Shadow Dancer

Prologue

Prologue

I was six when I found my passion for dancing. Mom and Dad took me to Carnival in Brazil for my birthday. After that birthday, all I did was dance.

Dance. Dance. Dance.

My older brother, Rafael, kept his interest in football and video games, so Mom didn’t have to worry about him. Mom was ecstatic when I found something worth learning. Everything else would only catch my attention for a short amount of time. Guitar was two months, and then it was thrown in the back of my closet. Fishing was a week, then it also went in the closet after no fish were hanging on my string. Photography was a month when I broke my camera and didn’t ask for a new one.

  Dance has been for twenty years. I’ve not gotten tired of it. I’ve not broke it. It has been perfect.

  Magical.

  When I told Mom that I wanted to become a dancer, she had already signed me up for classes before I could even finish.

She was afraid that I would lose interest soon after I started, but it’s been going on strong.

Dad wasn’t all that worried though. His fatherly instinct told him that this was what I wanted to do. To be.

It was also the fact that as alpha of one the strongest and most trusted packs, Ridge Creek.

Being the daughter of an alpha meant that any activity that involved my body was one that I enjoyed. That was why guitar, fishing, and photography weren’t the best choices for me.

I got a Masters in dancing at Julliard. You’d think that dear old Daddy paid the whole way from start to finish. No, I earned that spot in Julliard’s students. I practiced for months and finally, when I auditioned, I made sure I didn’t mess up, slip, or ruin anything.

Nothing got me more scared in my life than when the big FedEx envelope with the Julliard office address came in the mail. I made Mom open the envelope, and was not expecting her squeal of joy.

After four years of brutal work outs, performances, and practices, I finally was on that stage with my diploma in hand.

I soon began working at Leila’s Dance Studio a couple weeks after I came home. I couldn’t go to the big city or anything since as the Alpha’s daughter; I was required to stay in Ridge Creek territory.

  But I was content staying. Every six months Leila, my good friend, owner of the studio, and werewolf, lassoed in a group of well-chosen people and took us on a two week dance competition all around the country.

Then there was the winter trip that we always took to Europe for the competition. This contained all sorts of dancing. Salsa. Flamenco. Jazz. Waltz. Modern. Any form of dance, really.

I was specialized in Flamenco and Modern for the competitions. I didn’t like the strict boundaries of the other dances. I liked dancing free and my own way.

Leila always made me one of her main dancers, but only in Flamenco and Modern. Usually I got second place, the occasional and rare first place.

Other than dancing, life was good. I lived in the pack house in the Alpha’s quarters. Where it was off limits to other pack members. You had to have special access in the Alpha’s quarters.

Every Wednesday and Saturday, Mom would cook for the whole pack. She made spaghetti, meat loaf, chicken pasta, anything. Rafael and his friends would pig out in the den, watching the football games on television. The younger people, like Leila and I, would eat outside on the big wrap around porch. People like my Mom and Dad ate in the humongous dining room that could house at least seventy people at the table.

The little kids would eat in the living room, playing with their food more than eating. My Grandma -who only lets me call her Nana Evers- man’s the kids with Mrs. Willow, her friend.

Mom loves to cook. Any new recipe she can get her hands on, she tries immediately. Many times have I come home from work or somewhere to smelling burnt food or eating a hard cookie that was missing baking soda. She’s a good cook, don’t get me wrong, but she’s a big food entrepreneur.

Dad, on the other hand, can’t cook for shit. He can take a pot of water to boil and turn it into fire. How do you change water into fire?

Though he can’t cook, he’s always been the outdoorsmen. I guess it comes with the job of being the Alpha and a werewolf. But any chance he can get, he’ll take us into the mountains and camp. He was an expert fishermen, perfect hunter, and aimed a precise arrow right onto the bull’s-eye of a target.

“Remember kids,” he would say, “listen to the wind, feel the earth. Make sure you know the forces that are trying to keep you away from the middle. Work around it. And you will find your middle.”

Dad told Rafael and I that when we were eagle hunting in the northern mountain range of Montana. It was dead silent after his words, then, you could hear the whoosh of his arrow, and the cry of the eagle as if plummeted down a few yards away from us.

From then on, Dad’s advice was more helpful, because I listened to it.

Always watch for them nasty men, got me Cece? I always examined weird looking men after that.

Suck the snake bite of the poison. Always looked out for snakes.

Hit Rafael when he makes fun of you. I was happy to have that.

I was a Daddy’s girl, always wanting him when I was sick, scared, or tired. He was the one who carried me to bed when I fell asleep in the car after a long drive. He took me to the doctor when I broke my ankle. Dad always had his shotgun out when a date picked me up.

It was all I knew. Mom’s whirl of cooking, dad’s outdoorsmen personality. Nana Evers insistence that I never eat something with garlic on a date. Rafael’s constant yelling into his Bluetooth when a team player didn’t shoot that zombie.

It was my family. The pack and my actual family.

I never knew, that it would all be taken away from me.

The character of Cecilia Evers will be starred as Nicole Fox! The picture is in the sidebar! Comment if you have different people that you think will be better!

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-Lunalove673