Wolf In The Fold
The origin and history of our folk has been told to our cubs for generations, going back over a thousand years. But never before has it been written down and recorded like this, as I am attempting to do. It is an enormous task that I take on - the documentation of the entire secret history of our people. But I am determined to at least try, so that our future generations will be able to appreciate all that we have done and have been since our creation.
I will begin at…well, the beginning. Long ago, when the Norse Gods were still in power in the cold Northlands, Odin All-Father made the mistake of throwing over his lover to take another to his bed. The Goddess that he summarily dismissed from both his bed and his attentions was not happy with him. In fact, it would be safe to say that she was furious at being dumped by the most powerful God of them all. She decided to get even with Odin for having a wandering penis, despite the fact that he was already cheating on his wife with HER. Nobody ever said that women were creatures of sense, especially where their hearts are concerned. And a woman scorned…can be an awful thing, indeed.
The scorned Goddess decided to get back at Odin by lying with one of his enemies, the Sky Wolf Fenrir. With this in mind, she transformed herself into a beautiful she-wolf and went to the place where Odin had chained Fenrir to await the coming of Ragnarok. She flirted her tail at him, and of course a creature that has been chained up for a very long time wasn’t going to say no to such an offering. Hell, what male creature would say no anyway, even one that hadn’t been chained up for who knows how long? Fenrir took the bait, and promptly mounted the she-wolf. A good time was had by all, and perhaps that might have been then end of it - except for the fact that the Goddess discovered that Fenrir had impregnated her wolf form!
So now she had a real problem. She had to stay in wolf form until her cubs were born, and she had to hide her pregnancy from Odin’s All-Seeing Eye lest he decide to kill the offspring of such a mating. She tried her best, but in the long run Odin discovered her secret. The Goddess fled south to escape his wrath and protect her unborn children. She eventually arrived in a warm, beautiful land where the people grew grapes on the hillsides and there was an abundance of food for her and her children alike. And best of all - this was not the realm of Odin or the Norse Gods. The Gods here were nature spirits, vague, undefined beings who lived in orchards and the fields. They were no threat to the Goddess invading their territory.
The Goddess turned she-wolf eventually gave birth to her children conceived with Fenrir. But much to her surprise, the twin boys born out of her celestial womb looked like men, not wolves. But looking closely at them, she realized that they possessed the wolf’s spirit, if not his form.
Still, they were her children. She suckled them from her wolf’s teats, and raised them up to be two fine young men. As they grew, they both discovered that they could take on their father’s form at will. But they hid this ability from the humans who lived in that warm land, not wishing to frighten them with their alien wolf nature. Their gifts soon attracted the attention of the human tribes, and more and more looked to them for leadership. The Goddess who was their mother eventually left them to return to the cold Northlands and her real home, leaving her children behind to make lives for themselves away from Odin’s Eye and his wrath.
The boys took human names for themselves. They called themselves Romulus and Remus, and over time had gathered enough humans around them that they decided to found a city. They called it Rome, and it grew and thrived under their leadership. At the same time, the twins took unto themselves human wives, and began to have children with them. They passed on their bloodlines to their offspring, and many were born with the ability to call upon a wolf nature. Out of this founding, the clans were born.
Those with the bloodlines of the wolf began to spread over the face of the Earth. While there have never been many of us, there are clans in almost every country on the face of the planet. There are some who say that this was what was destined all along, that we who are of the wolf will join our progenitor Fenrir at Ragnarok and destroy the Gods fighting at his side. Who knows? Perhaps that is true. But whatever the case, those born of the bloodlines of Romulus and Remus continue to thrive to this day.
-John Raleigh, Historian of the Cold Spring Clan, 1972.
*****
“I have a headache,” a low voice growled in disgust.
A laugh. “I hate to tell you that I told you so, Kane…” another voice said teasingly.
