Steel: The Transformation

Chapter 4

                 

Chapter 4 

Jackson POV

The soil felt cold and moist underneath my paws as I sprinted through the woods. My pack was flanking me on my left and right, matching their pace to mine. The trees swished by in a blur as we ran.  A howl echoed through the woods as a pale moon casted its light on the clearing in the trees.

My paws dug into the ground as I stopped and through the corner of my eye I could see my comrades do the same. The familiar ripple went through my body and I could feel my human skin, now exposed to the cold night air. From underneath a bush I grabbed my clothes and hurriedly got dressed. I glanced over and saw a wolf shift into Tim. He shook his blond hair and crouched down to find his clothes, which he usually hid underneath a rock.

I walked into the clearing, looking around the circle at my pack. Tim and Wyhatt were on either side of me across from us was Johnny, Adrian and Sam. It felt oddly complete, a circle of six. I had changed first and had had some help adjusting from my father, shortly after Tim had changed too. But once he and the others had changed we had been expected to take care of ourselves. So that's what we did. We all knew that our parents had their pack too, but our two packs never mixed. Once we all had changed, I had initiated these meetings. Pack meetings. There has to be some way to keep order and to make sure that we protect ourselves.

"So, we are here today to discuss what's been going on..." I looked around the circle and met five pairs of eyes, all locked on me. I continued, "As you know there is a new arrival in town."

They all nodded and Tim cleared his throat. I nodded a confirmation to him, allowing him to speak.

"The girl and guy that have moved in next door to Cleo," he summed up.

"Yes, they have moved in next door. We need to be sure that they are just normal university students and that they aren't a danger to the pack," I underlined the word danger and stared down at my pack members.

"From what we know they are university students, but we need to keep a special eye on them. It would be good to know more about them. We don't even know why they came here."

They nodded at my instructions.

Only a year earlier had they been listening to similar instructions when Cleo had moved to town. We took every new arrival very seriously. You could never be sure if the newcomer was just a regular person or if they were out to hurt us. My Father didn't tell me much about what being a wolf means, but they did tell me one thing - there are people who are out to get us. Dangerous people, who want to kill us. That's why I have been instructing my pack to keep a close eye on each new person that moved into town. I thought it was the best thing we could do and for me personally it really was the best thing. A year ago, when I was first watching Cleo closely from a distance I started to realise how special she was. Once I was satisfied that she was just a normal girl, I made an effort to get to know her better. She was a hard person to get to know, closed off and suspicious. It took me weeks before she started to treat me like something more than just an annoying stranger that kept bothering her.

The meeting had wound down and my pack was dispersing, all taking their own routes to their houses. It was only Tim and I left now, he shot me a look as if he was waiting for me to say something.

"What?" I looked at him, I was tired and would rather go home than have him staring at me cryptically.

"That guy... Alec. He was watching Cleo in class. It could have been nothing."