The Pack

Chapter 1: The Pack

CHAPTER 1

THE PACK

OTHER POV

I don't remember much about where I started out. I remember warm red liquid dripping down my face with the taste of copper in my mouth. I remember heat surrounding me and screams and yells. Then I remember running. With tree limbs slapping me as I run further from the screams. Further from something. When I collapse it's because I can't feel my paws anymore. I can't smell them burning and I can't smell me burning. My eyes close and I hope I don't wake up again. But I do.

It's the cold that wakes me. It rips at me causing me to shiver violently despite my fur. I'm a wolf. I know that. But I can't remember me or what happened. I whine as I struggle to stand and accidently bump against a tree. It touches one of the burnt patches on my fur and I cry out as I fall back down. I'm so lost in my own pain that I don't hear the growls at first. Blinking my eyes I freeze in my submissive position as four wolves walk out of the thicket. The largest one growls when I go to move and I freeze again.

"Who are you?" My head jerks up and I tilt it to the side as I remember something. Something about me. I can talk to animals. Not just wolves but all kinds. I was special. Someone had told me that. I jerk when I realize I'd forgotten where I was and the wolves have come closer to me. I whine as I answer.

"I don't know. Please, it hurts." The largest wolf steps closer until we're nose to nose. The other three wolves growl, not liking my proximity to him. Where had that word came from? Should I know a word like that? He sniffs me and I shudder as his breath brushes against one of my burnt patches. When he pulls back his golden eyes connect with mine.

"I am Alpha." He looks back at the three other wolves and the one with a white patch on his grey fur steps forward and speaks in my head.

"Patch. The brown ones are Tuck and Tumble. They are brothers. Together we are Pack." Patch looks to Alpha, who is large and black, and then he turns and grabs something from the thicket where they had come from. It's a dead rabbit. He walks over and drops it in front of me as Alpha speaks.

"Welcome to the Pack, Other." Other. I had a name now even if it wasn't me.

EIGHT YEARS LATER

We'd traveled a lot since I'd joined Pack and I found out why Alpha calls me Other. My head didn't work like theirs. They thought about food, sleep, and in the spring they sometimes went off to mate, always leaving one of them behind with me. They told me I couldn't mate because I was Other. I understood things more than them. I knew when something was a trap to catch us. I saw things left by humans and knew how to work them to our advantage, ike traps left to hurt us. I don't know how but I did.

I am sitting on the edge of the woods, watching a human place called a mall when Alpha comes. I don't know why I'm watching this human place but I know I need to. He sits down beside me before he speaks.

"This is the third day you have watched this place. Why?" I lift my head from paws just as the smell comes back. I jerk to my feet as a human flies by on a loud thing on two wheels. I think it is a motorcycle.

"That human. He smells...." I growl in frustration and tilt my head to look at Alpha but I quickly look back to keep the human that is stopped in front of the mall in my sight. "He smells like....mate?" But I don't understand what I mean by that. Alpha nudges my side and I look at him.