The silver gray wolf was much larger and ruthless as it tore into the leg of the lithe tawny wolf. Blood spilled onto the pristine white snow, smeared and scattered by their paws as they danced through the cold. The smaller wolf howled out in pain, limping away from the sharp teeth of the larger one. Going for the leg was a good tactic; wound your opponent, then you can go for the jugular. Going for the jugular too fast was a death sentence in itself, anyone could expect that maneuver. But the tawny wolf was smart and quick, and she managed to get a few bites in of her own. Their snarls were loud, echoing across the gulch they fought in. This wasn't a fight over a kill, it was a fight for dominance, survival. The silver wolf bit into the flank of the small wolf, shaking his massive head back and forth until a large flap of bloody skin fell open. The smaller wolf whined in pain, shuddering away from his teeth. Their breath panted out in plumes of white, frozen air. The fight was looking to be over for the smaller wolf. Until she put the last of her strength into sliding beneath him, and ripping into his underside. The larger wolf reared up, and when he did, she leapt up to meet him, tearing out his trachea as she fell back to the snow beneath them.

Millie's eyes tracked the wolves as they darted back and forth across the screen, the blue glow from her laptop reflecting onto her face. When the silver wolf fell, the video ended and closed out. Just in time for her alarm to go off. She closed her laptop and tossed it aside, laying back onto her bed and trying to breathe. That night, her dreams had been full of wolves. Chasing her, tearing into her, beckoning her into the woods. It was becoming unbearable, the feeling that they gave her was something she had had to live with for the past decade almost. She felt like she was going crazy. Maybe she was. It was exhausting.

Overall, it was just another day, and that meant school. Millie reluctantly drug herself from her bed and got ready.

April was quickly approaching, which meant there was only a month left until Millie could graduate and decide where the hell she wanted to go. She had the grades for college, but school wasn't interesting enough for her to pursue. Although she considered wildlife biology because of her fascination with wolves, the thought was short lived. Millie liked to learn, but she had never felt more alone than she did at school, and she didn't think that would improve at college. As if she could even afford college.

Even though she wanted desperately to leave Sapher, she couldn't seem to shake the feeling that maybe she was destined to stay. Something subconsciously urged her to stay, and she couldn't figure out quite what it was. It also seemed like a sort of absurd thought to leave her mom all by herself. Millie was all Sandra had. Maybe she could convince her to come with.

The small town of Sapher was infamous for two things. First, they had the county's largest grizzly bear statue. Second, they had the county's largest and most expensive mansion. It belonged to Eben Welch's father who was a well known neurologist, or something like that. He worked at the same hospital that Millie's mother did, along with many others. Overall, Sapher, Montana was poor, rural, and conservative. The school pulled kids from many smaller towns in the vicinity and managed a student body of 613 kids. Hell, her graduating class was only 112 students, and even then there were many with grim outlooks regarding graduation.

"Millie, did you make your lunch?" Her mother called down the hall. She was unbearably loud when she got ready for work, always slamming cupboards or dropping things or cussing to the heavens. Millie could feel another headache coming on, a tell-tale sign that the day was going to be a long one.

"No," Millie replied honestly, eyeing the sad looking loaf of bread on the cutting board. Her mother refused to buy bread from the store and somehow managed to always make a loaf between long shifts at the hospital. Anyway, Millie usually did the grocery shopping with any money her mother left behind for her. There was no time in the day for Sandra to shop. She worked in the big hospital in Kalispell, about an hour drive from their house. It was the closest they could live and afford given the market and their economic status. Despite that fact, Millie had never heard her complain.

"You know what I have to say about that! Make your damn lunch or you'll feel sick all day. Did you take your meds?" Her tone was sharp yet affectionate.

As she cut into the loaf of bread, her eyes landed on the eight pill bottles that sat on the windowsill, waiting to be swallowed with water and yogurt. "I will," Millie called back. She slathered the slices of bread with peanut butter and tossed the sandwich into a bag.

Two months prior, Millie Sarcos moved into a run-down rambler with her mother Sandra. They moved from another small and poor town in Wyoming, where they had lived for almost six years after the accident. Before that, they lived in Texas. That's where she last saw her father. Sandra had never let her husband's abandonment go. She tried to be mad at him, but she never managed the anger long. Sandra missed him and never seemed to find someone else to fill the hole he created with his absence. But then Millie disappeared, for three weeks. And when she came back something was wrong, but no doctor or detective could seem to figure out what.

