Status: New Story

A Blessing or a Curse

Chapter Two

Chapter Two
“Tante Lily s’il vous plaît-Aunt Lily please,” I pleaded with my aunt. “I really don’t feel good.”
“Marilyn no discussion about this! Pas question!” she ripped the sheets off my body. “You are no sick and you are going to school.”
It had been two weeks since my sweet sixteen and my life went back to normal and I wasn’t really interested in it anymore.
I huffed as she walked out of my bedroom and rolled my eyes. “Ting, what is it with French people? They think if you miss one day of l’école you’re missing out an entire education!”
Ting just hid his face with his paws and whimpered. I giggled and picked him up in my arms. “I’m not mad at you Ting, just annoyed with Tante Lily that’s all.” I kissed the top of his head.
I looked at the time, 6: 15 a.m. I groaned. It should be considered inhumane and unethical to force people to get up at this time. I wasn’t really sick but I just got my period the night before and I had killer cramps and I didn’t feel like dealing with Monday.
I finally dragged myself out of bed and took a 10 minute shower and got dressed in my uniform, it was a white, button-down blouse, a red cardigan with the black initials ‘SHA’ which stood for Sacred Heart Academy, and a black skirt that stopped around mid-thigh and wool, red socks which stopped right under my skirt. I put my hair in a messy high pony-tail letting a few curly strands fall in front of my face and some mascara, lip-gloss and eyeliner.
When I was done I made my way downstairs and grabbed a green apple and kissed my cousin, aunt and uncle goodbye as I made my way to the bus.

“It’s the last day of February! March is on its way.” Ashelle was too excited for her own good. She leaned against the locker next to mine babbling about the coming of spring as if it were tomorrow. “Thank God!”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Just because it’s going to be March doesn’t mean it’s going to be 80 degrees outside and we’ll be partying at the beach.” I reminded her. “It’s 22 degrees today and tomorrow, which is March 1st it’ll probably be 30 degrees, IF we’re lucky.” I emphasized the if.
“Oh shut Loli, stop raining on my parade and pray spring comes soon. I freaking hate winter. Only good thing about it is Christmas, Valentine’s Day aka your birthday and snow days which get us out of school.” She said. “Other than it’s basically useless.”

“You’re a hundred percent Russian Ashelle.” I slammed my locker in frustration at my failed attempt to find my Chemistry workbook.
“So?”
“Isn’t winter and the cold in your blood?” I asked.
“My mama’s from St. Petersburg and my Papa’s from Moscow, its like 80 degrees there in the summer!” she said. “We’re not from like freaking Siberia where on a hot July day it’d be like 60 degrees.”
I just shrugged, “Well we’re in New York and here it’ll be a second before we get some sunshine. It’s still winter baby.”
She groaned and we headed to our homerooms.

“Loli, my wolf has been itching to get out, it’s driving me crazy. I haven’t gone for a run in two weeks, after school wanna head to the fields and let loose?” she offered. I nodded. It was winter so wolves didn’t come out as much because of the harsh weather but it had to come out eventually.

Ashelle and I walked in silence through the white forest of Kogan County, New York. The six inches of snow from two nights earlier drowned the ground and covered the naked, bare trees.
“So cold.” Ashelle mumbled pulling her red wool scarf to cover her thin, pink lips and her adorable button nose that was now pink alongside her cheeks. “Freaking hate winter.”
“It’s not that bad.” I sniffled. “Places like Minnesota and Pennsylvania get it way worse.”
She just shrugged. “I wish I lived in Malibu or Honolulu. Beach every day, summer all year round; sounds wonderful” she sighed.

“You’d get sun burn all the time. And salt-water and chlorine or terrible for your hair.” I said.
“Oh shut up Lolita. I’d wear sun screen and I wouldn’t go swimming all the time!” she giggled.
I smiled and rolled my eyes. We entered the pasture that was covered in snow. “We’re here.”
We quickly stripped down into nothing and neatly folded out clothes and placed them behind the same tree we always did.
Ashelle and I stood butt-naked in six inches of snow and shivered for dear life. “Okay, one..”
“Two”
“Three!”
We both ran as fast as we could and jumped eight feet in the air and burst into our wolves and landed gracefully on four paws.
Ashelle was a sandy-colored wolf, she was a golden white blonde color with blue eyes and she was slightly smaller than me. I was a white wolf with one black paw, my hind left paw. The tip of my tail was grey though. I had one violet eye and blue eye, just like in my human form.
‘I’ll race ya to the creek.’ Ash said using our pack mind link.
Without a second word I was running full speed east towards the creek she was talking about. ‘Already on it’
‘Cheater!’
‘Come on Ash. You’re one of the packs fastest wolves and you can’t catch up to lil ole’ me?’
I felt her right on my tail and heard her light footsteps behind me. Ash was a tiny wolf. Most fully grown males stood at eight feet tall and girls around seven or six. Ash and I weren’t fully grown but I was over six feet tall in wolf form but Ashelle was five feet almost six. 10 year old shifters were bigger than her! She got picked on for being the smallest but being so small made her light which made her quick as lightning.
‘Kiss my tail bitch.’ She mocked me as she got ahead of me and wagged her little tail in my face. I nipped at it playfully pulling her back and she growled.
‘Shut up you under-sized excuse of a wolf.’ I shot back.
She looked back and bore her teeth at me but still kept running. ‘Well at least I’m not an obese one.’
It wasn’t true, but she was so skinny and small that an average wolf like me did look fat next to her. ‘Bitch bye’
We continued this fake argument in our head until she beat me to the creek and I caught up to her. We broke through the ice of the creek and sipped some water as we caught our breaths. It felt good for my wolf to be out once again.
My head sprung up when an unfamiliar scent hit my nose. The scent of musk, mud, and bark caught my attention. ‘Ash, you smell that?’
She looked up at me with a confused face. ‘Smell what?’ she pointed her black nose toward the air and sniffed out the air for a moment when realization struck her eyes.
‘Time to investigate’ I let my nose lead my way to where the scent got stronger.
‘No! Lolita whatever it is it might be dangerous. Let’s just go to the pack house and warn the alpha of a strange smell.’ Ash suggested.
‘Oh please, I don’t want to bother Alpha Korlav about something that might not be a big deal. Let’s just go check it out and if it’s a threat we’ll warn him, if not we’ll scare off whatever it is.’ I said sniffing the ground following the scent.
‘It might be intruders. Hunters or rogues or vampires and we both know their dangerous so let’s just get out of here, okay?’ Ash was always a scaredy-cat.
‘We won’t get to close, so relax. We’re werewolves. How much harm can come to us?’
She just sighed and followed close behind as we cautiously followed the scent. It made my stomach churn as we got closer the scent got more and more foul. We were within four yards of the source of the smell when I realized it was that of humans. But these humans were different the smelled entirely different, but they were human nonetheless. I could smell the blood pumping through their veins.

