Wolfsong
Book 1: Moonlight
Prologue
The night was cool, with a just a small hint of rain floating on the breeze. The moon was full, and not a single star was missing from the dark blue sky. Not even so much as a thin cloud shielded the dark and wild sky from view. Far below the stars, a small clearing lay in the middle of the great Alaskan forest. And in that clearing, a dark shadow shifted suddenly. It was the only movement that could be seen. A large roan wolf was sitting just outside a small cave in that clearing, waiting anxiously, twitching and jumping at the slightest sounds. He knew that his mate, Leaf, the alpha female of the Blue River pack, would be giving birth soon. She had been in the den all night, and Oak was beginning to wonder if something had gone wrong. The whole pack was anticipating this birth. There had been no pups for months, and the pack was smaller than it ever had been before. Though there weren’t many other packs in that area, Oak knew that a small pack couldn’t survive very long, especially with the fact that winter was approaching. Already, parts of the camp were scattered with orange and red leaves that had fallen from the trees above. Oak’s ear twitched involuntarily. Patience does not come easily for alphas, even experienced ones. The worried wolf tried to wait, but he didn’t know how much longer he could sit there, motionless, just waiting for something to happen. It wasn’t natural for an alpha of his experience… He thought about just heading into the cave uninvited.
No, he thought, Leaf told me to stay out here and wait. She said something about “not being able to concentrate”. And because it was her first litter, she would need to concentrate a lot. He resisted the urge. But how much longer could he sit there? Just as he was about to give up and go to one of the other dens to go to sleep, there was a cry from the cave. Oak pricked his ears. What was going onin there? Frantic with worry, he nervously got to his paws and raced inside, quite scared by now. And then, just in the entrance to the cave, he stopped. There before him, curled up on a bed of leaves, lay Leaf, barely visible through the darkness of the night, her breathing steady and her eyes closed. She was as still as a rock and for one horrible moment Oak thought she was dead. But then she moved, and he decided that everything was going well after all. He also guessed that the cry had come from a pup, either just born, or trying to get to the milk. As quietly as the fall breeze that rustled the trees outside, he padded through the entrance, trying to make no sound, as he did not want to wake his tired mate. Though Oak’s large paws rustled the leaves slightly in his nervousness, Leaf still did not stir. Sure enough, snuggled next to Leaf’s belly were four small wolf pups. So they were finally here. Oak sighed in relief. He slowly began to sit down, but as he did, he accidentally stepped on a previously concealed twig, which cracked and broke under the weight of his paws, making a rather loud crackling sound that woke the beautiful brown she-wolf. Leaf raised her head and looked around, blinking tiredly. Then she saw Oak watching her, an embarrassed look on his face. She smiled gently, her tired eyes cast downward upon her pups. The large brown wolf standing in front of her didn’t even seem to notice his new children. He was too upset with his mate to care, it seemed. He’ll get over it, Leaf thought confidently. Oak stared dejectedly at her. “Why didn’t you call me in the den to help you? I was worried sick!” Still watching her pups intently, Leaf replied, “Oh, Oak. You male wolves will never understand! You get so worried about us! From the moment her pups begin to arrive, a mother knows just what to do. We don’t need any help”. Leaf looked up and smiled at him, amusement in her tired amber eyes. Trying hard to think of what to say, Oak lowered his voice and said, “Well, there are plenty of females that have died giving birth, Leaf. What if something had happened to you? You know that I would have wanted to be there! And besides, they are my pups, too! I wanted to get to see them take their first breaths.” Leaf shook her head. “They are only pups, Oak, and newborn ones at that. There are still plenty of firsts for you to witness yet—first steps, first sight, first howl…” Leaf continued to ramble on about all the “firsts” in a wolf pup’s life, but Oak wasn’t listening. He was still recovering from his long wait for Leaf to respond. “They are also our first litter. We have been alphas for only four years. There is more time yet…” Personally, Oak thought that four years was a very long time to be alpha. Suddenly, Leaf was interrupted from her rambling as look of intense pain crossed over her eyes, and she cried out, “Oh, Oak! I…I think there’s another one coming!” The worry he had felt before entering the den suddenly came flooding back to Oak as he placed a paw on Leaf’s side, trying to stay