Chapter Five

Before the judgement

The bonfire and the Pack shrank behind me as I darted through the woods. I didn’t know where I was going; I just had to get rid of thoughts of Jeff and images of Mark and Harriet. But they chased me mercilessly, a step behind me as I continued to run.

Mark nuzzling Harriet’s chest…

If you keep pulling away, I’ll find someone else…

Jeff wouldn’t. He loved me. He had been waiting for me for years. And I was close to giving in, I knew. Why would he give up on me now?

For a time, I didn’t focus on where I was going. I had four legs now, and I was flying. The wind whistled in my ears and the trees slid past in a shadowed blur. I heard a howl behind me, and I recognized Keith’s high voice. He’d come to find me, probably pouting that I hadn’t danced with him. Idiot. He’d alert the Pack that I was gone, and I wanted to be alone.

Keith was easy to outrun. Too easy. Part of me had wanted the thrill of the chase, despite the identity of the wolf—pup, really—behind me. Keith had always been weak.

My ear picked up the sound of him crashing in the brush far back on my trail. I couldn’t circle him; he’d smell me. So I kept going, ignoring his whimpers and howls, until a huge shadow, different than that of a tree, towered over me. A slope jerked up before me, and I paused, looking up.

The Mackenzie mountain range created the shadow. I’d never crossed them before; hunts never went this far north. The elk and deer like to eat in the grasses to the east side of the valley. I’d never realized the range was this close to our large homes.

Keith was drawing closer. I growled. Why wouldn’t he give up and turn around? I again glanced up at the mountains. There were rules against going over them. There were humans on the other side. But, really, what harm could come from just looking at what lay beyond them from the top? I wouldn’t go down, I promised myself. I just wanted to look.

Excited, eager to forget about Jeff and the others, I began the long climb up the slope. It wasn’t too difficult; my body was hard and trained from the long hunts. Digging my claws into the ground, I gritted my teeth when the mountain became more vertical. But even then I didn’t stop. I wanted to see beyond the valley. Beyond the mountains.

Keith had lost me when the rocks began. I could hear him down below, sniffing around. He didn’t bother smelling the area where the mountain began—he wouldn’t, of course. It was forbidden to go there, and he believed me as one who followed the Law.

Now, in a way, I thought I understood Mark and his disregard of the rules. It was oddly exhilarating. I felt more free, relieved. It was as if invisible shackles had been clamped around my legs. But as I climbed, they seemed to fall away. Doing this was a way to escape the Law, the Pack, the constant loyalty and ties that had placed a burden on me that I hadn’t even known was there. Perhaps his romps with the other females was Mark’s way of escaping—however trivial and pathetic.

Before I realized it, I was at the top. I’d been so deep in my musings that I had lost focus again.

It was dark, but the moonlight was much brighter on the other side. It spilled out in a pale, luminous curtain over the trees. The waters of a river far below glinted and shivered.

But none of this is what held my attention and riveted my eyes.

In the distance was the orange glow of a fire. Not a wild fire, as we’d experienced at times, but a fire carefully made by hands. Human hands. The hackles instinctively rose on my back, and my lips pulled back in a snarl. It was what my father and the Pack had taught me: Humans were to be feared. Humans were to be avoided. They didn’t understand our ways, and killed our kind because of their resentment for their own weakness.

The sound of Keith whimpering some more reached my ears again. Impatiently, I looked down. The fool was still trying to find me. He knew I’d not headed back, but didn’t know where else I could have gone. The truth didn’t occur to him.

If I went down now, he’d know that I had been up the mountain. He would tell my father and Uncle Richard and I wouldn’t be allowed on the hunts for months. I would be kept at the houses, where someone could always keep an eye on me.

That just wouldn’t do.

But I wasn’t going to stand here all night, waiting for Keith to go away, or wait for him to glance up and see me, silhouetted against the moonlight.

So I did the unbelievable, I did the forbidden: I went down the mountain.