“Claude I think I saw some paw prints down south!” a voice called out. “Big ones! These have to be full grown males.”
‘Did you hear that?!’ Ash called out in my head.
‘Shhhh! I’m trying to hear!’
“Oh yeah? Was there any fur left behind?” a deep, raspy voice asked. I assumed this was Claude.
“Nah, not much. Just a few I found. I put them in the case already. I think we’re on a pack’s territory.” The voice said.
“Me too, I’ve found a lot paw prints myself and I smelled out the area. We’re pretty deep in. Let’s head back up north, more toward the border and camp out. We’ll wait ‘till the snow melts and get some doggies and we’re out.”Claude instructed.
Hunters. I knew it was something dangerous. Hunters were groups of humans who knew about the existence of werewolves and sometimes even vampires who hunted us for numerous reasons; 1. They wanted to wipe out the werewolf species, 2. They were sort of like assassins who wanted to kill certain wolves for different reasons, 3. Our fur, which they’d sell for money to humans for coats, boats and what not and 4. As a hobby. Either way they were dangerous and ruthless and we couldn’t mess with them.
‘Let’s get outta here.’ I said.
‘My pleasure’ Ash agreed without hesitation.

Just as we were about to turn on our heels I heard a foot step and snow crunching behind us. I let my canines extend as a threat and a low growl erupt from my mouth as Ash and I slowly turned to see three large, muscular men with guns, a net, a water bottle filled with some black liquid, a needle with this liquid, cross bows and a knife. “Here puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy.” One of them taunted.
Ash let out an intimidating growl. ‘Fuck, I told you we should’ve just gone to the Alpha!’ she cried.
‘We’re on our way.’ I assured her.

I straightened my body and threw my hand backwards and leaned on my hind legs and I let out a long, loud howl in to the air, it was the howl warning there were intruders on our territory.
I felt a sharp enter my arm and I let out another howl of pain and shock. I looked down to see thick, red liquid running down my arm staining my white fur. Ash snarled at them pounced at the one with the cross bow who had shot me. I used my mouth and pulled out the bow that was in my arm and spit it to the side and circled the two other hunters. One of them angled his gun at me and I lunged forth and caught his hand in my mouth. He dropped the gun and screeched out in pain. I felt the other creep up behind me and once he was close enough with one fierce wag of my tail I sent him flying into a tree.
The one who I have a tight grip on balled his large hand to a fist and it collided with my snout causing a pain to shoot through my head making me fall back stunned. How could a human have such a powerful impact?

Once I let go he gripped me by the throat and squeezed hard cutting off my oxygen supply. I choked and attempted to bite him but the position he put himself in didn’t allow me too. He squeezed tighter causing me to whimper helplessly. I did my best to thrash and throw him off but he was incredibly strong. Suddenly he let go of me and I collapsed and gasped for air.
Ash had him by the shoulder and was waving him around like a rag doll and she threw him and he hit a tree hard. ‘Loli, let’s please just get out of here!’
I just nodded and we turned to find a blind spot so we could escape until four more hunters appeared with weapons. I felt my stomach drop to my knees and I whimpered sadly. I was petrified.
I heard a booming, loud ‘pop’ and shrill howl come from next to me as Ash crumbled to the ground in pain. She had just been shot. I stopped for a moment and stared at her wide-eyed. ‘Ashelle, where did they shoot you?”
‘My arm, my right arm. Oh my God this hurts Loli.’
‘I’ll fight ‘em off, don’t worry.’
I turned up to lunge at them but another popping noise burst through the air and a hot, stinging sensation hit my shoulder. My entire body went numb as I collapsed to the ground. I looked at Ash who had shifted into her human form as her body laid naked sprawled across the snow and she was unconscious.
I felt my body slowly get smaller and colder as I shifted back into my human form as well against my own will. Even thought I was stark nude on snow on a February day heat over took my body and burned my insides like no other.
I felt my vision go blurry and my voices slowly drained out from my ears. I struggled to stay awake but my body was giving out.
I heard a low growl from another wolf and I looked up to see a blur of blackness until I slipped into darkness.