Hidden Passageways

**Silver** "Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life." - Omar Khayyam The sun was shining harshly above me like a police interrogation light to my eyes. I was still in my wolf form, that much was clear as I looked down at my "arms" and being met with huge white paws. I was starting to test the air to get my bearings when my eyes locked with his. He had longish ashy brown hair, inquisitive blue eyes, he was on the taller side of humans, and he was staring directly into my soul. The expression on his face wasn't of terror or fear though, and that both shocked and inticed me. I started to get up slowly, not taking my eyes off him. I stood at nearly 3'7 as a wolf, Larger than your average wolf. Our area doesn't have wolves, or at least they weren't common. The very fact that this boy wasn't terrified of me was unexpected. I started to look over the boy in his entirety. He was wearing a jean jacket with wool on the inside, a green and black flannel shirt, blue jeans, and hiking boots. We must've been up a mountain side in one of the thickest parts of the woods because it was pretty chilly where we were. The wind was picking up and I could clearly catch his scent, it was sandalwood and gunpowder. I saw that he had a bow and arrows strapped to his back, and a large hunting knife on his belt. I recognized his face but couldn't quite place it. I was taking a step forward to get a closer look when his hand reached for his waist. I growled at him. He steadied his hand, trying to move it away from the knife, and met my eyes once more. It unnerved me the look he was giving me. I couldn't tell what the look was, if it was a look of interest, amazement, or curiosity. I watched him as I backed away slowly, when there was enoughspace between us; I took off into the woods and heard his firm voice cry out "WAIT! DON'T GO...." His voiced died in the wind as I continued to put some distance between us. I stopped about a mile away, and turned back testing the air for his scent, nothing. Something inside me told me to go back, I ran halfway back till the wind blew his scent towards me and shifted. Climbing a nearby tree. I may have shifted in my sleep, but apparently even asleep I had enough concentration to keep my clothing. I was in sweatpants, a sports bra, and sneakers. If I actually ran into him, it would look like I was on a run. Which was actually perfect. I could hear the crunch of his boots against dead leaves and branches. He was talking to himself, "What the hell was that? A wolf? That was a huge ass wolf. I know their are local legends about werewolves or shifters. We don't have wolves around, at least no record of them... Why did I threaten it... uhg....." He was shaking his head and holding onto his bow tightly. I could smell the adrenaline pumping in his veins as he was trying to find some logical reason for me. He had to have been standing there for awhile when I was sleeping, he was there when I woke up. If he was going to hurt me, why not do it when I was asleep? I moved down the tree slightly to continue watching him, when I heard a howl nearby. It was Andrew's. I opened a link to him, "There is a human on the mountain, stop howling and head back."  "If there is a human, what the hell are you doing up here." I could hear the concern in his voice, but I knew that I didn't have the best answer. If I told him the truth, he'd worry. I haven't woken up somewhere else, especially in wolf form since before Andrew first talked to me. Andrew was the one who saved me. He wasn't looking for me, and I wasn't looking for him. Let alone what came with him, a pack. When I entered that online chatroom 8 years ago, I was looking for someone to explain my rage, my black-out, my waking up in strange places in the woods, and even someone to make me feel less like a freak. I made a general post: WanderingWolf150: Is there anyone else out there that thinks there is more to the world than living life. Like maybe there is magic? Or just anyone who likes to wake up underneath the starry skies? That was all it took. He messaged me and we started talking. After two weeks I told him about everything I was dealing with. Andrew, being a fifth generation Werewolf knew what it was right off the bat. He told me that it was uncommon for me to be showing signs so early, but he told me what I was. The next full moon, he and his family drove down to North Carolina and waited in the woods to help me go through the shift. I was a year older than him, he hadn't gone through the shift. It was the scariest thing I had ever gone through. One moment I was in excruciating pain, the next I was starring down at two massive white paws with hints of blue in the fur. I remember his parents smiling at me, they told me that I shifted faster than anyone they knew. I adjusted to my wolf form extremely fast, like it was the body I was meant to live in. Not the flesh encasing that bruised easily from the other kids in the orphanage. Andrew's father ran with me that night, while he and his mother went to a nearby hotel to sleep for the trip back. It broke my heart thinking they were leaving and I even considered running after them to New York. Andrew's dad couldn't mind link with me since I wasn't part of their pack or blood related so he kept having to shift in order to talk to me and teach me. When the moon began to set and sun began to rise, Mr.Hardin looked at me with sad eyes in his human form, "Silver, do you want to move to New York? You don't have to stay with us, we can find you another family closer so we can teach you. Is that something you'd like?" I hadn't shifted back yet, because I was scared of being naked. I wagged my tail and licked his hand. That was 6 years ago. Mr.Hardin and his family set me up with a widowed witch named Summer Mills. Ms.Mills ran a clothing line for overweight or people who become over stimulated with certain fabrics. She was a saint in a witchy body. Ms.Mills was 24 when she adopted me, and didn't care about the fact I was a Werewolf. She raised me regardless. When I turned 16 she built a two story