The Winter's Howl

Chapter 1

The tiny lights in the huts of the town were sparkling against the blanket of snow that covered the landscape. The wind howled as the caravan went on the road along the cliff. In the caravan sat Zac Williams.

Zac was away from home on business with the Blue Moon Pack. Alpha Romulus's men seemed to have found the runaway Omega from the Twilight Pack, the pack of which Zac was the Beta. His mate had been reluctant to let him go; she felt something was going to go wrong. After a long argument and a lot of blackmailing, Zac had finally departed, though his heart was at home.

A smile crossed his lips as Zac thought of his three-year-old daughter, Raven. Perhaps it was the thought of her, but Zac thought he heard a little voice crying "Mommy? Daddy" somewhere. Thinking it to be his imagination, Zac tried to concentrate on the book he was reading to pass time in the caravan. But he heard it again, the little voice getting desperate, and after all, it wasn't unnatural that Zac heard such things, for his senses were evidently sharper that an average human.

He sat up straight; sure enough, the child was on the same road as the caravan. In fact, the caravan seemed to be heading straight for it!

As a wolf, Zac had been trained to trust his instincts. So, as soon as his mind comprehended the situation, Zac leapt out of the window of the caravan, shifting as he went out. There were gasps of astonishment, fear and maybe even awe as the passengers saw a humungous wolf running to the edge of the cliff, where a child stood, his cheeks streaked with tears and nose red from the cold.

He stood still, for he was shocked, until Zac was within grabbing distance, when he turned and tried to run out of fear for the beast coming toward it, but instead slipped on the ice and fell over the edge.

Zac rushed to the edge and instinctively grabbed the boy with his strong jaws, tossing him over his shoulder and skidding to a stop right at the end just in time to see pebbles falling over.

Zac retreated, satisfied at having saved the boy. He wasn't expecting a heroic welcome, but he certainly was not expecting a group of angry villagers and travelers grouping around the boy-who seemed to have been harmed when Zac threw him over, but was obviously better than how he would've been if Zac hadn't.

One of them yelled," He's a werewolf! He wanted to kill this defenseless little boy! Kill him!"

The angry villagers surged toward the lone wolf standing on the hilltop. Zac turned and jumped from the cliff and landed on all fours below the people atop the cliff, who watched him run off into the forest before going to the village itself and informed the mayor of the incident.