It had been a cold winter day when Millie wandered into the woods on Sandra's watch. When she was found, nearly a month later, curled in a ditch eight miles from where she was last seen, nothing was ever the same.

Millie developed health problems after that. She constantly nursed headaches and staunched nose bleeds. She was often riddled with bouts of muscle weakness and fatigue. Some days her legs and arms cramped up so badly it took hours to stretch them back out. Hence the pills. They managed to tamp down her symptoms enough to be ignored for the day. Symptom management.

Her mother came down the hall, her dark hair twisted into a long French braid. Her scrubs today were a lilac color that complimented her tan skin. She kissed Millie on the cheek and handed her an apple with a meaningful look. With a roll of her eyes, Millie put the apple and sandwich into her backpack and started taking out the pills. Sandra knowingly set a glass of water and a cup of yogurt on the counter.

"I have to go," Sandra said, grabbing her pre-made lunch from the fridge and her purse from the hook by the door. She slipped on her clogs and laid her hand on Millie's back. The small kitchen was tight with the two of them in it. "I love you, have a great day. I'm working a 12, leftovers are in the fridge. Behave today."

"I know, I know. I love you too," Millie smiled slightly at her mother and leaned into her touch. "Have a good day at work."

"I will see you late tonight!" She called, exiting through the side door and locking it behind her. The house was blissfully quiet after she left. Millie took the rest of her pills and finished her yogurt and water before grabbing her backpack and leaving through the front door. Her and her mother lived a decent distance from town, south of the downtown area. That meant she couldn't walk to school. At least, Sandra had finally managed to afford a car that Millie could call her own. It wasn't much, but it was more than the girl could ever ask for. The beat up, rusty Ford Bronco had been a gift for her 18th birthday.

Millie wasn't exactly close with her mom, especially after the accident. Despite the fact that the worry had almost killed Sandra during those three weeks where each deputy and detective told her the likelihood of finding her girl alive decreased with each day. But then she had reappeared, and her mom pretended like nothing happened. Millie convinced herself it was a coping mechanism for her mother. But she always wondered how she was ever supposed to cope if the topic was squashed almost as quickly as she could bring it up. So, after that, Millie was hesitant to share much with her mother, or with anyone for that matter.

The result was an unbearable sense of loneliness and smothered desperation. She relentlessly craved someone that understood her. She wanted someone to try to figure her out. She wanted answers, a cure, or something that could relieve her of the worry and stress she endured every day. In the last few weeks she had noticed some subtle changes in her body, and none of them were good. Her headaches were intensifying in strength and frequency, her fatigue was the worst it had been in years, and her dreams had been waking her up periodically throughout the night with a cold sweat. And still, she refused to go see a clinic or some specialist. They all concluded the same thing about her: nothing.

Millie tried not to spend too much time outside. Looking into the forests only seemed to heighten her unease. It made her skin crawl with some need that –for years—could not be satisfied. The air was still biting cold, carrying the remains of the winter from the North. Snow drifts, dirty and gray were still piled on the sides of the road, clinging to life. The Bronco had just enough heat to make sitting still bearable. It managed to finally turn over after two turns of the key and a tap on the gas. Millie loved the beast though, it was all hers, and a car meant freedom. Freedom meant she could go anywhere, and finally find somewhere she would belong.

As she let the car warm up, she rubbed her hands together furiously, noting the pink color of her frozen fingertips. The radio crackled to life, landing on a old country station that crooned into the rumbling cab. As she sat, her eyes landed on her dark and sagging home. They had bought the thing in the late Winter, without realizing of all the leaks the roof had, or broken seals in the windows that let in frigid drafts. Life had been hard since they left Texas. But Millie liked Montana more than Texas and Wyoming, nonetheless. Something drew her here, though she couldn't decide quite what exactly. The mountains were a good excuse to like the place. They were endlessly white-capped and seemed to protrude directly from the horizon. The sky too, it was bigger than she had ever seen. And the air was drier, which meant her hair didn't frizz up so much as it did in the Texas humidity.

The heat finally gasped from the vents and Millie put the rig in drive. She didn't mind the drive to school. Millie welcomed the sliver of time where she could pretend that maybe she wasn't driving to school. Instead she was travelling the country, escaping into Glacier National Park, or finding out how to get into those mountains. Despite the indescribable lure of the dinky town, she wanted nothing more than to do something more than her daily routine. She always felt as if she was missing something. But she never could figure out just what that was.

