Fang
Chapter 12: Perceptions change

“Jessie it is time.” Michael says as he tries again to enter my mind. I let him this time.

I hadn’t even notice Ian and Allison until Ian came forward and winked at me. His way of welcoming me to their pack mind.Allison simply ran up to me bumped her head to mine in a show of acceptance and turned to continue.

I wondered if they were aware of what had just happened. I also felt like I should apologize for pushing Michael away and behaving badly going against my Alpha’s wishes but Ian had said never to apologize for who I amor what I can do.

At first I feel very awkward and out of place in this new pack mind. It is in a small way similar to our pack mind but not quite the same. It is quite here and lonely...

Going from having the inquisitive minds of little pups and the sometimes wondering thoughts of elders to the strict disciplined planning of the hunters and the soothing voices of mothers always a soft murmur in my head and heart to complete and utter silence and now this is unnerving.

I feel as though I need to walk softly here in the unknown. I know Michael, Ian and Allison are here with me but they are quite. I never knew any wolf as quite as them. As we walk a thought from one of them suddenly flares up and dies again just as rapidly. How am I supposed to live this way?

Perhaps it’s me shutting them out again. I hope and reach out little by little with my mind. Slowly they all become louder. No shield this time. They are quitter in every way from how they walk to the movements they make and the more intense thoughts they have. No wolf would waste thoughts on where to put his paw next or on the way to breathe without making sounds.

Allison is the most confusing of the three. She compares her every move with that of Michaels. WildHunt compared himself with LongFang as well but not in every single way. From where he steps to what he looks at and for how long is noticed by her.

Ian is still the same as I have come to expect from our time together in the old pack mind. Calculating, examining, fascinating with a hint of fun to be had shortly. At the moment though his loudest thoughts are of odd food things that look discussing.

Michael’s thoughts are still hard to hear and I’m afraid of digging deeper after Ian’s warning not to. I hear him and that is all that matters to me at the moment. It’s not nearly loud enough the three of them combined but it’s better than nothing…silence is scary even if I have to admit it myself.

Michael is a good Alpha, I can see it in little glimpses of memories and in the way the other two act around and feel about him. He picks up on Ian’s hunger and halts us near a watering hole.

“Right, enough moping about guys. Let’s eat.” He instructs and just like that he changes my whole perspective on hunting. There I was thinking after my coming of age ceremony there was nothing else anyone would be able to teach me about hunting. I was way wrong.

In a wolf pack the hunters are the only ones that hunt with some occasional help from the rest of the pack. The season and weather at any given time of a hunt plays a big role in what the hunters will search for and what they would leave over. No one in a pack hunts for themselves. Every kill is shared no matter how small.

Each of them had another type of prey in mind. A favourite to each of them. None of them planned to kill what they were thinking of hunting as a pack or sharing it after the kill. There was no searching for a dead end where prey could be cornered or a dead drop where it could be forced to fall if too big to take down. No coordination of who would be forerunning or who would guard the rear in case of other predators hunting the same.

Before I could stop and ask them what I was supposed to do Allison took off after changing into human form behind a big tree while Ian bounded away as a big Werewolf which left only me and Michael. I was sure that considering his size and mine we could at least get a couple of rabbitsor maybe a good sized Buck but he was not having any of that.

Bear he imagined. Bear really just like that without anyone to help. Looking at me he winks one big eyelash and issues me with a challenge.

“Show me what you can do pup.” There is no disrespect in his use of the word pup.

He knows I have come of age in accordance to my wolf pack but to his mind and their way of seeing and doing things I was barely even a pup let alone a young adult. I needed to show him what I could do; he would give the opportunities like LongFang it was up to me to rise to the challenge.

Part of me wanted nothing more than to sit back and watch the three of them. The way they move, the way they see things, what they take into consideration and why. The other part of me wanted to outdo them. Competition in a wolf pack is seen as good fun and a way to hone skills taught by adults. I have always loved it.

