The North

Chapter 1 - Part 1

I posted this as a sneak peak and decided just to leave it up

This is set in its own reality separate from the Wulvers so there may be a few differences in the rules of these wolves.

Enjoy!
And don't forget to vote and comment

***

Chapter 1 - Part 1

Rain fell like a rushing waterfall over the entrance of the cave the pack hid in, blurring everything outside in a dark dreary grey. It left me on edge. I couldn't keep watch if I couldn't see outside, and with my brother Mànas now gone, it was my duty to watch.

A twang of pain gripped my chest and I fought the urge to cry, fingers curling tight so the sting of nails kept me here.

I needed to be strong for the pack. There would be time to grieve later.

High up the side of Beinn Hòb, and far from any human settlement, we were hopefully safe from the creatures that were slowly picking our kind off, sometimes entire packs at a time. Whole families wiped out overnight; something we understood all too well.

The decision to flee our own territory had been hard but necessary, even if I'd been one who had called for us to stay and stand our ground. . .Until Mànas was killed, the first of our pack to fall. After that, running was the only real option left to us. At first, we'd done well. Our Alpha led us for miles before we stumbled into trouble again. Now there was nowhere safe in the country to hide. We'd exhausted the forests and glens, kept ourselves moving, straying ever further from the valley we'd called our home during the summer months.

We lost our Alpha to the blood drinking demons a week later. The members of our pack old enough to defend were dwindling. How much longer could we run?

I glanced back at the three small pups squabbling over bones, desperate to get every scrap of meat they could. The noise would barely be hidden by the sound of the rain and I tensed when my sister squealed too loud.

My cousin Fionnlagh snatched the bone away, growling a warning for the pups to behave before he tossed it out the cave where they wouldn't dare try to get it back. I cringed as the sound of the bone hitting pebbles bounced around the cave, my heart fluttering in my chest despite my conviction earlier that we were safe here.

Nowhere was safe.

Mother stood from where she tended to Father so she could usher the youngsters to the back of the cave where they might cause less trouble. Her steps were shaky but she managed to smile at me before tucking my two siblings and Fionnlagh's younger brother under a blanket. "Time for sleep now, little ones."

Sleep. I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept, and I definitely wouldn't manage tonight. Not with a storm hammering away and my father injured after a hunt gone wrong, threatening to add another name to our list of dead. I couldn't help but look over at where he lay with a ragged blanket thrown over him. His ribs were bruised a gruesome black and purple from where the deer had struck him, and even asleep, his face creased in pain.

We weren't going to last much longer here. The night creatures weren't all we had to worry about either. The new Christian God had brought with him a hatred for anything different, his followers, humans mostly, sought it out with the intent to destroy we so called devils. We'd lived in peace with mortals from the beginning, hidden but not really hiding, but there was no room for us anymore. The creatures of the night used that to their full advantage, influencing the humans, stealing territories from wolves in the southern most kingdoms of Sasainn, and then North to Alba.