Treaty Bound

Chapter 1: The Bite

   Have you ever felt the pure agony of having every bone in your body bend, break, and reform you into something completely different? Have you ever battled for the control of your own mind with a primitive consciousness that promises to end the pain for you if you would only just let it take over? If you have never lived through horrors such as these you can hardly understand what it is like for one of my kind during the first change.

   You will never understand how easy it is to just let the wolf take over and hunt and kill as it pleases just to stop the pain. We all give in on the first change. Can you honestly blame us? Would you not give anything to make pain like that go away? Could you even hold on to consciousness through pain like that to try and keep the wolf at bay?

   All of us know what it is like to lose control during that first change. For many of us, it takes more than a few changes before we are able to retain control from the wolf. For others, the wolf is just too strong or the mind is too weak and they never learn control. It's during this time that you get most of the horror stories you've heard about my kind.

   That is another thing you will never understand. The grief we feel the next morning and every morning after that for the things we did when we were not in control of our own bodies. Things we remember doing and were unable to stop no matter how much we begged, pleaded, and screamed silently in our own minds for it to stop.

   It is for these reasons, not the treaty, that we seek out anyone bitten before the next full moon forces the first change upon them. We guard and protect them from others as we try to prepare them for what is to come; then we protect them from themselves when the first change happens until they can learn to retain control.

   At least that is what we try to do, but accidents happen. Usually, a lover unknowingly bitten too hard is overlooked until it is too late. Other times, however, one of my kind gives the wolf a little too much control. These wolves seem to thrive on causing chaos wherever they go. A newly turned wolf without someone to guide it can cause a lot of mayhem in a small town.

   By now you should understand enough for me to truly begin my story. My name is Bryan Arthur Roberts but most people call me Bar for short. I was born in a small logging town called Glen Haven on the northern edge of the Great Oak Territory. I will not bore you with my early years growing up in such a small town. Suffice it to say I had an ordinary upbringing. My father was the town's blacksmith, like his father before him. So as you can expect, I am also a blacksmith, though not the town's blacksmith since I still worked under my father at the time.

   It was an unremarkable autumn night when I finally locked up the shop. My father had gone home hours before and left me to clean the day's mess.

   "It's all part of being an apprentice,'' he would say when I complained about how unfair it was. Then he would start the speech about how he did it for his father when he was an apprentice and his father did the same. Personally I felt it was time to break that cycle but I knew better than to give voice to that thought.

   I still remember the "BAR" Blacksmith sign creaking in the wind above my head as I snapped the last lock into place and turned to make my way toward the tavern. You should know that I have never been one to drink much or crave the company of others. I also knew I had food on the table waiting for me when I got home so I didn't need to buy my dinner either. So then why would I be going to a tavern, you might ask.

   Why do men do almost everything they do I would ask in return? Especially paying for a meal that they didn't need and a drink that they didn't want? For a woman, of course, not that I had any chance with her. To be honest I wish I could leave this embarrassing part of my life out of the story but that would give you a false image of who I was. Back then I was nobody - no, I was less than nobody. If my father had not been such an important person in the town I doubt anyone would have even known my name. For the most part, I preferred it that way, except for when It came to Krysta.

   Outgoing, friendly, kind, brave, and beautiful; she was my opposite in almost every way. Even as a child I watched her from a distance, amazed by how easily she approached new people and made friends of them. One time a werewolf came into town she walked right up to the huge beast and pet its red and black fur without any sign of fear, while I watched from the shadows of an alley terrified for her. Of course, I know now that she was never in any danger but I didn't know that back then. I could not help but admire her and over time that admiration changed to something else that even as our story begins I did not fully understand.

   Obviously, as an adult, I could not sneak around in the shadows watching her. I could go to the Angry Ox three nights a week, however, and for the price of a meal and a drink I could watch her sing. So once again I found myself at a table in a dark corner of the old tavern. The place was packed that night as it always seemed to be on nights Krysta sang. I was definitely not the only man in town that appreciated her talented voice, or at least I always hoped it was her voice that packed the place.

   As I waited for Krysta's performance to start I sat quietly in my unlit corner, hoping the barmaids wouldn't notice me. If they didn't then maybe I wouldn't have to spend a copper on a meal and ale I didn't want. Alas, as I sat there someone noticed me anyway. A stranger sitting close to the stage was staring at me intently. It was not uncommon to see a stranger in the Angry Ox on these busy nights, but it was uncommon for one to stare at me.

   As I already said no one ever really noticed me and the few that did looked away when I met their eyes. This man was different. Even when I met his eyes he never looked away. It was unsettling, to say the least. His eyes were... I don't know if I can accurately describe them. To say they were wild would fall very short of the mark. It was as if they could peer into a man's soul and read him like a book, and apparently he found my book fascinating.

   It was not until Krysta took to the stage that he looked away from me and I will never forget that smile. It was the most mischievously wicked smile I have ever seen. So long as I live I will never forget those eyes or that smile but I can remember nothing else about him, not what he was wearing or even the color of his hair.

   Krysta began to sing then, pushing all thoughts of the stranger and his smile from my mind. I had heard many of the other girls in town calling her fat behind her back but I think they were just jealous. She was not rail thin like most of them but they could never have filled out a dress the way Krysta could. That night she was wearing her emerald green dress that matched her eyes and made her red hair look as if it were on fire. To say she looked beautiful would have been the understatement of my lifetime. I am no poet, though, and lack the adequate words so beautiful will have to suffice.

   Her voice when she sang was nothing less than mesmerizing. From her first note till the last the crowded tavern faded away and there was only her. Admittedly my opinion may have been a little biased but still, it was the truth for me and this is my story. Also, it explains why to this day I have no idea how the bar fight started.

   Krysta suddenly stopped singing and I found myself back in the tavern. It quickly became clear why she had stopped. Several men in front of the stage had begun shoving and punching each other. One man flew into another table bringing the men at that table into the fight and soon brawls were breaking out all over the tavern.

   As I already said Krysta was brave but she was also small compared to the men fighting around her and not much of a fighter herself. The stage she was on was more a raised platform against the far wall with no way off but through the violent mob. Seeing her look scared for the first time snapped something in me. It's the only way I can explain how I got from my seat to the stage before I even had time to think about what I was doing.

   I may have been shy and possibly even cowardly back then, but I was not small or weak. I pushed men out of my way as I rushed to the stage with only one thing on my mind, save Krysta. If I had been more aware of my surroundings I may have noticed the stranger from before moving through the crowd towards me. If I could have thought of more than Krysta and the look of fear on her face I may have noticed him before he bit my hand.

   I jerked my hand away but he had already let go and smiled at me. It was that same mischievous smile but this time his teeth were pink with my blood. I punched him as hard as I could in the mouth and he fell backward laughing. As I said I was really strong from my work as a blacksmith but I had no idea how to even throw a punch. It felt like I had broken my hand and I am embarrassed to say that I screamed in pain.

   When I finally recovered from the pain and shock only seconds later I looked around but could not find the stranger anywhere. Even worse, someone else had gotten to Krysta before I could. A man I had never seen around town before was already carrying her off the stage. He looked like a puny nobleman's son in his fine tailored clothes but he lifted her up like she weighed nothing at all. I watched as he took her safely through the crowd and set her behind the bar.

   She smiled up at him in a way that made something inside me break for the second time that night. I can't really explain why a simple smile affected me so much. I have seen her smile at many a man in the tavern so I do not know what was different about this smile. Maybe part of me thought that should have been my smile for saving her and I failed. All I knew was how it made me feel and I ran out of the tavern holding my bloody hand to my chest.