Beware of the Foxes
To my one true love, my family, friends and pack
Preface
Hello dear reader,
I can’t express how happy I am that you’re currently reading my first book and are even taking the time to read the preface. I thought it wasn’t necessary to write one, but my dear editor thinks differently, so here I am, trying to think of something to tell you (and wondering if Stella [my editor] will edit this part out).
According to Stella, the reason why I wrote this book would be adequate, so that’s what I’m going to tell you.
I’ve always been a bookworm and wolves are my favourite animals, so I spent a good quality of my time in my teen years reading books about werewolves and shifters and the like. You can’t imagine how funny all that stuff sounded once I met a real werewolf and found out how much of the stuff I read and seen in movies was utter rubbish. Yeah, a real werewolf, I’m not making that up (even though Stella won’t believe me).
You should try watching a werewolf movie with werewolves; it’s like the best comedy show you’ll ever see once you know the truth. So I had the idea to write a book, inspired by the lives of my friends and use only true facts, so if you ever come across a pack of werewolves I hope you remember my book.
To keep those werewolves out of harm’s way (we don’t want you stalking them on facebook or reporters storming the pack territory ;) ) I’m using a pen name and changed locations; the facts however, remain unchanged.
Now I wish you as much fun reading my book as I had writing it.
“So, what do you think?”
“Honey, are you sure that’s how you want to start your book?” My one true love asked me, straitening up after reading my finished preface over my shoulder.
“What’s wrong with it, I thought you liked it?” I asked while looking up from my seat in front of my laptop.
“I do like your book, but I’m not sure you should tell people that you actually believe in werewolves.” He said looking uncomfortable.
I scoffed. “You sound like Stella.”
“Well, Stella knows how to sell books, she earns a living doing so and it would be safer if no one knew.” He retorted.
I rolled my eyes. “I wanted to write a book that got the facts right and what better source than the real deal? And no one will find out about the pack, no need to worry.”
“I hope you’re right.” He sighed. “So when’s this masterpiece being published?”
“Stella is coming over to get the final version in two hours.” I said taking a glance at the clock on the wall, seeing it was already 10am. It had taken me a while to finally write a preface I could live with.
“Your editor is coming here?! Why didn’t you tell me before? Now I need to mind link everyone in reach and make sure the rest get called so no one accidentally reveals our secret.”
“Don’t worry about that honey, Stella won’t be a problem after today.” I smiled.
“What is that supposed to mean?” My soulmate looked at me suspiciously.
“Remember when I went into the city two days ago for the meeting with Stella?” I asked.
“Yeah…”
“And remember Kyle picked me up, because for once he went into the city by car?” Kyle a pack mate who worked in an office in the city usually took the train, by chance (or by fate from my point of view) he had to take the car that day, because he had to get something heavy on his way home.
“Am I going to like where this is heading?” He asked now.
“I think you will.” I smirked; Kyle had been alone for too long, he was the last of his friends without a mate. “So, Stella wanted to meet me over lunch and Kyle picked me up from the restaurant and he saw her when I said goodbye to her.” My smirk had now turned into a smile.
My mate smiled, too. “She’s his mate.” He said and I nodded.
“Two days and he’s already turning crazy. I have a plan for later. After today I’m positive Stella will never remark upon my “crazy notion” that werewolves are real again.”
He laughed. “Well, at least she will have someone at the ready to reassure her that she doesn’t need to be afraid, just like you had back then.”
“Are you trying to say I was afraid when I learned werewolves really existed? I think you must have fallen onto your head while running in the woods, if that’s the way you remember it.” I said put out. If anything, I was happy when I found out that something as mystical and romantic as werewolves and soulmates really existed.
~*~*21 years ago*~*~
I slammed the door shut after myself. I was pissed. I just had a fight with my parents, like often lately. Never in the sixteen years before had I had as many fights with my parents as in the last year alone. Something was wrong. I always got along with my parents and my older sister Kate, especially with my dad. I had always been a daddy’s girl and humour-wise the two of us were like two peas in a pod. But lately I felt like something was off and the fights got to me. I was 17; surely I should be over the rebellious teen phase by now?
My mom opened the front door again and shouted after me. “Where are you going Anne?”