“Hah.” the man sitting behind the desk leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his forehead. “This shouldn’t be so hard,” he lamented. “All I wanted was a peaceful gathering of the clans. Is that too much to ask?”
“Yes,” the woman sitting across from him replied decisively. “Just because we all share the same bloodlines doesn’t mean anything, Kane. There’s always going to be in-fighting, spats, quarrels, pettiness, dominance displays, you name it. You can barely get all of the members of OUR clan together in one room - what ever made you think that you could gather all of the clans together and not run into problems?”
He sighed, staring at his ceiling as he rolled his neck to unkink the muscles in it. “I know that you’re right, Angie. But this HAS to happen. We need new blood, and so do the other clans. We can’t keep inbreeding, or our cubs are going to start being born with two heads.”
She chuckled. “It’s not quite that bad, but I see your point. If we keep breeding with regular humans, our blood gets so diluted that the children are born without a wolf nature. But if we just keep having cubs within the clan, there is always a danger of inbreeding. Having the youngsters of the various clans look for mates outside of our clan would be a good solution - IF you can pull it off, that is.”
“That’s a big if,” he remarked glumly, lowering his head to meet her eyes. “I swear, I’m going to break out the cattle prods if we have any more problems. And the sad thing is, the Gathering doesn’t start until next week! How bad is it going to be by then?”
“Bad,” she replied sympathetically. ‘But if anyone can handle it it’s you, Kane.”
He snorted. “If you say so,” he remarked dryly. “I’m not sure that I have that much confidence in myself.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. You’re only the Alpha of the largest Wolf Clan in North America. How could you be expected to handle this situation?”
He flipped her the bird, which made her laugh. But she sobered after a moment, and gave him a serious look. “What about you, Kane? Why don’t you have a mate yet?”
“Oh, no,” he replied grimly, shaking his head. “Not you too! It’s bad enough that my grandmother only visits me so that she can ride my ass about not having a mate. And that half my clan drops ‘hints’ about eligible people in their family. I couldn’t stand it if you started in on me, too.”
She shrugged. “You’re our Alpha. We expect you to find a mate. Nobody else in the clan has to have one, but YOU do. It brings more stability to our clan, you know that. So you really have no choice, sad to say.”
Kane tapped his finger impatiently on his desktop. “I know that I have to find a mate eventually,” he growled. “I’ve accepted that fact. But what I don’t like is being pushed by everybody all the time. I want to find a mate at my own pace, and to look for the perfect person for me. Not just randomly point at some guy and go: ‘Hey, you’re my mate,’ even before I know whether he’d be a good fit for either me or the clan. I’m being cautious here, Angie, because we mate for life. I don’t want to end up with someone who’s going to drive me crazy for the rest of my days.”
“I can understand that,” she said. “And I agree. You SHOULD be cautious in picking your mate. Not only because you’ll be stuck with him for the rest of your life, but because the clan will be too if he turns out to be bad for you. I can’t forget,” she added with a grimace, “Paul’s mate.”
He grunted. Paul Sutherland had been the clan’s last Alpha before him, and his mate Gina had been a rank bitch. And not just because she’d been a female wolf, either. She’d deliberately sowed discontent in the clan and had set people against each other, leading to a fractured clan that had been falling apart when Kane had defeated Paul in a dominance battle. He’d had to build it back up again since then, and he wasn’t going to undo all of his hard work by picking a mate who was anything like Gina. Besides…he had to admit to being a bit of a romantic. He wanted to find that one person who made his heart beat faster and his mind cry out: ‘Ah, ha! He’s the one!’ in total, rapturous glee. Maybe it was asking too much, but what was the harm in trying to find someone like that? The least he could do was try.
All he said aloud was: “Did you get all the hotel reservations taken care of?”
“Yep,” she replied. “And I got a discount for booking in bulk. Plus a bunch of perks. The hotels were so happy to see me that they were practically crying. In this economy, having your hotel be booked full for almost a week is a Godsend.”
