Spirit Wolf - New Beginning (Book One)

Chapter 1

REI'S POV:

I woke up like every morning just a few moments before the sun came up and showed itself on the horizon. Last few weeks I couldn't sleep very well. After two or three hours I woke up and it took another at least an hour to sleep again. Honestly, I was getting tired of that. I stood up from the bed, took my lavender soap that I made myself the same as most of my cosmetics, and went to the small forest pool near to my cottage. Yes, you heard me correctly, I said cottage. I sat down at the banks of the pool and listened to the relaxing sound of the nearby waterfall. This place could always cool my nerves no matter what demons were haunting me.

This place was pretty peaceful and relaxing. I could literally call it heaven. The mountain above from where the waterfalls was falling and from where was a mesmerizing view to see. The whole area was in your viewpoint. I could really call this my private little piece of heaven.

My cottage was just a few meters away from here yet perfectly hidden by the trees, absolutely the perfect place for a lone wolf like myself. I looked at the image of me at the water surface. I had waist long silver hair with golden eyes. No wolf ever had the hair this color plus in a human form having golden eyes was also something unheard. At least I never saw any human with this kind of color. But let’s start from the beginning, shall we? My name was Rei, Reina Elain Indegard, in short Rei. I am almost eighteen years old and live alone in this secluded place. It doesn't matter how you looked at it, I was a rogue.

This area was very rich for plants and small animals. Plenty of herbs were also growing around which helped me to create medicine, cosmetics which I could sell at the city just around fifty kilometers down the stream which went down from my private natural pool. I didn’t study at school nor had any courses but for some reason, I had all of that knowledge inside my head. I blamed it on my wolf Maat, not like she denied that. As I knew she was the most incredible and smartest wolf ever. Not like I knew many others or remembered some. The ones I knew are not here anymore anyway.

But thanks to her knowledge and guidance I survived here for almost six years, and most of the time without any big problems.

We were getting our wolves when we reached sixteenth but I got Maat when I was eleven. Don't ask me why but yeah, I got her exactly after that event. In the beginning, I couldn’t shift but she talked to me and she taught me. Shortly after I was able to shift for the first time. That I blame on the necessity for the shift to protect our lives.

She taught me how to hunt when I arrived here so I could get food for myself without depending on anybody else. I could hunt enough since this area was rich with different animals. I stored the meat for winter. She taught me how to preserve the meat for that reason. Vegetables were harder to grow here the same as fruits so this with other necessities i had to buy or exchange with the folks at the nearby city. My medicine and cosmetics were much better than those modern and purely natural so most of the people in the city were actually using my products which was a great help.

And if you asked me why I was all alone here in the woods, away from any modern civilization well, that would be a long story. But long story short, my pack was attacked. The attackers lost the surprised moment but sadly got us thanks to their numbers. My mother hid me away from the packhouse, masked my scent so no one noticed me there. I had a perfect view from the place where she hid me. I saw them butchered her, my dad, and my whole pack. I saw them burning my house to ash together with the rest of the place. And I saw the man who was responsible for all of that, shouting and screaming on his men because they couldn't find what he was searching for, because they couldn't find me.

Everything happened so quickly. She told me to not move no matter what I would see. Not to talk, whatever I would hear. I remembered my mother telling me to hide as far as I could when everything was over. She told me to run north till I reach the small city with the golden wolf in their crest. There I would be safe, away from big cities or other packs, away from everyone. So here I was, alone in the middle of nowhere, soon to be eighteen, living in the woods nearby of a small city with the golden wolf in their crest. Well, it was not like I had something to miss except my parents anyway.

I stared at the image of myself in the water. I wouldn't say I was beautiful but every time I thought about that, my wolf Maat always corrected me. In her eyes I was beautiful. 'Of course, you are.' I heard her in my mind. I just shook my head. 'Come on Maat, look at me.' I talked to her back. 'Yes, I am looking at you. I don't know what you see but those beautiful silver hairs and your golden eyes are mesmerizing.' She tried to make me see myself the way she saw me but for me, it never worked. I was odd, something unnatural. I was a wolf that didn't look like a wolf at all. But as I could remember I was always the weird one. No one in our pack had this hair color or those eyes. 'You aren’t weird but unique. Why do you think the whole pack was fighting, so your mother could hide you away under the nose of our enemies? Do you think they would do it for a mere weirdo? They loved you. They loved us.' Till now I didn’t understand from where she took all of the self-confidence. 'Yeah and look where they are now. If they would give me up, all of them would be alive, including our parents.' I bickered at her back. My tone was enough for her to go back into the corner in our mind. We both hated to fight each other but we both were too stubborn to accept the point of view the opposite side had.

***

I stared longer onto the image mirroring on the water surface seeing one stray tear falling down my cheek. I rippled the water with my hand before I took off my clothes, folded them aside, and went swimming. When I was almost in the middle of the pool, I took a deep breath and went underwater. I found my usual big stone down there and sat down with the stone on my lap. I could stay like this almost ten minutes before I had to go up for breath. Thanks to Maat I prolonged my time from five minutes to ten in half a year and now I could enjoy this feeling of being underwater, absolute peace, quietness, and harmony.