“For a walk, I’ll be back later, now leave me alone!” I retorted without turning around. I heard my mom sigh and close the door.
Usually after being riled up I would just sprint up to my room and turn on my stereo to something that would cool me down like a good couple of Linkin Park or Nickelback songs - that always helped. But Kate was studying for her final exams and so I had decided to go outside to cool down. I plugged my headphones into my mp3 player, scrolled down to my playlist for occasions like these and shoved my hands including my mp3 player back into my jacket pocket.
I walked listening to the music thinking about everything and nothing, all the way to the woods at one end of town – our town wasn’t too big but also not too small, it only took me a little over half an hour in a slow pace to get to the parking lot in front of the woods.
My best friend Nell lived just a couple hundred metres down the road, where a street went slightly into the woods. The street wasn’t too long, but a couple of houses were situated right there at the edge of the woods. Why anyone would move there was beyond me. Not that I couldn’t understand that it was peacefully quiet, well unless the wolves howled, that is. But who wanted to live in such close proximity to the like of boars and foxes? Yes, foxes. My town had a thing with foxes. Even though we had supposedly wolves living in the woods, no one ever saw them.
Many had heard them howl and quite loudly, too, but besides the odd hiker that saw a wolf in the distance on a bright summer day out, they were nowhere to be found. And people had tried to find them, like that one wolf researcher who had heard about the wolves living in our woods and had mounted cameras onto trees and wanted to catch one to attach a tracking device on him, so he could monitor the wolf’s migration distance for his study. He never caught one and after analysing hundreds of hours of footage without one glimpse of a wolf he gave up.
The locals didn’t mind the wolves anyway. Wolves who, when growing up in their proximity, naturally stayed away from humans, even went one further in our area. Not even the farmers ever saw one or lost any livestock because of them. Sheep and the like could live without fear of wolves around here.
The real hunters around here were the foxes. A couple of years back our chronically newsless local newspaper published a front page article about the newest wildlife report of our local forest ranger. According to the report the biggest danger to our livestock were all the foxes killing the chickens. That became a running gag with the locals. The sign at the entrance to the woods by the parking lot that originally read Beware, danger of boars (because of the possibility of rabies) had long since been crossed out and read Beware, danger of boars (which had been crossed out) and instead had wolves written next to it until someone crossed that one out too, so it now read Beware, danger of boars (crossed out) wolves (crossed out) foxes.
When my friend Nell’s older brother and his friends got their driver’s licence they went online to a website that let you create your own personalised stickers and such and they were now driving around with bumper stickers reading Beware of the wolves [imagine wolves crossed out] foxes, though I never got why they would do that. I found it was going overboard.
There weren’t many people around, just a couple of joggers and people who were walking their dogs. I stayed on the trail at first- I would never think about going off the trail in the forest, it’s kinda biggish, so it would probably take me ages to get out again, if ever; for all I know, I would probably end up running in circles the whole time… But somehow I managed to end up in the middle of the forest, trees and bushes all around me. Most likely I missed a turn and instead of following the trail walked into one of those forest roads the forest workers and the ranger use and from there deeper and deeper into the forest. I took my earphones out and looked around. I was standing in a small clearing surrounded by high old trees. The only sounds besides my blaring earphones were the faint noises of animals you would come across in the woods- birds and insects; I even saw a squirrel and two rabbits rustling in the underbrush.
I turned my mp3 player off and pulled my mobile out of my jacket pocket. “Great!” I mumbled sarcastically, no signal damn it! I looked up to see that the sun was slowly dropping behind the treetops, it would be dark soon. This day just got better and better…
Snap.
‘Ok Anne don’t freak, that was most likely an old twig that snapped in the wind’, only the wind was like non-existent right now.
Snap.
Again! I looked around wildly trying to locate the source of the eerie sound, I felt like in one of those stupid horror movies that my friend Nell loves, like any second a guy with a chainsaw would come running for me, or like in a fantasy book and I was about to meet a leprechaun or a vampire - no thank you!
Standing there, my heart beating frantically in my chest, I strained to hear anything, but all that reached my ears were the normal noises of the woods. ‘O~k~’
That’s when I saw it - damn that squirrel again! That’s what had caused the snapping. I watched as it ran up a tree and breathed in a shaky breath. ‘Calm down Anne’, I told myself.