calm. “It’s okay, Leaf! Just do what you did earlier, and you’ll be fine!” But the she-wolf needed no help. Just as she had said, she knew what to do. Though she would cry out in pain every once in a while, she seemed to have no trouble at all delivering the last pup. In no time at all, the birth was finished. After taking a deep breath, she looked down at the new arrival. Still wet, slightly bloody, and shivering with cold, the little pup yelped, gasping for breath. “Well, dear,” Leaf said, “It seems as if you were able to witness your pup’s first breaths after all.” Finally satisfied, Oak stared at his new daughter. “She’s beautiful,” he whispered. Leaf turned her head and began to lick her pup’s fur, trying to warm her, and dry her off. “Now that they are all finally here, what do you think we should we name them?” She stopped licking the pup and asked the roan wolf beside her. Oak watched the pups for a moment, and then gently nudged a small brownish-gray wolf that was sleeping soundly next to Leaf’s front paw. “He looks just like you, Oak. We should start with him. He should be the easiest to name, what with that white paw of his,” Leaf said. “Yes,” he whispered, “That paw makes it seem as if he has just stepped into new-fallen snow. How does Snowfoot sound to you, Leaf? It’s a little long for a forest wolf, but…” Leaf nodded proudly. “Just what I was thinking. Unique, yet perfect. And all of them are so beautiful; it won’t be hard to choose names for the rest of them. So this one,” she said, pointing with her nose to a small brown wolf with a sort of cinnamon tinge to her perfectly groomed coat, “Could be Flower; because she is the prettiest little pup I have seen in a long time—just like the wildflowers in spring. And these two here look exactly alike. They are both gray, with the same markings. Let’s call them Cedar and Stone.” The two puppies did look alike. Each one was a soft gray color, with streaks of darker gray running around their eyes, across their backs and over their tails. “That sounds good,” Oak agreed. “But…but what about this other one—the newborn pup? She is beautiful too, yes, but will be rather difficult to name—just look at her markings! We could always name her Midnight—after the stars and the sky at night.” He was looking at the newly born wolf, a pitch black she-wolf, blacker than the night surrounding the camp, whose paws were whiter than snow, and a white star on her forehead that reminded him of the magnificent, starlit sky just outside of the den. She was curled up far away from the other pups, lying on the leaves near Leaf’s tail. Her fur was still fluffy from Leaf having licked her. “I have already picked a name for her,” Leaf whispered. “I knew her name the moment she was born. And something tells me that she will have a great destiny before her—greater that any wolf yet. And I also know that she has an amazing power—we both know what it is, I’m sure. I don’t know how I know, but I just have a feeling…” Oak stared at Leaf, shock in his brown eyes. “But how can you be sure? I won’t believe it—not on the word of a tired she-wolf that has been up all night. No offense meant,” he added quickly when he saw the spark in Leaf’s eyes, “but I doubt you are really thinking straight, Leaf. You are tired, and should rest before you go off saying such powerful things!” Oak had been worried ever since the moment he saw the pups that the alpha-female had given birth to. None of them had had what the wolves called, The Sense. The parents of a pup that had The Sense always knew it, although no wolf was quite sure how. It was suggested that the wolf ancestors told the parents of that pup somehow...although no one had ever been able to really figure it out. The Sense was what connected a wolf strongly to the Silver Pack—the mystical pack of wolves that consisted of the wolf ancestors, and those who had gone before. In order for a pack to truly be able to survive, at least one wolf needed to have The Sense—to foretell danger for the pack, or to receive dreams and prophecies. Neither Oak nor Leaf had it, and the last wolf in their pack to have it had died last summer; he had died drowning in the river that gave the Blue River pack their name. But when that little wolf had been born, a feeling had crept into the den. Oak hadn’t recognized it at first, mostly because of his fear. An odd feeling…a sort of scent, really, the scent of stars, and night, and of the mountains…a truly wild scent, like no other he had ever smelled before. He wondered if Leaf could smell it, too. But still, in order for Oak to truly believe that another wolf had that power, he had to be sure… “Oak, I…I can’t be sure. Not yet. But something tells me that she is one of the last of the Seekers! And that she will be great.” “You still have not told me her name, Leaf.”
Leaf looked at Oak, a fierce gleam in her amber eyes that made the roan wolf take an uncertain step back. “Thorn. Her name shall be Thorn.