“Well, that’s one more thing out of the way. Only a million more details to go.” he straightened in his chair. “But I’m going to make this work, even if it kills me.”
“And it just might,” Angie said compassionately.
“Don’t I know it,” he replied dryly.
******
“Seriously, Father, I don’t see why we have to go to this Gathering.”
The older man with graying wings in his dark hair looked up with a frown. “I’ve told you before, Benedict, that I agree with Kane Haley about injecting new blood into our clan. To do that, we need for our youth to mingle and try to find mates from other clans. This Gathering will provide that opportunity.”
His son made an impatient gesture with one hand. “All right. I agree as well. I suppose my real question would be: Why do I have to go? It’s not as though I’ll be looking for a mate to bear me cubs and carry on our bloodline. You know I don’t like women. Why not just send Theodore? I have to be back at uni in less than a week. I don’t want to miss a fortnight’s classes if I don’t have to.”
“But you do have to,” his father replied tartly. “Because I need you to keep an eye on Theodore. You know how reckless and wild he can be. I don’t want him doing something that draws needless and dangerous attention to us. Kane wouldn’t like that, and I fear what he would do to Theodore. Please, Benedict. I’d go myself, but…”
He sighed. He knew the silent finish to that statement. His mother was in hospital, and wasn’t doing well at all. As she was a normal human and didn’t have the wolf’s nature, she didn’t possess the swift healing capabilities that one of the clan had. It would be touch and go whether she survived after her heart surgery, and he could understand his father’s desperate wish to stay by her side. “Very well, Father,” he said aloud. “I’ll go and keep an eye on Theodore.”
His father looked relieved. “Thank you, Benedict. Just remember, both of you represent our family in the clan. Please make sure if you can that Theodore doesn’t end up embarrassing or shaming us.”
“I’ll do the best that I can, Father,” he replied.
“That’s all that I can ask, Benedict,” his father said. “Especially since I know what you’ll be up against.”
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The origin and history of our folk has been told to our cubs for generations, going back over a thousand years. But never before has it been written down and recorded like this, as I am attempting to do. It is an enormous task that I take on - the documentation of the entire secret history of our people. But I am determined to at least try, so that our future generations will be able to appreciate all that we have done and have been since our creation.
I will begin at…well, the beginning. Long ago, when the Norse Gods were still in power in the cold Northlands, Odin All-Father made the mistake of throwing over his lover to take another to his bed. The Goddess that he summarily dismissed from both his bed and his attentions was not happy with him. In fact, it would be safe to say that she was furious at being dumped by the most powerful God of them all. She decided to get even with Odin for having a wandering penis, despite the fact that he was already cheating on his wife with HER. Nobody ever said that women were creatures of sense, especially where their hearts are concerned. And a woman scorned…can be an awful thing, indeed.
The scorned Goddess decided to get back at Odin by lying with one of his enemies, the Sky Wolf Fenrir. With this in mind, she transformed herself into a beautiful she-wolf and went to the place where Odin had chained Fenrir to await the coming of Ragnarok. She flirted her tail at him, and of course a creature that has been chained up for a very long time wasn’t going to say no to such an offering. Hell, what male creature would say no anyway, even one that hadn’t been chained up for who knows how long? Fenrir took the bait, and promptly mounted the she-wolf. A good time was had by all, and perhaps that might have been then end of it - except for the fact that the Goddess discovered that Fenrir had impregnated her wolf form!
So now she had a real problem. She had to stay in wolf form until her cubs were born, and she had to hide her pregnancy from Odin’s All-Seeing Eye lest he decide to kill the offspring of such a mating. She tried her best, but in the long run Odin discovered her secret. The Goddess fled south to escape his wrath and protect her unborn children. She eventually arrived in a warm, beautiful land where the people grew grapes on the hillsides and there was an abundance of food for her and her children alike. And best of all - this was not the realm of Odin or the Norse Gods. The Gods here were nature spirits, vague, undefined beings who lived in orchards and the fields. They were no threat to the Goddess invading their territory.
