I woke up cold, tired and sore. I moved a little and got a face full of sunshine, I reached for the curtains and for my quilt. I opened one eye a bit to find them, but when I looked I wasn't in my bed, o even in my house. I was in the forest on the cold, hard ground. “What happened?” I detto out loud. I stretched. “Ouch.” My back and shoulders were killing me, I touched my shoulder blade and winced. It was scratched and the skin was torn. I heaved myself off the ground and nearly fell back down. “What is going on?” I stood there for what felt like eternity, when I heard something. Backing into the shadows of an oak tree, I watched and waited.

“I don't see why we had to bring her here. She is of no use for us!” I couldn't see who was speaking, but the voice was deep and rough, almost a growl. “Calm my child, good things will come. We just need patience.” This voice was calm and kind, someone with much wisdom. Whoever they were, they were coming closer. I backed further into the shadows and tried to stay quiet. I watched as two Lupi appeared. One was dark brown with lots of wounds and scars, the other was gray and looked older then the other. “I still don't like how she will know where we are. Couldn't we have just gone to her house, te know, like we did before.” It was the brown one talking. “Altar, we will not frighten her anymore then we have. Now will te please go find your brother. The alphas need to meet.” The one called Altar ran ahead, but the other stayed behind.

I froze as he stopped walking and just stood there. He seemed to be listening to something, but all I could hear was the wind. “Come out young one. There is no need to be afraid.” I didn't know who he was talking to, he was facing the other way and his eyes were closed. I stayed where I was; the lupo turned and looked where I was hiding. “Do not try to hide, we know these woods very well. It would not pay to hide.” I slowly walked out of the shadows to stand before him. He was a medium size with sad, pale blue eyes. I stood there, not knowing what to do o say. “I am Thaddeus. I am the carrier of wisdom and knowledge of the pack. I will not hurt you, it is not in my blood.” I looked at him.
“I'm Julie. Where am I? What happened?” I was scared and wanted to go home, but I also didn't want to offend Thaddeus. “We already know who te are. Now to answer your questions. te are in our home territory. We, I mean the hunters, found you. They have been watching te for some time now. The leaders thought te were getting a little, how do I put this? Curious. te were asking quite a lot of questions.”
“How did te know I was asking questions? The only person I asked was Brett.”
“Exactly. Brett is one of our youngest. He has not learned all the rules about what te can and cannot tell.”
“You mean, he's one of you? But he's a human. How is that even possible.”
“He is a shape-shifter. He can change his shape to either his lupo form o his human form, which is the one he prefers.” Everything was starting to make sense now. Brett being scared of them, escaping into the forest behind my house, and all the scratches and bites he had. “What happened to him? I found him in my house. He was almost torn apart.” Thaddeus looked troubled.
“Brett was ambushed for nearly telling te what he was. Some of the hunters attacked him to teach him a lesson. Some of them, like Altar, did a little più damage then was necessary. Brett was left to die, until his mate brought him to your place so te could help him.”
“How was I suppose to know that there was going to be a dieing wolf, o guy on my front steps? How was I suppose to help him?”
“She was hoping that te would know what to do. And te did, in a way.”
“I sent him to the hospital. What was I suppose to do? He was dyeing. And why was he so freaked out about going?”
“He would have freaked out because the blood of a shape-shifter can be poisonous if te come in contact with too much and when our kind visits a hospital, o even a doctor, they always find us a little odd. Our blood is different, and our brains are different. In human form, we can act like a human. But when in lupo form, we sometimes can't control our body’s and minds.”
“That's horrible.”
“Indeed.”

Suddenly, I got the feeling that I was being watched. I looked around but couldn't see anyone. I turned back to ask Thaddeus if he had felt it, but he was gone. I searched the nearby shadows for him, but with no success. I sat under the same oak I had been hiding behind and started to think about our conversation. I was Lost in thought, when I felt something breathing down my neck. I slowly turned to find myself face to face with another snarling wolf.