The white wolf stared at me for a few second before speaking in a feminine, but powerful voice. "Shift." She commanded me.
I looked up a little and tilted my head to the side in confusion as I tried to think of what this huge wolf wanted me to do. I was expecting to either be told to leave or attacked. But with one word this new wolf had already confused me.
"Shift." The massive wolf said again, but this time she added a growl to it, obviously getting impatient.
"I'm sorry." I replied as meekly as I could so the white wolf knew I wasn't attempting to challenge her. "But I have no idea what you want me to do. I've never heard of the word shift before."
The white wolf studied me with her brilliantly dark blue eyes for a bit after that, noting the wounds on my legs and back and the teeth marks still present on my throat. Before relaxing just a tiny bit.
"What is you name?" She asked me, still looking like she was thinking and studying me.
"My name is Eva of the Shallow Waters pack." I told her truthfully. "Well I was of the Shallow Waters pack until last night, I ran away from the new Alpha because he was going to make us breed with him then let us starve."
I realized I was rambling on and supplying way more information than was required, but I was honestly scared at the size of this wolf.
"Hmmm," was all she said in response before pausing. "Are you a wolf or a were?"
"I'm a wolf, but what's a were?" I couldn't help but asking.
"Don't worry about it, my name is Grace." The white wolf introduced herself, although she didn't tell me what her rank was. "Are you going to be ok with those injuries of yours?"
"I should be okay, I didn't mean to enter your territory. I was simply really thirsty. If you let me go I promise that I'll never cross your borders again." I begged Grace as I prayed she wasn't going to hurt me.
Grace's blue eyes had a faraway look for a minute or two before she respond. "I don't think I'm going to let you go and even if I did, I don't think you'd last very long with wounds like those. You're currently unable to hunt. So if you come with me to our den then you can stay until you're feeling better. If you still want to leave after that then you may."
I couldn't believe my ears. "So you're not going to hurt me?" It was almost to good to be true.
"No, we're not in the habit of hurting wolves that clearly aren't a threat to our pack." Grace replied, reminding me that I was barely a threat to a bunny rabbit in my current condition.
"However you should know that we live alongside humans, but they won't hurt you." Grace informed me.
I backed up while my belly was still on the ground, my ears flat against my skull. I'd heard many things about humans and none of them were good. I highly doubt these humans would be any better.
"If you don't like it then you're welcome to leave, but once you do please be aware that any attempt to re-enter our territory will be viewed as hostile and you will be killed on sight." Grace said. She didn't sound menacing or evil when she said it, she was simply stating a fact.
"Are you sure they won't hurt us?" I asked still afraid. Grace may be big, but could she really protect an entire pack against humans?
"I'm really sure." Grace assured me. "All the humans there have even discovered how to talk with pack members in our minds, We call it mind link."
This caused me to open my mouth in amazement and let me tell you, it's not something a wolf does very often.
Grace came to a decision for me and came over to me to help me up with her head. She then let me use her for support as we started our for her packs den, or pack house as Grace called it.
"I'm just letting you know so you don't freak out but another two wolves will be here shortly to help assist you to the pack house as it's still quite a distance away." Grace told me.
I simply nodded at her. I was exhausted from the events of the evening, my wounds felt like fire and I was hungry. It was taking it's toll on me and the fire I felt at each step was getting bigger.
About ten minutes later two more wolves appeared out of the trees. The first wolf being grey with white spots on him, including one over one of his eyes, and the second being a brownish charcoal color. Both of the wolves were massive, although not as large as Grace, they still dwarfed Alpha Tim.
Both the wolves lowered their heads submissively to Grace before quickly introducing themselves to me.
"Hi my name is Derrick and this is Thomas." The grey colored wolf with spots said to me. "We're here to help you get back to the pack house if that's ok with you?"
I couldn't believe this was wolf was actually asking my permission. Normally a wolf in a superior position would simply do what they wanted without asking and as a rogue, I was the lowest of the low.
I nodded my head at Derrick, unable to speak because the pain in my body was becoming overwhelming.
Grace and the two boys were talking about something when my pain hit it's peak and I collapsed despite leaning into Grace for support. I only held onto consciousness for a minute after that as everything went black.
...
I awoke to find that the ground underneath me was incredibly soft. Softer than any leaves I'd ever seen but less itchy. I opened my eyes to find that I was in a cozy cave that was perfectly square and looking down I saw that I was sleeping on a square of grey. I had no idea what it was, only that it was comfy.
I moved a bit and got reminded of my wounds, I turned myself to lick them clean only to find them wrapped in bits of white stuff. I freaked out a bit and started to whine from the terror. I had no idea where I was or what was going on.
Before too long Grace appeared at the entrance to the cave.
"Welcome back to the land of the living." She said with a wolfish smile. "But seriously, how are you feeling? You scared us when you collapsed like that."
"I'm feeling much better thank you." I told her. "But when I woke up I found all this white stuff around my wounds and I can't lick then clean."
"They're called bandages." Grace told me. "The healer had a look at you when you arrived last and and disinfected your wounds. After that they bandaged them to make them heal faster, so please leave them alone and not try to destroy them."
