First Run

“Are you sure you’re really ready for this?”

Sitting at the table and eating breakfast, I watched as Dad walked in. I knew today was going to be a big day. There was a buzz in the air, a certain vibration I couldn’t explain. Most people didn’t feel the air-current telling them how things would go, but I had since I was five.

“Today is the day, I’m sure.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Like, you know know?”

“I know know.”

He grabbed some coffee and put a bagel in the toaster. “Was this a premonition?”

“No, just a feeling about today being a special day.”

He shook his head, then ruffled my hair. “Pebble, you're a wonder.”

After eating our fill, we headed out to the backyard. For my change, I ducked behind a divider. Still a bit shy about getting naked before shifting, no one in the pack made me feel uncomfortable when I hid while I found my wolf. Being a werewolf had been my life for six years, ever since I had been attacked when I was five years old. I didn’t even remember the before-time, or my birth parents.

All I could remember from before being adopted into the Stone family was the car ride, a man causing the car to stop, screaming, and me left on the side of the road. When I went back to the car, my parents were dead. I know I had already been bitten and turned by then because I remember my parent’s glee at having a cute baby wolf before we’d driven off from...gah, I couldn’t remember.

They had done something and wanted to run to...somewhere. It was all hazy. There were snatches of cars, woods, and then the horrid foster care man who threw me in a cage. Then I met Jade and her family, and they adopted me. Saved me.

When I was little, I had been afraid of being a wolf, but now I was as much wolf as I was human. Being turned so young meant I had traits the others didn’t, like some of a wolf's premonitions.

My shifts to wolf were getting faster, but not less painful. Bones rearranged themselves, my face elongated, hair retreated, and coarser hair grew. The sounds made me whimper. Gods, the pain. When it was over I sat for a few seconds until the memory of the agony dissipated. I trotted around the corner to find my dad, in wolf form.

For the last six years I had refused to hunt. My wolf craved the hunt, but the girl I had been was afraid of killing the cute, furry animals. Well, today I was going to cross that bridge and become a real werewolf.

Dad rubbed noses with me, a question of readiness. Rubbing back, we were off. We ran into the forest, sniffing. Searching the area, there was a family of birds flying above, one was young...was it learning to fly? As I continued through the woods there was a dead bird. When I sniffed it, Dad knocked it away. We didn’t eat that which we didn’t kill, not unless we were desperate. But that wasn’t what had bothered me about the bird on the ground...it looked like it had fallen from the sky.

We quickly found a rabbit-trail and followed it. When we found the rabbit, I watched as Dad demonstrated how to stalk, attack, and take down the prey.

My stomach turned a bit at the reality of what was happening, but I signaled my readiness. Dad came over and nudged me towards the carcass. Years of fear had me digging in my paws and shutting my eyes, then I shook, relinquishing my baby self. Slowly approaching, I lowered my snout and sniffed. The human recoiled but the wolf rejoiced. Trying to box away the human side, I opened my jaws and took a bite of the warm rabbit meat. Both amazed that it tasted good, and a bit revolted that I enjoyed it, I took a second bite.

We continued into the forest. There were more trails. Dad nudged me down one, and then he sat on his haunches. The message was clear: Lesson done, it was time for me to apply it. Slowly and silently, I stalked down the trail, taking in all the scents. After six years, or a lifetime, of being a werewolf, moving in this form felt natural. Seeing a hole where the rabbit must live, I moved in, sniffing out the area.

The wind shifted, bringing a new scent. Coyote. I froze, whipping around to retreat. My path was blocked. There wasn’t just one coyote, there was a whole family of them. I howled and they attacked. I fought. Dad had been training every wolf in his pack how to fight for years, and I wasn’t an exception.

Coming in low and lunging up, I tore out the throat of the first coyote. I heard his gurgle as the light left his amber eyes. A second coyote sank its teeth into my back leg and yanked, while a third dove for my belly. I rolled and the fiend missed my stomach but I couldn’t dislodge the one on my leg. As I moved, I kicked and bit, attacking anything I could, but there were three attackers, and I was small.

There was a sound like a twig snapping, and then a searing pain radiated up from my leg, my left arm. There was a crashing noise. More coyotes? I fought harder. I bit into the stomach of the closest one, and as it bucked back from me I saw Dad tear out its throat, a fountain of blood showering the field.

Snapping jaws flashed towards my throat, but I did a move my brother Owen taught me and twisted sharply to my left, rotated as a searing pain shot down my body, and lunged for his throat...her throat. Gods, I had to focus on survival. Bite, rip, blood, survive.

Collapsing, I couldn’t move anymore. Why couldn’t I move?

Dad’s muzzle nudged mine. He sniffed my body, ruffling my fur gently. After a few minutes of grunts and the sounds of bones breaking and adjusting, he was kneeling next to me in human form. “Gods, Pebble, stay with me.”

Everything had gone dark. Was it night? No, my eyes were closed. I rolled my head toward him and opened my eyes. He let out a cry and carefully lifted me up, holding me securely to his chest. He loped back to the house, and barreled into the kitchen, gently placing me on the floor. “Sarah! Sarah! Get in here! Hazel!”

Both of them came. Sarah took one look at me and her eyes glazed with distance. After a minute, she shook her head. “I can’t get a hold of Jade, but I don’t care, I’m going to do it anyway.”

Hazel, Mom gazed back and forth between us. “It’s early in California, two hours behind us. Gods, I hope she’s asleep. Healing her with Jade’s ability will knock her out, but...she’d want this. I know my daughter.”

Sarah knelt beside me and held out her hands. She was my sister’s alpha and could tap into my sister’s healing ability. If this worked, I would survive. My sister would be knocked out for the day. Healing from a distance took all of her energy. Sarah was the only person who could do this Soul Sharing. Thank goodness she was here.

A warm heat flowed through my body and I closed my eyes. Bones came together and muscles knitted. I could breathe again without pain. After a few minutes, Sarah slumped and I knew my premonition was coming to pass, and it wasn’t a good one.