I was turning around looking all around me again, trying to find a way out of this damn forest and back onto the trail, when I heard a faint bark. It sounded like a dog was trying to laugh, but I couldn’t really tell since it was too far away. Next thing I knew, there was a growl, more barking that sounded like laughing and I could hear paws hammering onto the ground. Then, so far away from me that I had to strain my eyes to make them out, I saw two huge animals running fast towards where I was standing, the smaller medium brown one suddenly jumping off its hint legs and onto the slightly larger grey/golden one’s back.
I stood there like struck by lightning. ‘What the hell?!’ Was all I could think, what were they? Bears or something? They were huge! But they seemed to be something else, I could swear they were humongous wolves ‘Yeah right Anne, Jacob Black and Co live in your town’s woods - so not possible.’ They had to be something else; sure I knew about the whole fantasy-werewolf-romance-novels-thingies - I had read enough of them myself; I just thought they were that - fantasy and nothing else.
But what I saw next shook my whole world - the smaller of the two wolves/bears/beasts…- whatever, landed on the bigger one’s back and tried to snap at its neck, but never got to bite down too hard, since the bigger one bucked and send the smaller one flying - back first - into a tree. I heard a slight whimper. Next thing I knew, where a blink of the eye before laid a wolf on the ground, now a naked teenage boy scrambled to his feet saying loudly “Jeez Ian, I was only joking, you didn’t have to send me flying into a tree, what if it snatched into half and buried me underneath it?”
“Well I guess the family would be short one brother, HUGE loss”, the second boy replied jokingly. Wait, second boy? And where was the other wolf? ‘This is so~ not happening!’ I freaked. There was this laugh-barking again and I refocused on the group seeing that 3 other huge beasts had joined the two boys. One had pitch black fur, while the other two were a grey with tints of black and an auburn brown one.
Still frozen into place, I tried getting a better look at the guys; something seemed oddly familiar about them. The shorter one had light brown hair, but I could tell he had a lean body; even so his back was slightly turned towards me and so I couldn’t get a better look. I focused my attention on the taller one; he had dirty blond hair and also a lean body, slightly buffer than the other one’s. Unfortunately he held his arm at such an angle that I couldn’t see his, well you know… “crown jewels”. Wait, why did I even care? I shouldn’t be standing here in the middle of the forest perving over some mystical creatures or whatever they were.
The bunch of them were still joking around, mere seconds had past, when it finally hit me - the shorter one had called the dirty blond one “Ian”; I knew a dirty blond haired Ian, who was about the same size as this guy, he was a year older than me, we went to the same high school and he would graduate this coming summer. I gasped. ‘Holy cow! Ian Grover! Ian friggin’ Grover is a werewolf?!’
Gasping had been a stupid thing to do I then found out as the heads of two boys and three wolves turned towards where I stood.
“Shit!”
A/N
This is my first story and the idea first came to me back in spring 2011. I think it was April, my foreign exchange year at the university in Southern China was coming to an end and I was supposed to study for my Chinese Proficiency Test, but the whole weekend everytime I tried to concentrate on something these characters would come back to hound me until I finally sat down Sunday evening and wrote the beginning down. But i was always too chicken to post it online ^^ But after revising the first chapter I now feel I like it enough to let you read it.
I dedicate this chapter to SleeplessInChicago because about a year ago, when I told her I wrote the story, but had yet to upload it, she said to just go for it. So I finally did.
Vote, comment, fan and if you find any mistakes please let me know. English is not my mother tongue, but I'm certain I'm good enough, seeing as I read and listen to it everyday, though in the heat of the moment we all can make mistakes and I know that one of the biggest problems when writing in another language is getting the sentence structure right. Last year I had to read research papers and it was obvious when they were written by Germans, Indians or Chinese without much practice in it, even though it was understandable English, the sentence structure was like reading it in the other language. So if you come across anything and think "I'd never write or say it like that" please tell me as well ^^
Ok enough of the ranting; THANKS SO MUCH FOR READING!
Oh and that's Ian to the side ->