"Thank you, although I only understood about half of what you said." I admitted. This earnt me a chuckle from the white wolf.
"You've been put on bed rest for a couple of days by the healer." Grace informed me. "After you're feeling better the Alpha would like to see you before we give you a tour of the territory."
I was almost crying at this point, which was a feat for a wolf let me tell you. "Thank you and your pack for being so kind." I said while trying to get all my heartfelt emotions into the sentence.
"You're welcome." Grace responded. "Food will be delivered soon. It will be delivered by a human, but they've been told to simply put it down at the entrance of this kennel and not bother you."
After that Grace stood up and exited the cave I was in just as the most mouth watering smell I'd ever come across assaulted my noise. It smelt like meat but better. I'm not sure how to describe the difference but it was amazing.
A minute later and what I guess was a human came walking over to my cave on two legs with all this pink skin showing. It appeared to be wearing the furs of something else. Not that I could blame it, if I didn't have fur I'd take it from another animal as well.
The human put the bowl down in front of my cave and turned to speak to me.
"There you go Eva, I hope you like you're steak seared on both sides but otherwise rare." He said to me as he checked another container that I realized held water.
Even though I could understand him as easily as I could understand Grace, I had no idea what this human was talking about so I just backed into the corner of my cave and waited for him to go away.
The human left after he was satisfied that there was enough water in the container and as soon as he did the mouth watering smell came back. It didn't take long to figure out that it was coming from the bowl that had been left by the human.
I quickly went to the bowl to discover it was filled with warm meat that tasted better than any I'd ever had before. Being ravenous I ate the food at record speed and felt much better afterwards.
After I'd licked the bowl clean I went back to the amazingly soft grey square and laid down again, taking the pressure off my sore legs.
My life as a rogue had only lasted a few hours until I'd been caught. But I was glad it was this pack that had caught me. Not that I even knew the name of this pack. I'd have to find out when Grace came back to check on me.
Over the next couple of days I not only got fed three times a day, but I also had many visits from Grace as well as some from Derrick and even a visit from Thomas which surprised me as Thomas hadn't said a word to me at all until he came to check up on me days after meeting him.
I discovered that the packs name was the Roaring Hills pack and the Alpha and Luna of this pack were named Alpha Leyton and Luna May.
After three days of resting and eating, Grace came and got me so I could see their healer, or as Grace called them, their doctor.
I was nervous but seeing as how no one in the pack had attempted to hurt me and had even taken care of me I followed Grace out of my cave and towards what she called the Pack House.
As I walked I noticed lots of large square things that appeared to be made out of some sort of strait wood. "What are those things?" I asked Grace as we walked.
"They're called houses." She replied. "Think of them as caves that the humans have built to house a mated pair and their pups. They use wood and stone to build it and it protects them from the weather and the cold."
I found this absolutely fascinating, until I saw a house so large it couldn't possible exist sitting in the center of all of the smaller houses.
"Welcome to the pack house." Grace told me as she continued strait on to the monstrosity. The pack house was roughly the size of ten fully grown trees placed from their roots to their leaves high. It looked like a square mountain.
Grace was walking to the pack house as if it's something she does every day but I stopped to gawk at it. I heard her speak to me when she stopped to look back at me.
"I know it's a sight to see, but you aren't permitted in the pack house or any of the other houses without an escort. Do you understand?" Grace asked me seriously.
"Yes I understand." I answered the massive white wolf before walking to catch up with her.
As we approached the pack house it looked even bigger up close. Unfortunately Grace turned away from what appeared to be the entrance and walked around the back of the structure. I followed her.
Eventually we came to another entrance at the back and Grace tapped her paw on the wood three times before waiting.
The door opened revealing a human. They had a small patch of white and black peppered fur on their head and had kind green eyes.
"This is Rory." Grace introduced him. "He's our pack doctor and looks after us if we're hurt. He's the one that bandaged you up when you first came here."
I would have been more afraid but I'd been warned beforehand that the pack doctor was a human so I knew to expect it.
"You must be Eva." Rory said in a voice I could understand perfectly. "I must say that you're looking better than the first time I saw you. Now if you wouldn't mind could you please jump up onto this table and lie down so I can take those bandages off and see how your healing?"
I couldn't reply to him with words coming out of my mouth like the humans do, so I just gave him a short yip and proceeded to jump on the table like he asked.
If he was amazed that a wolf understood and follow his instruction then we wasn't showing it.
"Now, lets take a look." He mumbled to himself as he undid the bandages around my wounds.
"It looks like you've made a complete recovery my dear." Rory said after he'd removed the last bandage. "It's a good thing to, those were some nasty injuries. But for now I think you're good to go, no more bed rest for you."
I felt my tail thumping against the table as it tried to wag in happiness.
Rory gently helped me up and off the table without damaging anything. Humans may only walk on two legs, but it sure seemed that the pair of arms at the top were really useful.
"Well if you've been cleared then it's time to meet Alpha Leyton." Grace said.
Despite everyone in this pack being so nice, my blood ran cold at the idea of meeting yet another Alpha.