that she was older and more dominate than him either. Non of this bothered the wolf, for she had planned to kill him with or without being provoked. Not that what he had done wasn't enough for his death.

She jumped aside as he charged and twisted chomping at his hind quarters. He twisted with a yelp and tried to catch her in return but it was no use. He was picking a fight with something that was beyond him. He dove at her snapping at her leg, only for her to jump and come down on him, her jaws closed around his snout and closed. He struggled, tried to twist and turn and break away from her, but her grip was not going to loosen, she wanted him dead, and her wolf wanted his blood. She released his snout only to attack rapidly at his neck, she snapped like a viper. Bam bam bam. His blood flowed and his heart beat rapidly, panicked, but he was beating all his blood out. Like the doe the night before, his heart slowed, then stopped along with his breathing. Only when the mad dog was dead did she look up at the cave. The others had not come out of their hiding place, and the cave stank of fear. She trotted into the cave ears listening for the wolves inside, she could hear their hearts before she spotted them.

Two wolves were in one corner, the corner that smelled of death. One wolf stood in front of the other blocking it from the black wolf. Both wolves shielded two broken bodies, two small broken bodies, children. The wolf wanted to kill the mad dog again but the human eased her aside, they did not need anger right now. She went to the other wolf the one who did not move, and smelled of fear. She felt as if her worst nightmares were creeping into her heart and was startled. This had not happened to her before, not in a very long time. She sank to her belly and crawled towards the wolf, she stuck her nose against the smaller wolves ruff, only to be caught off guard as the wolf lunged and latched onto her snout. The black one did not move, did not fight, did not make a sound, both human and wolf knew she had reacted out of fear. So they did not provoke her. When she got no reaction from her attack on the stranger, the small wolf pulled back her attack slowly and curled up more. What they needed were words, not actions.

The black wolf trotted back out of the dark cave and changed. As a human she re entered the cave and spoke in a rich alto,

“I do not mean you harm, I am here to help. My name is Alexus, let me help you.” She looked between the pair protecting their children, and the single one who remained in her corner. “I will not hurt you. I am not a beast, you do not need to fear me.”

As she spoke the red head let her power flow from her to wrap around the wolves, her power, her inner peace. She shared it with the newly turned wolves and when she could feel them relaxing she sat in the cave and mediated, sort of. Her scenes were on high alert, she would not risk being attacked or having someone sneak up on her. As she did this though she let her inner peace with her wolf and who she was wash over the others. They needed to understand that the animal they now had with them was not a thing to fear, but a thing to coexist with. And it was very difficult to communicate with people who are afraid. As