Blue Wolf

A long and tired howl in the distance woke me up suddenly, I opened my eyes as slow as possible and with a lot of laziness, then I stretched my body slightly until I turned around and ended up laying on my back watching the leaves of the tree over me dancing in the wind, I let out a sigh along with a smile when I saw his arm wrapped around my waist and I grabbed my cellphone.

-Aldahir – I said shaking him violently

He let out a grunt, clearly annoyed because I was waking him up, and he turned around removing his arm from my body and dragging the blanket that was over us with him, I rolled my eyes and turned on the lantern from my phone to then move the light in front of his eyes.

-Couldn’t you find a nicer way to wake me up? – He asked while grunting and sitting down allowing me to see his naked upper body

-I would some other day, get up we have to go – I said turning off the light

Aldahir let out another grunt – very similar to a growl – but he turned around and started picking up his clothes so he could get dress, he stopped suddenly and looked at me with a mix of fear and worry in his eyes.

-We should have been back, three hours ago! – He exclaimed with his brown eyes wide open

-Yes, just leave it – I said knocking his shirt out of his hand – let’s hide our things in the log we always use, we’ll get them tomorrow

We picked up our clothes, the blanket and our cellphones and put them inside an old hollow log, immediately after I transformed into a wolf and used my tail to hit Aldahir telling him to hurry up, he copied my action and transformed himself into a white wolf with yellow eyes. Right after he ran through the forest heading to my house.

We went into the house through one of the many side doors that was always open and walked as quiet as our paws allowed us to on the ceramic floor. Once we got to my bedroom I transformed back into a human and closed the door letting out a sigh of relief, when I turned around I saw Aldahir back into is human form standing in front of me with one of my favorite sweaters in his hand, I grabbed the sweater with a smile and while I put it on he went through a shelf in my closet were I kept some of his clothes.

-See you tomorrow? – He asked coming up to me once we were fully clothed

I nodded with a smile and leaned towards him kissing his lips while one of my hands went to his gray ish hair, he smiled half way through the kiss and grabbed my face with both of his hands moving out of his way a blue strand of hair. When we pulled apart we smiled at each other and a second later he jumped out the window, I immediately closed it and throw myself on my bed with a smile from ear to ear.

A few hours later my mother, a particularly annoying woman with an insane talent to irritate me, started to intensely knocking on my door.

-Good morning – I welcomed her opening the door and making my best effort to smile

She gave a barely noticeable smile and walk inside to then sit down on my bed, as soon as she sat down she arranged her insanely long black hair – too long in my opinion – over her right shoulder and looked at me, I simply stared back waiting for her to speak to me.

-I am going to ignore the fact that you did not spend the night here – said giving me her “I disapprove” look

-I appreciate it – I said avoiding her eyes

-You have to be in the main lounge after lunch, your three suitors will present you with gifts for your birthday, most likely and item of clothing or jewelry, you will then have around an hour alone with each one of them, after you will return to the lounge wearing the gift of the suitor you have chosen…

-As my life partner – I cut her off talking through my teeth, which made my mother growl at me being very annoyed at my reaction – I know what I have to do, you have only told me about it about a thousand times, you also know that I think this whole thing is bullshit, just because I was born into one of the so called pure blooded families I’m forced to keep said line clean… I guess I should consider myself lucky, at least I’m not marrying my cousin

In a matter of seconds my mother was standing in front of me with her brown eyes starting to glow in a slight green color, I backed away from her putting my head down to avoid making eye contact with her while trying my hardest not to transform into my black wolf form and jump at her. I have always been way more confident on myself as a wolf.

-Dhalia, you had the honor of being born in our family – she started talking and walked away from me – the birth mark you and your brother have sets you apart from the rest, makes you superior and you know that

-Why do you still talk about my brother as if he were still alive?

As soon as the words leave my mouth she brings her hands to her chest, as if I had just punched her and steps away from my violently.

-Have you forgotten he was murdered almost ten years ago?

-Dhalia – I heard my father’s voice suddenly

-I’m sorry – I apologized to both of them – now if you would allow it, I want to enjoy my last day of freedom

-Why do you have to be so dramatic? You have three suitors, your brother didn’t have the opportunity to choose

-You’re right, I have the opportunity to choose with who I will spend the rest of my life with, is truly perfect; if we ignore the fact that this is nothing more but an arranged union in order to keep our blood line pure and clean and there are zero romantic feelings involved… I really am lucky – I said annoyed

I didn’t stay long enough to see their reaction, I turned around and headed to the training area of the town with the intention of running in to Aldahir so we could go back to the forest and get our things. I walked through the halls of our house – or maybe I should say mansion – running into many people, including Alisha, the youngest daughter of the Izmair family.

She was one of the people that I could “choose” from, she was three months older than me and really attractive with her tan skin, short blonde hair and dark eyes.

-Hi! – She said hugging me, which I reciprocated with a little discomfort – I was hoping to see you before the ceremony tomorrow, happy early birthday Dali! – she said giving me a little blue box

I accepted the box smiling softly with the discomfort growing by the second and opened it under her expecting look, inside the little box I found a wooden pendant on the shape of my birth mark and my tattoo; I slowly analyzed the pendant shaped as a crescent moon with a four-point star nearly completing the round shape of the moon.

-Thank you, Alisha, is really pretty – I said smiling at her

-I’m not trying to bribe you into choosing me tomorrow I swear, I just wanted to remind you that no matter what happens you’ll still have me as a friend, and future aunt to your children if you end up choosing my brother – she said laughing

Her words made me laugh taking away some of the weight from my shoulders and I hugged her, thanking her yet again, when we pulled apart we smiled at each other and went on our own way.

I kept on looking for Aldahir while mentally going through all the reason why I was even in the position I was. I was a werewolf, I lived in a town where every single person living there was also a werewolf, said town was called “Loup Ville”, roughly translating to Wolf Town – I always appreciated the irony of the name – which was located in The British Columbia near the Ancient Forest.

The reason why I was a werewolf – according to what I had been always told – had to do with the people who lived in Loup Ville centuries before us, they were either cursed or blessed, with some sort of genetic mutation which allowed them to transform into wolves. Ever since that first generation with the mutation was created they swore to honor their new found ability by not mixing their blood with people without the wolf mutation, they decided to do it by only having descendants within the six families that were given the mutation. Those six families were the Dupin’s, the Lamberd’s, the Kunt’s, the Hunt’s, the Izmair’s and my own, the Ward’s.

That promise to keep the bloodline pure or clean evolved into a formal union – marriage – between two members of each family. The first born of each generation would be marked with a tattoo of a four-point star at sixteen years old to “complete” our birth marks, they then would wait until turning twenty-one to choose their partner, who also had to be twenty-one or older.