The Goddess turned she-wolf eventually gave birth to her children conceived with Fenrir. But much to her surprise, the twin boys born out of her celestial womb looked like men, not wolves. But looking closely at them, she realized that they possessed the wolf’s spirit, if not his form.
Still, they were her children. She suckled them from her wolf’s teats, and raised them up to be two fine young men. As they grew, they both discovered that they could take on their father’s form at will. But they hid this ability from the humans who lived in that warm land, not wishing to frighten them with their alien wolf nature. Their gifts soon attracted the attention of the human tribes, and more and more looked to them for leadership. The Goddess who was their mother eventually left them to return to the cold Northlands and her real home, leaving her children behind to make lives for themselves away from Odin’s Eye and his wrath.
The boys took human names for themselves. They called themselves Romulus and Remus, and over time had gathered enough humans around them that they decided to found a city. They called it Rome, and it grew and thrived under their leadership. At the same time, the twins took unto themselves human wives, and began to have children with them. They passed on their bloodlines to their offspring, and many were born with the ability to call upon a wolf nature. Out of this founding, the clans were born.
Those with the bloodlines of the wolf began to spread over the face of the Earth. While there have never been many of us, there are clans in almost every country on the face of the planet. There are some who say that this was what was destined all along, that we who are of the wolf will join our progenitor Fenrir at Ragnarok and destroy the Gods fighting at his side. Who knows? Perhaps that is true. But whatever the case, those born of the bloodlines of Romulus and Remus continue to thrive to this day.
-John Raleigh, Historian of the Cold Spring Clan, 1972.
*****
“I have a headache,” a low voice growled in disgust.
A laugh. “I hate to tell you that I told you so, Kane…” another voice said teasingly.
“Hah.” the man sitting behind the desk leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his forehead. “This shouldn’t be so hard,” he lamented. “All I wanted was a peaceful gathering of the clans. Is that too much to ask?”
“Yes,” the woman sitting across from him replied decisively. “Just because we all share the same bloodlines doesn’t mean anything, Kane. There’s always going to be in-fighting, spats, quarrels, pettiness, dominance displays, you name it. You can barely get all of the members of OUR clan together in one room - what ever made you think that you could gather all of the clans together and not run into problems?”
He sighed, staring at his ceiling as he rolled his neck to unkink the muscles in it. “I know that you’re right, Angie. But this HAS to happen. We need new blood, and so do the other clans. We can’t keep inbreeding, or our cubs are going to start being born with two heads.”
She chuckled. “It’s not quite that bad, but I see your point. If we keep breeding with regular humans, our blood gets so diluted that the children are born without a wolf nature. But if we just keep having cubs within the clan, there is always a danger of inbreeding. Having the youngsters of the various clans look for mates outside of our clan would be a good solution - IF you can pull it off, that is.”
“That’s a big if,” he remarked glumly, lowering his head to meet her eyes. “I swear, I’m going to break out the cattle prods if we have any more problems. And the sad thing is, the Gathering doesn’t start until next week! How bad is it going to be by then?”
“Bad,” she replied sympathetically. ‘But if anyone can handle it it’s you, Kane.”
He snorted. “If you say so,” he remarked dryly. “I’m not sure that I have that much confidence in myself.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. You’re only the Alpha of the largest Wolf Clan in North America. How could you be expected to handle this situation?”
He flipped her the bird, which made her laugh. But she sobered after a moment, and gave him a serious look. “What about you, Kane? Why don’t you have a mate yet?”
“Oh, no,” he replied grimly, shaking his head. “Not you too! It’s bad enough that my grandmother only visits me so that she can ride my ass about not having a mate. And that half my clan drops ‘hints’ about eligible people in their family. I couldn’t stand it if you started in on me, too.”