The downtown strip came and went in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of way. And then she was climbing the little hill into the parking lot of the high school. Every time she pulled into a parking spot at that place, she spent at least five minutes convincing herself that it was worth it to get her diploma. That particular morning, her head was already pounding, and her first period hadn't even started.

Millie gathered her water bottle and backpack and climbed out of her car. The clumps of murky gray snow and patches of ice made making it to the door even more difficult. As if everything was telling her to just go home and curl up in bed. But Millie was stubborn and never known to back out of a fight, so she yanked open the ugly teal doors and marched inside. Even though the bright white fluorescents made her grimace and the hall smelled overwhelmingly of a mixture between the day's lunch and sweat.

The hallway buzzed with conversation and her head continued to pulse right in her temples. Millie was distracted by all the stimuli and startled when a hand grabbed her arm. She blinked up in surprise at her tall friend who was still holding her arm.

"I was calling your name," Tara quirked a pale eyebrow up. Her platinum blonde hair reflected the white light back up and made her look even more pale than she already was. Her icy blue eyes were centered on Millie.

Tara and Millie met during Millie's first week at Sapher High. Millie still wasn't sure how they became friends. Girls like her back in Texas were often popular and therefore cruel. Tara was somewhat cruel, but in a humorous doesn't-take-any-shit kind of way that Millie actually liked. The blonde had taken it upon herself to show Millie around and give her the scoop of drama before it even aired in the halls. Millie soon found out that Tara didn't have many friends because she was a self-proclaimed slut, and girls didn't like their boyfriends already drooling over the long-legged blonde. They liked each other well enough, though they weren't that close.

"Sorry, I've been a little off this morning. Didn't sleep well." Millie replied, slightly sheepish. She wasn't lying though, she hadn't slept well. Her dreams had been consumed by wolves, running alongside her before tearing into her body.

"Sorry to hear that," she said, though she was grinning and didn't look too sorry for her.

"What's up with you?" Millie raised a brow, folding her arms over her chest.

"I slept with Dax," she whispered with a giggle.

"You're kidding," Millie's brown eyes were wide. "I thought you weren't going to."

"Yeah well..."

"Wow, were you just going to give me second-hand gossip?" Mitch appeared on Tara's right, arms folded over his chest. He was a bit shorter than Tara, but still taller than Millie. His dark complexion and hair made him look like the night to Tara's day. Mitch was known as the class clown of sorts, and what drew him to befriend Millie a few months was simply Tara's interest in her. Tara was the glue.

"I would never! I was just telling Millie what I told you last night." Tara responded.

"Wow, so I got the second-hand gossip," Millie scoffed, though she could have cared less. She mostly wanted to give Tara the shit.

"Well, if you would have answered my call last night, you would have got the scoop too!" Tara rolled her eyes.

"My bad," Millie grinned, also not meaning it.

"Bite me," Tara laughed right as the bell for first period rang. "Duty calls, ladies. Let's go."

They walked together to their first period with Mitch and Tara gabbing about Dax's capabilities in the bedroom when Millie really started to notice that her headache was worsening. Almost as soon as she stepped into her class, her cheeks flushed, and she felt unbearably hot.

The next thing she knew, her vision had run black, and her face hit the short multicolored carpet of her homeroom.

----------------------------------------------------

The sharp, steel of the axe glinted in the dull midday light as it swung down and through the round of wood that was propped on the old stump. With a dull thud, the wedge imbedded into the soft wood before it was wrenched back out and swung over a broad shoulder once again. With three more swings, the round was in six perfect pieces, ready to be stacked and eventually loaded into the wood stove. The air was chilly, Winter was still clinging to the land, even in mid-March. Northern air blew down and raked the tall brush and conifers of any remaining snow, with it came a chill that cut to the core.

Even with the temperature in the twenties, Beck was behind his cabin breaking a little bit of a sweat as he chopped wood from the tree that had fallen in the recent windstorm. He had been meaning to get to it for the last week, but since it was March, that meant that females were birthing or preparing to birth with the Equinox being so close. Preparing for such events was hard work and time consuming. Thus, the tree had to wait, laying flat and sad looking in the tall grass as it waited for its turn. Nonetheless it bothered him every morning and evening when he came home and it was still sitting there.

