Chapter One:
--First Meeting-
"Prima impresie este intotdeauna cheia ...Se duce la viitor..."
( "The first impression is always the key ... it goes to the future..." )
September 3rd, 1745
(4 Years Prior...)
It was nearly noon when Zackary's mother announced she was going to the market for more food. Her first-born and eldest son, Zackary Anderson, being the sweet boy he is, offered to carry all she could afford. Which wasn't much, they were poor. Zackary's father, once a very successful merchant, had perished after a long terrifying week of illness.
His mother nodded. Her petite form was much too weak to carry much anyway. Her silver eyes were both proud and sad. She missed her husband terribly but she had three children to raise. She would have to move on and marry or risk starving herself and her children, something she knew she could never bring herself to do.
Her skin pale was mirrored on Zackary, but his light platinum hair was the opposite of her dark coils. He had taken his hair and dark eyes from his father and though it pained her to see a replica of her husband in Zackary, she knew he was a good boy and couldn't bear to separate herself from him. She was using her son's image as a balm for her pain.
In all but his name and skin tone, Zackary looked as his father. Before his father's untimely death, they had both been the same height, a few good inches past six feet while still retaining a lean, slim figure. He had taken another characteristic from his father as well: he was a werewulf. He became a large silver one with dark eyes that had both rivaled and beaten the night's darkest shade.
Zackary was an honest boy; he caused no harm to anyone or anything. I was said to his parents by the doctor that though Zackary would grow strong and tall, he could never harm a soul.
The doctor's word had kept, even though he was picked on for his family's financial standing after his father's death and mocked on being so tall his bride would have to use a ladder to kiss him, Zackary's anger never flared nor showed as he took these mocks and insults in stride. Nothing seemed to faze the wulfen boy.
It was well after an hour and growing dark before their shopping was done. His mother having been content with silence as she tried to gather the things they would need. With three children, two of them wulfen, her house required large amounts of food.
She worried constantly, as their money came from Zackary's small but well-paying job working at the docks, where he helped take crates upon crates of imports to the docks to be sent to town.
"Is everything alright?" Zackary asked, his tone strongly voicing his concern. His mother's eyes watered briefly but she fought back the tears, he even knew when she was in inner conflict before she knew herself. "Yes, all is right for now, come along. We still need to get meat, Loren was still hungry after eating most of the roast last week and I don't want that to happen again."
She's so tender-hearted, he thought. Zackary smiled sadly, as he chuckled and shook his head, his blonde locks falling over his eyes, and swishing in the soft night wind. Loren was his younger brother, a few years younger. He was a hyper pup with relentless bouts of energy which he used to run around and wreak chaos in London. Loren resembled neither of his parents in particular with dark-brown hair that borders on black in nearly all light with creamy ivory skin and catlike hazel-grey eyes.
He was mischievous little thing and Zackary always chided him; saying his energy should be put to good use not destruction. But Loren was his own person and would only listen when Zackary was stern, then he would mind hat others say. Until then he was a ball of energy bent on bouncing off the cobblestone streets and brick buildings.
His last sibling was his baby sister, Elizabeth. Or Ellie for short was a timid little girl. The only daughter his mother ever had live past infancy. She had ash-blonde hair with dark-brown eyes that seemed to capture every slightest detail. Nothing slipped her notice; she was a quick thing but silent despite going on five years of age.
It was thought by the town she was a mute, the town making fun by saying Loren had stolen all genes for speaking because he ran his mouth as often as he blinked. But Zackary knew better, he had spoken to her on occasion and found she was just afraid if she spoke the town would have another reason to mock their family.
Zackary respected her decision and didn't ask her to do anything she didn't want to do. He thought her reason seemed very fit and mature for her young age.
It was then while on their way home that Zackary smelt someone approaching, but after concluding it was just someone getting home late, he brushed it from his mind. A mere moment later, he was run into by a teen several inches shorter and possibly a year younger than him.
That teen was Damien Moss, the son of the best wulfen-hunter in all of London, possibly the whole United Kingdom. He was a noble and if Zackary had thought about it deeper earlier, he was most certainly not supposed to be out this late.
"Ugh!" Damien grunted and then he tried to shove Zackary to the side. But alas, the tall wulfen held like a brick wall. Damien finally glared at the wulfen teen with striking hyacinth eyes farther emphasized by sun-kissed skin and auburn waves reaching over slim shoulders.
"Move, peasant!" he hissed, still trying to push the living wall from his path and evade the voices calling his name in the distance. "If they catch me, I'll be sure to mark your life!"
