The Black Wolf

Chapter Two

Alice POV

10 Years later

Flashbacks of seeing my dead mother on the ground flashed through my dreams, and I felt myself thrash around on the cold hard ground, I struggled to wake myself up from my nightmare as the laughter of the vampires echoed through my mind. The vampires jumped towards me their nails ready to slice into my flesh, but I shot awake before I felt any pain. My head slammed into the top of the cave which made me yelp. I shook out my fur and reached for my teddy Thea rubbing my face up against it. It was very tatty now, she barely had any stuffing left. I had to be very careful with her with how fragile she had become. I gave her a quick lick and headed out of of my den. Dew had settled on the autumn leaves that had fallen over night. My cave was well hidden under a cliff, I had pulled a branch over it to hide it even more.

What are we doing today? Thea my wolf spoke up.

For ten years we had done basically the same thing, survive. She had taught me the basic survival instinct to hunt and fight. I had learned to give in to my senses, sound, smell and sight. I don't think I would survive as human anymore. I had grown since my shift as well, I was about five foot tall now, considerably smaller than the wolf i had grown too when the vampires attacked but still a lot bigger. I have been a wolf for ten years and the only memories I had left of my human years was of my tenth birthday. I had made sure to keep track of days by drawing lines on the wall in my den, i can't remember the reason why.

I'm hungry. Thea piped up again. I wouldn't mind a nice juicy deer today.

To be fair that sounded nice. I shook my body ruffling out my fur before padding down to the creek. I noticed a lot leaves had begun to fall from the trees which meant autumn had officially begun. Dew had settled on them which made them glisten from the sun. The fur on my paws, dampened from the water which made my paws feel heavy, but it no longer bothered me anymore. I remembered the first time it happened, I complained for days about it.

You were an annoying young pup. Thea my wolf chuckled.

She wasn't wrong. I complained all the time and got things wrong during my training. It took me along time to get the hunting techniques right. We went a couple of weeks without any food once. I was starving. I quickly picked up hunting after that, i refused to go without food for that long again.

Once we got down to the creek, I lapped up the water and took deep breaths of the air seeing if there were any scents of prey in the air. The creek was always one of the best places for prey especially early in the morning. Although saying that, the dew was thick this morning, many animals would just lick that off the leaves. This was going to be harder than I thought. I walked down the edge of the creek, keeping my ears up listening for any sounds and smelling for any scents. I also looked to see if there was any signs of fresh paw prints on the ground. So far nothing, just disappointment.

It was coming up to noon now and we still hadn't anything to eat, Thea had taught me to be able to know the time of day by the height of the sun and the shadows. I decided I would see if there was anything by the lake in the centre of the woods. It wasn't often I would venture there; it was far from my cave and I didn't like to venture too far. I didn't feel safe. It wasn't safe, I was a black wolf after all, I couldn't risk being seen, even if I was in unclaimed territory. When I left my home, we travelled for two weeks looking for somewhere to settle, we hadn't left since.

It took me about an hour to reach the lake, but it was worth it, a herd of doe was grazing in a clearing next to it. They had some young fawns with them too which would be easy pickings and easy to take back to my den. I crouched down behind a bush which I made sure was down wind so that they wouldn't be able to catch my scent. I made sure not to stand on any of the dead leaves which would give me away and crawled my way closer towards them. Luckily, they still hadn't detected me. Without any hesitation I dashed out of the woods that covered me and leaped onto the closest fawn, my canines sunk straight into its neck and it fell to the ground bleeding out. The mother of the fawn wasn't having any of it though and decided to attack me. She kicked her back hooves into the side of my chest which made me struggle to catch my breath. She then continued to stamp down on me, but I managed to roll out of the way still struggling to catch my breath. The rest of the herd had run off leaving just the fawn dead on the grass and the doe attempting to chase me off. I didn't want to kill the doe; it was a waste of food and a kill. I pulled myself back to my paws taking in a deep breath, the doe must have cracked one of my ribs because pain shot through my side as I tried to breathe in. I let out a warning growl to the doe hoping it would scare her off, I'm not sure what happened but it worked because before I knew it, she darted off into the darkness of the trees. I did feel sorry for her, I had killed her baby, but I was a predator and I had to eat at the end of the day.