Nothing irritated him more than things left undone. He was a man who liked to complete his tasks before starting new ones. Though he had been working on being better about that. He constantly had to multitask and he was only making things harder for himself by getting bothered every time a new task arose. Not that he had any problem with helping his pack or any minor to major task they presented him with. In fact, he welcomed their problems with open arms. Anything he could do for them was something he was willing to do.

The pack loved him for his tireless efforts. He had taken over from his father at the tender age of fourteen after a Western Alpha had torn his family to shreds when he went looking for his lost mate. His name was Thadal Kherrs, and he had bled their pack dry. Since he found his mate, he had returned and apologized, offered help and alliance. Beck wasn't above forgiveness, but he didn't forgive the Alpha, nor did he accept his offer. Instead, he rebuilt the pack from the ground with the help of his two closest friends who had won their titles over the years. The result of the trauma and rebuild was the undying loyalty of his members. And his members knew he would do anything for them. Beck hadn't been able to simply take over either. After Thadal, he had countless adversaries, wolves he had grown up with or under, challenging him left and right. Though the guilt had stayed with him over the years, he had killed every challenge that had ever been posed to him. He had not only inherited his title, but he had also won it.

The rebuild was unbearably hard. They had to completely move away from where they had laid root to get away from the horror they witnessed. That meant recreating their homes, their memories, and boosting their numbers. To do so, Beck made sure every member mature enough to make their own decisions was sent to meet other packs and potentially find their mates. If they did, they were to invite their mate and their mates family back to stay with them if they wished. Many wolves had taken the offers over the years, especially those in the South, desperate to get away from the lawless packs that staked claim in the large desert regions.

Over the last eight years, they had grown their pack from thirty members to a hundred, and managed to build a commune of cabins, a farm, common areas, and a beautiful outdoor ceremony site that overlooked the private but vast Sapher Lake. Beck was proud of his work and his people. But he was lonelier than he wanted to admit. Sure he had his second and third in command, but no one really filled that hole like an Alpha Female would. And he knew, eventually his pack would suffer without her. And yet, there was no time for him to look. No time to search. Not when he was consumed by what his people needed.

"Beck," the voice of his third called over the yard to reach his ears.

"Carter, how are you?" Immediately, Beck put his axe down and wiped his forearm across his forehead. He always made a point to give his members his full attention.

"I'm good. Are you?"

"Great," Beck gave a tight-lipped smile that Carter definitely didn't believe. "What do you need?"

"Don't worry, I was just wondering if you needed any help. I've got some time until I need to pick up Kristin from school." Kristin was their second in command, the Beta, and she was almost twenty. She was taking some classes at the satellite campus for a local community college to try and work out some business degree. She had a whole plan to make more money for the pack.

The pile of wood still waiting to be chopped caught Beck's eye, he figured some company might be nice. "Got another axe?"

"I can run and get one, be back in a few." Carter took off back the way he came and Beck was alone once more. With the yard quiet once again, he put in a couple extra swings while Carter went to get his own axe. By the time he got back, Beck had stacked two chopped rounds. He helped his third roll over two more and stack them for better swings.

They got to work, chopping up the massive tree. It was quiet between them, as it sometimes was, save for their grunts or the dull thuds of their axes hitting the stumps. An hour later, they were done, the wood was stacked, and Carter left to clean up before he picked up Kristin. With his task finished, Beck felt a little better. One less thing to deal with.

Peeling off his shirt, he used it to mop his sweaty face as he slid through the backdoor into his cabin. Inside, it smelled of stained spruce wood, campfire wood, and coffee. The backdoor opened up into the small kitchen on the right and a hallway on the left. The hallway lead down to the den, the front door, a bathroom, and a stairway that climbed up to a small open loft with two bedrooms on each side. One was a master, and one was a guest. Though he hoped to one day turn that guest room into a nursery. One day.

The bathroom was pristine white tile, cleaned to perfection. As he stripped himself of his clothing, he made sure they went directly into the hamper. Beck turned the water on to near scalding and stepped into the shower.

For a moment, he simply let the water run over his skin and hair, closing his eyes and listening to the hum of the faucet. Since the attack, Beck almost swore he could still feel the blood of his family coating his skin. His eyes squeezed shut, one hand bracing against the tile as the memories wracked his mind. And then he scrubbed every inch of his skin until it was red and raw.

And not even then, did he feel clean. 

it has begun! thank you for reading. let me know what you think!

LS