To Live Among Wolves (Legends of Arcadia Book 1)

The River

Magic happened when humans and nature collided.

The little girl, no more than four years of age, squealed while the wind whipped through her dark curls. A storm bit at the edges of my friends, the Great Mountains. The black clouds approached, knocking tree branches down in their wake.

On my north bank, familiar friends approached, the ancient language drifting to me along with the scent of wet dog.

“Ellie, it’s alright. There are only five of them. And one is small.”An alpha wolf sniffed the air, his ears alert.

“How can you tell?”Ellie tucked her tail low between her back paws.

The couple’s eyes focused on my southern bank, where the child squatted and played in the shallows of my Spirit.

“Iain, the children.” Fear lingered in the mother’s quickening heartbeat.

Under the ground cover, three pups studied their parents.

“Do you think this is a lesson in stealth?” The brown-eyed and golden-furred Caroline wondered.

“No way.” Her steel-eyed and dark-furred brother, Nash, shook his shoulders and head. “Maybe the humans are lost and need our help.”

“I don’t think it’s either of those things.” The green-eyed and gray-furred Silas snuck out from the bushes, away from his family and closer to my north bank.

Wolves didn’t often visit my waters after the red wolf population dwindled so many years ago, but the virlukos had their ways.

Silas treaded away from his siblings, coming level with the human girl across the river. She collected a few stones, moving to place them with her stone circle in the damp grass of my south bank.

“She isn’t lost.” Silas mused to himself.

He stepped closer.

Still oblivious, the human child perked up, scanning my darkening waters.

“She isn’t scared, nor is she threatening.” He inched closer, snapping a twig under his small paw. In a moment, his mother circled him.

“Silas, what were you thinking? You could’ve been spotted!” She nipped at his neck scruff.

“But she didn’t see me!”Silas toppled away over his front feet. “See?”

They turned towards the human.

“What is she doing?” His mother’s ears perked up. “Where is her family?”

“They’re farther up the river.” Iain nudged Silas with his nose. “Go find your siblings and bring them over here.”

“Yes, Father.” Silas trotted away, disappearing under the ground cover.

“Iain.” Ellie’s eyes didn’t leave the girl. “There’s something about this child.”

“For the last time, she’s harmless.”

“It’s not that.”

Ellie’s Spirit shifted. Something moved.

“What is it, El?” Iain rubbed his shoulder against hers, perking his ears at the sound of thunder in the distance.

Ellie lowered her head. “I’m not sure. There’s something… Something I can’t quite place about her. It’s like she’s–”

Then, the child balanced on a stone, talking to herself about a fossil she believed had been buried on my northern bank. Preparing to cross, she leapt for a moss-blanketed rock near the middle of my waters.

With a terrified scream, she slipped and sank under my current like a stone.

Her panic coursed through her veins like the water between my banks, her fear magnetic and palpable. She attempted to scream but only managed to take some of me with her. The child tumbled deeper into my current. She submerged into a kind of dark that only the stars and I know.

Farther down my north bank, Iain sprang into the water. He paddled upstream, waiting to catch the girl and carry her to safety once the current brought her his way. Grabbing the back of her shirt like the scruff on his pups’ necks, Iain dragged her onto my silty northern shore.

Thunder rumbled, causing the leaves on the surrounding trees to shiver while the young girl coughed up my water from her lungs. She wiped tears away from her mud-colored eyes as Iain watched from a respectable distance.

Ellie observed from the tree line. Something settled over her Spirit that hadn’t been there when the family first arrived. Something…

Iain’s ears pinned back as he glanced up at the darkening skies. His reddish fur melted to gray around the muzzle, and my water clung to his thick fur in droplets. His steel eyes turned towards the young girl again.

Ellie howled low, causing the child to startle. The three pups responded in shrill, answering howls.

The girl tucked her sopping wet hair behind her ear and gazed up at the wolf. With tentative movements, she reached her hand up to Iain, who pressed his damp muzzle to her small palm.

She giggled, and the sound harmonized with my gurgling current, a melody like none other. Nature and humanity together.

Iain stepped back, shaking the water out of his coat. His fur slipped away like the waterfalls tumbling farther north, revealing human skin beneath. The shape of a middle-aged man appeared, the skin by his eyes crinkled from consistent mirth. His hands were large, and his hair reached his shoulders. Wet curls framed his face, a face I’d seen many times.

Iain knelt next to the child, and I marveled at the contrast between his bronze bare skin and her own paleness decorated with freckles.

“Your family will be looking for you, child.” Soft around the edges, Iain’s voice ran across my waters, rippling like stone against a placid pond.

“My name is Eden.” The human child straightened.

