Wild ― Piper McLean

―v. wolves, dragons, & cowboys (oh my!)

VERONA DREAMED OF RUINS AND WOLVES.

She stood in a clearing in the middle of a redwood forest, at home even in a foreign place by virtue of the trees rising all around her, the grass dewy against the soles of her bare feet. She could hear the songs of over a dozen different birds in the branches, the whistle of wind around the trunks of the trees, the scuttling of hundreds of wildlife running along the forest floor.

It was as close to home as Verona could remember.

In front of her rose the ruins of a stone mansion, low gray clouds mingling with the ground fog. Cold rain hung in the air, making Verona shiver.

A pack of large gray wolves milled around her, brushing against her legs. They rumbled softly, almost too quiet to hear, but their voices in her mind were as clear as day.

It's an abomination, one snarled.

Our territory, stolen by evil, another growled.

It isn't right.

I'll tear that giant apart.

One of them broke from the pack. It was smaller than the rest, though still nearly as tall as Verona's hip. Its fur was a reddish-orange, almost like bronze. It struck Verona as a strange color for a wolf, and its eyes, too, were a startling but serene gold, watching Verona with what could only be recognition.

I knew you would come back, the wolf said.

Verona knelt, holding out a hand. The wolf pressed its wet nose into the palm of her hand.

"We know each other?" Verona asked softly, reaching out to pet the wolf's head.

Since the beginning, the wolf promised.

"Do you have a name?" Verona asked.

The one you gave me, the wolf said. Sienna.

Sienna.

It was the first thing Verona truly recognized from a life she was blind to.

Come, Sienna said, nudging Verona's bent knee with her snout. She's waiting.

Verona stood and followed her wolf.

The ground was soft and wet underneath Verona's feet as she walked. Stone spires of chimneys, no longer attached to anything, rose up like totem poles. The house must've been enormous once, multi-storied with massive log walls and a soaring gabled roof, but now there was only this stone skeleton to speak of what it once was.

Verona passed under a crumbling doorway and found herself in some kind of courtyard.

Before her was a drained reflecting pool, long and rectangular. She couldn't tell how deep it was, because the bottom was obscured by mist. A dirt path led all the way around, and the house's uneven walls rose on either side. Wolves paced under the archways of rough red volcanic stone.

At the far end of the pool sat a giant she-wolf, several feet taller than Verona and her wolf. Her eyes glowed silver in the fog, and her coat was the same color as the rocks—warm brownish red.

Sienna left Verona's side to rub her face against the she-wolf's in silent greeting.

"I've been here," Verona whispered. She looked at the she-wolf. "Haven't I?"

The wolf regarded her like a teacher watching her brightest student stumble. You have, she agreed, the voice inside Verona's mind deep and stony. This is where you began your journey years ago. And now, it is time for you to find your way back. A new quest—a clean slate.