She shrugged. “You’re our Alpha. We expect you to find a mate. Nobody else in the clan has to have one, but YOU do. It brings more stability to our clan, you know that. So you really have no choice, sad to say.”
Kane tapped his finger impatiently on his desktop. “I know that I have to find a mate eventually,” he growled. “I’ve accepted that fact. But what I don’t like is being pushed by everybody all the time. I want to find a mate at my own pace, and to look for the perfect person for me. Not just randomly point at some guy and go: ‘Hey, you’re my mate,’ even before I know whether he’d be a good fit for either me or the clan. I’m being cautious here, Angie, because we mate for life. I don’t want to end up with someone who’s going to drive me crazy for the rest of my days.”
“I can understand that,” she said. “And I agree. You SHOULD be cautious in picking your mate. Not only because you’ll be stuck with him for the rest of your life, but because the clan will be too if he turns out to be bad for you. I can’t forget,” she added with a grimace, “Paul’s mate.”
He grunted. Paul Sutherland had been the clan’s last Alpha before him, and his mate Gina had been a rank bitch. And not just because she’d been a female wolf, either. She’d deliberately sowed discontent in the clan and had set people against each other, leading to a fractured clan that had been falling apart when Kane had defeated Paul in a dominance battle. He’d had to build it back up again since then, and he wasn’t going to undo all of his hard work by picking a mate who was anything like Gina. Besides…he had to admit to being a bit of a romantic. He wanted to find that one person who made his heart beat faster and his mind cry out: ‘Ah, ha! He’s the one!’ in total, rapturous glee. Maybe it was asking too much, but what was the harm in trying to find someone like that? The least he could do was try.
All he said aloud was: “Did you get all the hotel reservations taken care of?”
“Yep,” she replied. “And I got a discount for booking in bulk. Plus a bunch of perks. The hotels were so happy to see me that they were practically crying. In this economy, having your hotel be booked full for almost a week is a Godsend.”
“Well, that’s one more thing out of the way. Only a million more details to go.” he straightened in his chair. “But I’m going to make this work, even if it kills me.”
“And it just might,” Angie said compassionately.
“Don’t I know it,” he replied dryly.
******
“Seriously, Father, I don’t see why we have to go to this Gathering.”
The older man with graying wings in his dark hair looked up with a frown. “I’ve told you before, Benedict, that I agree with Kane Haley about injecting new blood into our clan. To do that, we need for our youth to mingle and try to find mates from other clans. This Gathering will provide that opportunity.”
His son made an impatient gesture with one hand. “All right. I agree as well. I suppose my real question would be: Why do I have to go? It’s not as though I’ll be looking for a mate to bear me cubs and carry on our bloodline. You know I don’t like women. Why not just send Theodore? I have to be back at uni in less than a week. I don’t want to miss a fortnight’s classes if I don’t have to.”
“But you do have to,” his father replied tartly. “Because I need you to keep an eye on Theodore. You know how reckless and wild he can be. I don’t want him doing something that draws needless and dangerous attention to us. Kane wouldn’t like that, and I fear what he would do to Theodore. Please, Benedict. I’d go myself, but…”
He sighed. He knew the silent finish to that statement. His mother was in hospital, and wasn’t doing well at all. As she was a normal human and didn’t have the wolf’s nature, she didn’t possess the swift healing capabilities that one of the clan had. It would be touch and go whether she survived after her heart surgery, and he could understand his father’s desperate wish to stay by her side. “Very well, Father,” he said aloud. “I’ll go and keep an eye on Theodore.”
His father looked relieved. “Thank you, Benedict. Just remember, both of you represent our family in the clan. Please make sure if you can that Theodore doesn’t end up embarrassing or shaming us.”
“I’ll do the best that I can, Father,” he replied.
“That’s all that I can ask, Benedict,” his father said. “Especially since I know what you’ll be up against.”
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