Blood and Silver: First Bite

A commonality

Jackson was pacing up and down in his cabin. Hannah had called him, crying frantically that someone had taken Abigail, and he felt lost and helpless. This feeling was alien to him, usually he had all the answers and stayed calm in a crisis, but when Abigail was involved he felt paralysed by fear.

He tried to shake himself out of his fear.

‘It must be the Blood Crescent Pack, she can’t be far from here.’ He said to himself.

He called Perry and asked him to mobilise his top fighters, to start a search and rescue party in the Blood Crescent territories. As he got off the phone, something caught his attention. It was a scent, and a feeling. He could feel Abigail’s presence nearby, and without waiting for his warriors to back him up, he raced out of the house and headed towards the scent, ripping off his shirt as he ran and shifting into his wolf form.

It wasn’t long before he came to a clearing, and was met with growls from every direction. Wolves slinked out from between the trees and slowly circled him, baring their teeth and letting out low, ominous growls.

There must have been at least seven of them, and although he was an Alpha, which made him bigger, stronger and powerful than a single wolf, these wolves were feral members of the Blood Crescent pack, and so had spent more time in their wolf forms than human forms. They were more in tune with their wolf form, and against seven of them, Jackson didn’t stand as much of a chance.

‘Stop!’ He heard a voice boom authoritatively from between the trees.

The wolves backed away and stopped snarling, but still watched his every move.

‘Welcome, Alpha Jackson.’ Said the voice, and Jackson slowly shifted back to his human form, looking in the direction of the voice.

Alpha Caleb walked out from between the trees

‘Stand down, Alpha Jackson has come for his mate.’ He said, and Abigail appeared behind him. Jackson raced towards her and the two embraced.

‘I was so scared, I thought they’d hurt you.’ He cried, peppering her face with kisses.

‘My father would never hate me.’ Abigail replied. ‘They just thought I was a member of their pack that needed rescuing from Silver Moon.’ She laughed, seeing the irony.

Caleb approached Jackson, holding out his hand to shake.

‘I am sorry for causing you to worry, I was not aware that she was your mate. Or, in fact, that she is my daughter.’ He looked awkwardly at Jackson. ‘Will someone get this man some shorts please.’

Jackson noticed that the wolves around him were looking at him differently than they had in his wolf form. A lot of them were sitting up and staring at him, the way a dog looks at their master when they eat in front of them. It was then that he realised that they were all she wolves, and the scraggly, older looking wolves with grey around their muzzles were the males.

Jackson was given an old pair of shorts to wear to preserve his dignity. They were hopelessly too small for him, but they fulfilled their intended purpose.

‘I don’t want to fight, Alpha Jackson.’ Said Alpha Caleb. ‘We have been peacefully coexisting with no issues since you became Alpha, and a peaceful existence is all we seek. Our pack is weak and dying, and when we sensed another member from outside the pack we had to find her. But she is already marked as your mate, and we respect the old ways. She is now a Silver Moon wolf and we will not cause any trouble.’ He said, his head hanging low.

Jackson noticed how Abigail rushed to her father’s side, wanting to comfort him but unsure of the correct etiquette to do so.

‘I will call off my warriors, I can see that my mate is unharmed, and you had every opportunity to kill me where I stood and didn’t.’ He said.

Abigail smiled at him.

‘I’d like to bring my father into town, I’d like him to see my mother.’ She said.

Jackson raised his eyebrows. His first reaction would be to refuse, but he simply couldn’t refuse his mate, especially when her intentions were so pure. He thought for a minute, before responding.

‘Them meeting in town may cause issues, however, I am not adverse to them meeting on neutral grounds. I know that you mean no harm, Alpha Caleb, but it will be a struggle to convince my people of that, especially the elder members of the pack.’ He said.

Alpha Caleb nodded thankfully.

Jackson used Abigail’s phone to call off his men and assure them that he and Abigail were both okay, before looking around the clearing.

He noticed a few, humble run down cabins, and the rest of the area was dotted with makeshift tents and shelters made from wood from the forest, and a few broken down caravans that looked like they had been destined for the scrapyard. It surprised him, as he had always been taught that the Blood Crescent pack was building an empire in the woods, but it seemed like they were living hand to mouth and did not have a lot to go by. He noted that the wolves were skinny, and that the few who had shifted to their human forms did not look very healthy. They probably stayed in the wolf forms not as an act of rebellion, but as a method of survival as they needed less food and were stronger and more likely to heal from their ailments in wolf form.

He heard the wail of a baby coming from a nearby cabin.

‘Is that… is that a baby?’ He asked, incredulously. It had been so long since a baby had been born in their pack, the sound was strange and foreign to him.

‘It is, yes. We no longer have many babies born in our pack, as the bloodline has become too mixed and many don’t survive.’ Said Caleb sorrowfully.

‘What do you mean?’ Asked Jackson.

‘We haven’t had a male born to our clan in about twenty years,’ explained Caleb. ‘So when our she wolves became too old to bare children, their daughters stepped up. But our pack has become too small and too related. We are weak and dying, and our women are mateless.’ A single tear rolled down his face.

‘I didn’t realise.’ Said Jackson. ‘Our people are the same, except we have had no girls. Our pack is growing old and the bloodline is ending.’ He stated, no longer concerned if Alpha Caleb knew their weakness, as he had already exposed the weakness of his own pack.

‘I think our packs are meant to come back together.’ He said. ‘We need to work on fixing the relationship between our packs. Both of our packs depend on it.’

Alpha Caleb smiled, with a look of genuine gratitude on his face. He was not aware that the Silver Moon Crescent was facing a similar dilemma to his pack, and the answer seemed so simple in theory.

Jackson grabbed Abigail’s phone again, to call Perry.

‘Perry,’ he said. ‘Gather supplies and bring them to my cabin. We need clothes and food, fresh water and medicines. We have been allowing the Blood Crescent Pack to die right outside our territory. They are not the enemy.’ He stated.