cabin for me on her 52 acre property so I could have my own space. It had six bedrooms and three and a half baths. A full kitchen, living room, basement, attic, and wrap around porch with a detached garage. It was more than I could ask for. Ms.Mills understood more about me than she ever told me, but the one thing she did was that I was special. When I turned 16 I knew what she meant. I was removed from the pack, not by choice but because of my blood. I was a born Alpha. That all lead to my present perdicament. The Mages and Alpha council wanted me to find a mate, because having a woman run a pack alone was unheard of. So I had been stressing more and more about finding a mate, and haven't been able to sleep a lot. The stress is what caused me to sleep shift and run, I had allowed my wolf full control. That was dangerous. I was suppose to have complete control of my wolf, not reliquishing power to it just to escape for a minute. I took a breath and decided it was safer not to tell him, "I needed to go for a run. What are you doing out here?" "Patrol, or are we not doing that anymore?" He was trying to be funny. The minute he said it I knew exactly where we were. We were in the depths of the Apalachin, on the western side of the Susquehanna River. Which means that this boy could've been in danger if anyone else was on patrol, and I hadn't be here. "I'll finish it up, go back to the house and get ready for school." I barked, more as a command than intended. I knew he wasn't going to answer me, but I also knew he would listen. The boy was far enough a way that I could run up behind him and he may believe I was just running. I jumped down from the tree and started running, as I got closer I called out. "Hey!" Every part of me needed to know this boy, but I also needed to get him out of the woods quickly. He turned around, and I noticed his smile was slightly crooked. His eyes were incredible kind as I approached him. "Hi?" his voice was sheepish. "Do you happen to know where we are? I kind of got in my head and got lost, your the first person I've run into." I said shyly. It wasn't entirely a lie, he was the first person I've run into. He smiled at me, and said "Yea, I was just going down the mountain to my truck, care to join me?" He was welcoming, but I also knew he was looking over my body. I wasn't ugly in any means. I had whiteish /silver hair, Double D breast, an hourglass figure, and a decent sized butt as well. I was a healthy weight, and toned muscle. It wasn't too much that made me threatening, but with the strenght I got from my wolf I could still kill the boy infront of me if needed. All of us were trained to kill if needed before we got our wolves. I on the other hand trained both forms simultaniously after my first shift. I nodded my head and walked beside him. We were quite for a minute or two, until he broke the silence. "I'm Paul by the way." He introduced himself, and it clicked. We went to school together. He was in the AP classes, but we had Creative Wrting together. He was kind of a loner, but hung out with a pretty red head named Alex. She was the object of a few of our classmates desires, but she only had eyes for Paul. Paul was oblivious to this though. I always found that weird. He had wrote a beutiful poem about love last month and had shared it with the class. My friend Hayli thought it was about Alex, but something in my gut told me otherwise. I often found our eyes meeting in the hallways and in class. The fact that I didn't recognize him earlier started to bug me, but I think I was thrown off by his attire and weapon. "I know, I'm Silver. We have Creative Writing together and go to Fallon Woods High School." I said, smiling at him. He nodded his head, then looked at me and laughed. I stopped and stared at him, "What?" I asked. He looked at me, and shook his head. "I'm sorry, I wasn't laughing at you. I just thought that you didn't know I existed." I was taken back, He really thought I didn't know he existed. I knew that most of the school gave my packmates and I a wide birth and that we didn't talk to the humans much. I just didn't realize that kind of made us untouchables, or like the populars. That we would ignore the humans so much not to know who they were. I knew that most of the females in the pack talked to the humans frequently, especially the band geeks/drama geeks in the pack. Some of the boys played sports and talked to the humans then, but I guess we never talked to them out of school activities. "I'm sorry that you felt that way." I said half-heartedly. He shook his head, "Don't be, I'm kind of in my head a lot when it comes to school. So that's entirely my fault for assuming. Anyways... you go running this far?" "Not usually. Today I just needed to get away from school work and my house." I admitted slightly. I didn't meet his eyes this time. I couldn't find it in my heart to do so. I hated lying, and something inside of me didn't want to lie to Paul. He was human though, and rules were rules. We couldn't tell him about our world unless he was a goddess given mate to a wolf, or he was being turned. None of which were happening in this moment. So we kept walking, I knew we were close to the road though. I could hear the cars tires on pavement, bells ringing in the distance from churches, and music playing from nearby cabins. I could see a red truck on the edge of the forest, slightly off the road. Paul started to shrug off his bow and arrows. He also took the knife off his belt when he reached the truck. He watched me as I stood at the edge of the forest watching him. "You ok?" He asked, with a look of concern reaching all the way to the twinkle of his eye. "Yea, it's a beautiful day." I smiled at him and started to run up towards the packhouse. Which should be about five miles from where I was currently standing. I knew he was watching me, because I didn't hear his truck door shut till I was out of eye sight. The engine fired up shortly after that. I kept running and tried to understand what just happened, both as a wolf and as a human. Paul Russell, what was I going to do with you?