Zackary raised a brow and smirking, he stepped aside. His mother became slightly worried, she knew that look from memories of her husband, and Zackary was about to do something devious. She could only watch as her son moved swiftly and the same time Damien started to sprint away, struck out his long leg and knocking the boy forward a few good feet.
Damien hobbled on his feet and looked back, shocked. Someone below him had even dared to touch him, he thought, angrily and was about to scream curses when Zackary smirked over his shoulder, "You got a good start, now make good use of it."
Damien stared blankly at him, stunned as Zackary continued to walk away, not at all ashamed or in awe of who he had just met. Damien frowned and used the head-start given to him, thinking the whole way as he dove through awing crowds and swooning young women.
Whoever than man was, he thought with a slight blush as he dodged the gloved hand of a fawning prostitute, he had no concern for knocking me near off my feet.
He runs faster, promising the brunette he'd be back to satisfy her another day but right now, he had to go. The brunette had nodded and promised to stall the group after him to which Damien promised her a time better than her last. She's just a whore, he thought as he ran off again. She doesn't matter.
No one matters but me, he thought as he decided to go through the section of the town for the poor. He tore through and just as he thought he was safe from his pursers, he once again crashed into something. "Ouch..." he groaned and when he hears an angry growl, his blood suddenly runs cold.
Standing before him is a large dark-brown wulf with paws the size of massive watermelons. Hazel-grey narrowed in anger, and claws digging into the cobblestone like it were mere butter, Damien began to whimper in fear as he scooted away, still on his back as he had fallen.
"W-werewulf..." he stammered and just as he thought he was going to have his throat ripped out when the beat leaped, a swift arm slapped the wulfen's face and knocked it across the street.
The possessor of this arm was Zackary Anderson and he was looking directly at eh wulfen as if he expected it come charge at him. Damien scrabbled to his feet, not caring his sunset vest was scuffed and had some missing gold beads on the edges. He hid behind the lean wulfen; unbeknownst to him the one he hid behind was of the same kind. Not only that but the dark-brown wulfen's older brother.
"Go home!" Zackary shouted and the wulfen's ears pricked up then flattened to its skull. It timidly looked up, guilt a bright beacon in its eyes. Damien watched, amazed and transfixed, as Zackary commanded the wulfen to find someone else to terrorize.
Who is this man; Damien wondered as he watched the Zackary's face and searched for any fear. His hyacinth eyes searched the dark ones for any unease or distrust for the beast before him. Thinking all was well and he was safe, he slowly relinquished his position behind Zackary and the wulfen started.
Anger was immediately replacing the fear and intimidation previously taking stock there. The wulfen charged, and Damien gasped, swinging his head from gazing up at Zackary and for all of three seconds, he imagined how much pain he was going to be in when the wulfen tore into his throat.
He winced and braced himself for the pain he truly believed was to come. But instead of the sound of dagger teeth tearing into his fragile skin, he saw Zackary grappling and succeeding in holding off the wulfen more than four times his inferred mass. It would seem in fact, that he was winning without effort- until the wulfen played dirty, as Damien knew it would.
The wulfen drove his teeth into Zackary's shoulder and the teen growled, a deep rumble coming from his chest as Damien tried to tell himself he was seeing things." It can't be," he said aloud in awe. "He should be dead." He should dead! Anyone else would be dead!
It was true, where Zackary's shoulder was a large dark red stain was rapidly spreading throughout his long-sleeved, maroon shirt. Red dripped in tiny but prompt droplets onto the cobblestone. Zackary hung his head and Damien nearly thought his was defeated, when he raised his head in a furious motion and pulled back an arm to cuff the wulfen in the muzzle. Right as his hand connected, Damien heard a snap and knew something had broken either Zackary's hand or the wulfen's nose.
"Now, go home!" Zackary yelled and the wulfen whimpered, its head bobbing hurriedly before it ran off into the dark woods, Damien watching its large form retreating into a tiny dot before disappearing altogether.
Damien blinked, and he could not believe a single man had defeated a wulfen without a single weapon by himself. Something he had never seen done before, not even by his father. "That was truly a spectacle..." But at the sound of a pained groan, and a thud, he was roughly reminded of his savior's condition.
Damien swore and ran to Zackary, trying to heave the teen wulf onto his feet. "Come on, lad. Don't think after saving me, I'm just going to let you die. Come on, I'll get you help." With that, Damien took him to an underground doctor down the road, giving a watered down summary to him upon arriving.
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