A deep laugh bubbled out of Iain’s chest. “Wonderful to meet you, Eden.” He smiled. “My name is Iain.”

“Iain,” she repeated, her curious voice sounding out the name.

He tilted his head to the side. “Are you not afraid, child?”

As Eden’s lips parted, words on the tip of her tongue, the three pups tumbled out of the ground cover onto my silty northern shore. Silas rolled upside down, phased, and landed flat on his back. Nash pinned his shoulders down and shifted. They both had a mess of dark hair.

Caroline regarded Eden, shaking her coat to reveal long, golden hair like the sun hiding behind the storm clouds overhead.

Eden observed them with a frowning face, no doubt noting the biggest difference between her and them. They were naked. She was clothed.

“Who is she?” Caroline asked her father.

“A friend.” Iain smiled. “Children, meet Eden.”

Silas and Nash stood, dusting themselves off and began bickering again.

Caroline stepped forward and introduced herself. She gave Eden a tight smile.

“Boys.” Iain raised an eyebrow.

“I’m Nash.” He flashed a grin at the young girl.

Rolling his eyes, Silas elbowed his brother. “I’m Silas. It’s nice to meet you, Eden.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too.” Eden’s eyebrows furrowed, thunder rumbling closer now.

Ellie called slightly from the cover of the forest, pulling her family’s attention to her. I could sense her unease lingering.

Iain turned back to Eden, smiling once again. “While I would love to stay awhile, we have important business elsewhere. Can you find your family alright, Eden?”

Caroline grabbed her father’s arm. “There are more of them?”

Iain tucked a piece of her blonde hair behind her ear, and she relaxed at his gentle touch.

Eden nodded. “I can walk back up the river until I find them.”

“Good.” Iain beamed. “Run along now, Eden.” He turned to his sons. “Silas, go follow and make sure she makes it back up the river.”

Silas’s eyebrows raised. “But–”

“It is our duty to take care of the lost and help those in need.” Iain straightened, eyebrows knitting together.

Silas bowed his head with a sigh. “Yes, Father.”

I would’ve done my best to cradle the child and keep her safe. But I was only a river, nothing more.

With a stretch, Silas’s fur grew back and his siblings followed suit, all three different shades: Nash, a grayish black; Silas, an ashy gray; and Caroline, a sandy beige.

Nash and Caroline bounded up the bank and into the darkening forest.

Iain nudged Eden forward with his hand.

“Will I see you again?” Eden turned, squinting up at him.

He smiled. “Veime, myt, au dumahn, Eden. Only time will tell. Now, run along.”

The human girl stepped forward before turning around again. “And he’ll stay with me?” She pointed at Silas’s gray form.

“He’ll be with you the whole way back. I promise.” Iain’s eyes sparkled. He stretched his body along my sand, red fur replacing tanned skin.

Satisfied with Iain’s word, Eden made her way back up my shores. Nash and Caroline tucked under their mother, sticking their muzzles between her teeth with affection.

Meanwhile, Iain stood watch at the edge of my north bank, gazing at the oncoming storm while Eden returned to her family. Silas shrunk in her wake, a silent shadow only a few feet away but unseen by the girl.

“This girl is much different than the other humans I’ve seen.” Silas mused, ducking under a fallen tree. His ears perked up when he came within reach of her family’s heartbeats. They drummed along with the sound of my current, but they were unbothered by Eden’s absence.

“Has no one noticed that she’s been gone?” Silas snapped his head towards the girl.

Eden stopped, craning her neck to gaze into the trees. She seemed disappointed that she couldn’t see Silas protecting her from the shadows of the forest.

Back with the rest of the family, Ellie nudged Iain with her nose. “I think we’ll see Eden again.”

“What makes you say that?” Iain tilted his head to the side, gazing at his mate.

“There’s something lingering in the wind.”

And she was right.

The electricity pulsing through my waters.

A dark magic crackled somewhere up in the hollers of the Great Mountain, in the folds of Shaconage.

The winds changed as a lightning bolt cracked the sky in half. Caroline and Nash scrambled for safety under their parents when Silas came bounding back.

“She’s back with her family.” Silas panted. “They hadn’t noticed she’d gone.”

“You did well, son.” Ellie licked behind his ears, sticking his fur at an odd angle.

“Will she be okay?”Silas pawed at his face.

Ellie straightened, staring off in the direction that Eden had gone. “I think she’ll be more than okay, Silas.”

As the thunder rolled, her howl fell across my banks and downstream, a call to the future. She wondered and waited for it to reveal itself in its ambling, flowing way, unsure if it would remain hidden under the depths of my currents, obscured like time itself.

Ever-changing.

Transient.

Ephemeral.