When I finished and felt relaxed, I swam back to the bank and took the soap. I made this lavender soap myself from the fat of deer I hunt. I made a few more kinds so I could easily sell them in the city. It was easy to make it and citizens needed it. Well not like it helped with the human scent anyway but I guess it couldn’t be helped since our senses are sharper than theirs so for me as a werewolf it was always a bit stinky. Soon it would be time to go there again. They thought I was witch, thanks to my medicine, at least I thought so. Thank Goddess, they never saw my real hair color. Before my visit, I always dyed them black just in case someone who might recognize me would be there. Precautions as I every time explained to Maat.

Every single time I was trying to dye my hair she fought me, and she was the one who didn't have to smell the chemical colors. Now I was using natural colors so they didn’t last long, not like she would let it last long anyway but at least the smell was natural and not that bad.

Maat was always overprotective towards me when it came to hair dye, lenses, or anything that changed my real appearance. She was against it no matter what.

'Of course, I am' She whined in my head. 'When you change appearance, it affects me too. You know I am not a normal wolf so take into consideration my own feelings young lady.' Oh yeah, once she called me a young lady we were into a hell of serious conversation.

This would be a very long night.

*

I prepared all the medicine and placed them one by one in a backpack I made from the deer leather. Everything was already prepared for my trip to the city to sell medicine and cosmetics and buy some other stuff I needed. The only thing left was to put the dye on my hair so I could keep a low profile. 'Why you always have to ruin our nice and beautiful hair.' Maat complained in my head. 'First, what do you think people would think if they see my white hair? Second, you always made sure they were silver again after we came back. Stop pestering me every time.' I shouted back at her and like always she went back inside my mind panting. 'Stupid wolf.' I commented. 'I heard that.' She said back. 'You were supposed to.' I replied back and closed the conversation between us. She knew I had to do it for our own safety but still she hated when I tried to cover or denied who I was, who we were. I guess she took it as her fault since my ‘uniqueness’, as she called it, was because of her.

My cottage was small. When you entered there was a reception with the sofa, table, and two chairs, like I need so many sitting places but whatever. The kitchen was right from the reception and between the stairs right next to the door to a small bathroom. Up are my bedroom and a bigger bathroom. When I think about it, it's not so small actually. For one person it might be even big. I went up to my bigger bathroom to prepare dye for my hair. I am mixing together powdered charcoal with some essential oils I made myself. I need to leave it overnight to let the charcoal settle inside the hair. It's completely natural so I guess even without Maat's assistant the color would sustain just a few days. I started to use this simple dye after a few attempts to color my hair which Maat ruined every single time. By the time I just ended up and started to use this since it was very easy to use, to cover my natural hair and give them care they need, plus it doesn't last long but the nutrition for my hair was sufficient. Another bonus was that this was completely free compared to the expensive dye I was buying in the city before.

When I applied the mask, I covered my hair with aluminum paper to keep it warm and protect my bed from being dirty. Everything should be settled for tomorrow morning. I have to go early since I couldn't use my wolf form to travel and I don't have any other way of transportation. It was a few kilometers. I could run and as a werewolf, I already run faster than ordinary humans but I still need to be careful to not let any human see me. I am lucky to find this place in the middle of nowhere with a really very old rural city. In this modern era, it was really surprising to find a city like this one. No Internet, almost no computers except those in the library, police office, and town hall. They still practice old traditions and believe in many myths. Well, they believe in witches, werewolves, or vampires. Not like it was bad for me and mistaken me for a witch, it was actually good for me since the one who killed my pack was looking for a werewolf and not for some damned witch.

'So, what do you say?' I teased Maat in the morning about our new hair color. 'Are you kidding me? You look ridiculous like always when you dye them.' She snapped at me but I know that even she understood why we have to cover our hair before we go to the city. After I woke up, I took a quick shower applying special soap and herb to cover our werewolf scent and washed the dye out of my hair. Now I stood in front of our small mirror in the bathroom checking the results. 'Maat come on. Don't be like that. You know we have no choice if we want to go to the city. One would think you already got used to it and understand that.' I tried to reason with her but it never works with her. She was always stubborn about changing our appearance even if it was necessary. I heard her sighs back in my head and I took it as a quiet agreement between us. I guess this was the most I could get from her.

I dried my hair and put them up in a bun before I put on clothes. As usual, I would take care of a hoodie deep in my face so I could avoid any eye contact with citizens. The hair I could dye but for some reason, the lenses dissipate a few minutes after I put them into my eyes and cause burning and redness for the whole day. I tried that two times before I gave up. Even Maat didn't know why this happened. When I was ready, I took the backpack from the table down in the kitchen and headed out from our cottage. I gave it last look before I ran down the hill beside the stream to the city.