Michael took the lead and I was struck by how differently he followed the trail. The bear had drunk recently from the stream we had stopped at and my wolf instincts told me to ignore it in favour of smaller game. Following could mean unnecessary risk to the life of a pack member unless the pack fell on hard times and the possible starving of many outweighed the risk to few.

We did not follow the scent alone but stopped often to inspect the bear’s path. Here it had scratched itself against the trunk of a tree. To the wolf me, the hair it left behind was a sign that the season had recently become warmer and it was shedding some winter fur.

To Michael it was that but so much more. He studied the height of the trunk from the base of the tree to the tuft of fur and a picture started forming in his mind. The bear he could envision leaving the hair behind now had a very life like image. The fur had given Michael more details that wolfs would deem necessary but it seemed vital now. It was a black bear, about as big as Michael with claws the size of two of mine put together. Michael had discerned that from the paw print next to the tree that I had completely missed. It was in a bad mood having recently woken hungry from its long winter nap.

Not wanting to be completely outdone I carefully studied the ground around us and added to the image. It hada claw missing on its hind paw where no indent was left in the print. It had recently fed on two salmons a little upstream from where we stood.There was also a faint sent of blood in the air. Bear blood. It could be from the claw but most likely from the scratch.

Unthinkingly I jump up and lick the fur. Not smart! I realize too late. Ian had wanted to keep Michael and the Werewolf pack from knowing the extend of my changes until he could get back to their den and study what caused it more intensely. I was able to keep it from Michael only because LongFang had ordered me to on Ian’s recommendation. I think Michael allows his pack a lot more of what LongFang had called privacy and that is why they seem so quiet and why Ian was able to keep it from Michael as well.

Fire rakes over my skin. My bones break, fold, tear, regrow all in the span of a couple of heart beats and there I stand facing my new Alpha, my Grandfather, as a beast not of my own design or making.

He stands still for a long moment sizing me up and is ultimately impressed. Impressed?? As soon as the burning started I had been freaking out and did not even pay attention to the shape I was taking.

“Werewolf form.” Ian thinks relieved watching me from a distance.

I’m too relieved to hide my happiness. I study my new form through Ian and Michaels eyes. No longer am I the odd one out, the snow white pup, I am a wolf, no a Werewolf, black as night bigger than even Michael though a little scrawny compared to him, and it’s okay. The look on Michaels face the happy thoughts running through Ian’s mind it makes me giddy with relieve.

I don’t even want to think what could have happened if this was not my body’s response to the bear DNA. I’m not sure but I worry that Michael will take the fact that his only grandson is abnormal about as hard as he took the news of his daughter’s death.

I try to think like Ian and speculate why this form and I can only think that this is my body’s answer to the natural enemy of a bear.

In Michaels mind I must have been suppressing myself in order to blend into the wolf pack and he had actually been worried that I was a little small and underbuilt for my age in Werewolf terms. This form of mine made him feel relieved as well.

Sadly I note that he would have accepted me in any form I came in or rather thinks that he would have. I hate not showing my new Alpha all my mind holds. Ian too feels uncomfortable but still believes it for the best at least for now. I defer to him in this. As the brother of my mother he is trying to do his best by me and that is good enough for me.

“Let’s go stretch those muscles of yours. You must have been cramped keeping yourself so small.” Michael jokes.

No longer worried for my safety in this hunt as I am stunned to see he had been he leaves off on the smaller details of hunting and is now running straight for the bear. I have a hard time keeping up but can’t help feeling exhilarated and free.

We replace the poor unsuspecting creature in front of a cave entrance. Noticing us it rears up and we both jump forward at the same time grabbing a big fore limb each to yank it back down to the ground. It hits its head hard from the force of our impact and is knocked out cold.

I was taught never to allow prey to suffer unduly. And I do not allow it now earning another approving grin from my new Alpha. I sink my teeth deep into the base of its neck severing the bones killing it instantly.

My first hunt as part of the Werewolf pack would stay with me forever. I keep one of the bear teeth as a reminder.