Page 1

Christophe

So much ofmy early childhood was a blur in my mind, marked by vivid flashes of memory that have lived with me until now, unable to be forgotten. I could still clearly remember the first time I successfully shifted into my wolf form when I was four years old, Mother and Father watched from the side, surrounded by the silhouettes of my relatives. Uncle Edsel was there, as was Grandmother. Arthur, my little brother, was there too. He was just a baby, wrapped up in Mother’sarms.

The transformation came naturally.Father had told me what to expect, and I’d already been experiencing the precursors to a full shift for weeks before; my wolf ears suddenly sprouting from the top of my head, one foot randomly turning into a paw, pants ripping due to an unexpected tail, those kinds of things. I stood alone in the middle of a circular clearing in the woods near the Luna Manor, the eyes of my family trained on me. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the wolf that I could feel inside me, straining to be freed. I could feel my bones moving inside my body. They were changing shape, breaking apart, clicking into new places. When I opened my eyes and looked down at my hands, my fingertips were drawing backward into themselves, my nails becoming claws and my skin sprouting dark fur. I was frightened for a moment, but Father had told me not to be scared, so the feeling passed quickly and was replaced by excitement. I was a wolf. I’d completed my first shift and started my journey towards my destiny as the first alpha of the Luna family, leaders of the Crescent MoonPack.

The memoriesof the shift ceremony were often tangled up with those of visiting the Teller about a year later, when I was five yearsold.

IrememberedFather’s seemingly gigantic hand wrapped around my own as we walked through the candlelit passageway to the Teller’s chambers. The sanctum smelled strongly of pine incense, like the smoke from a forest fire, all combined with the metallic tang of the animal blood often used for divination. I was frightened at the idea of how the blood would be used—would I be soaked in it? Have to drinkit?

“Christophe Luna,”the Teller said, his voice harsh like gravel. He wore a heavy, black velvet cloak with a hood that hid everything about his face except for a long and grizzled snout that protruded from shadow. He was in half-shift form; part wolf, part man. “First son of Basch and Stella Luna. Comeforward.”

Father releasedmy hand and took a step back into darkness, leaving me alone. I did my best to be brave, as brave as a five-year-old could be. “Yes,” I said, stepping forward into the circle ofcandlelight.

“Remove your clothing,”the Tellersaid.

Ihesitated,uncertain about what to do. I looked over my shoulder at Father, who nodded at me. I slowly stripped out of my clothes and stood naked in the circle, goosebumps spreading across my skin. The Teller stepped slowly into the circle of candlelight, and a dance of light illuminated his eyes beneath the hood. I gasped when I saw them. They were milky white with cataracts—sightless—but I felt that he could seeeverything. He towered over me and circled a bony, clawed hand above my head, palm spread open. In his other hand, he held the skull of some animal draped in golden chains inset with glimmering green and red gems. The skull held incense, and piney smoke billowed out from the eye sockets. I was terrified, and squeezed my eyes shut. My ears pricked up at the sound of the Teller moving around me, his feet shuffling on the stonefloor.

The Teller murmured to himself,growling incantations and prayers in a language I couldn’t understand. I opened my eyes again. He circled around me, moving like liquid darkness under the shimmer of the candles, and the smoke from the skull drifted close the ground, creating an ethereal haze of tendrils that seemed like they were going to reach up and grab me. He stopped in front of me and dipped a thumb into a depression on the top of the skull. His thumb returned coated and dripping in blood. He pressed his thumb to my forehead and dragged it down until it reached the space between myeyes.

“Yes… Yes, I see,”he said. “You will be a loyal wolf of high ideals. You will rise when the occasion calls for protecting what you hold dear. And…” He paused and cocked his head, sniffing at the air. “What is this? There’s something… Yourleg.”

“My leg?”

“The mark on your leg…”

“It’s a birthmark,”I said, proudly. The mark was a dark coloration on my right inner thigh about the size of my palm, and looked just like a wolf’s paw print with one pad missing. “Mother says it’slucky.”

“Hmm… This is no ordinary birthmark,”the Teller said. He waved the animal skull, and a drape of smoke drifted down through the air. Icoughed.

“What do you mean?”Fathersaid.

“This is… rare.”

“What is it?”Father askedimpatiently.

“This isthe mark of a fated mate,” the Teller said to me. “It’s a mystical marking, one of the few that still occur. Somewhere in the world there is, or will be, a wolf whose paw print will perfectly match thismark.”

“Afated mate?”I asked. I was nervous, uncertain what thismeant.

“Yes,”the Teller replied in his rasping voice. He intertwined his gnarled fingers in front of him. “A soul mate who you will be drawn to, and fall deeply in love with, and them with you. The ultimate partnership. The ultimate mated pair. Your bond cannot be broken by anything, because it is one created bydestiny.”

Father satacross from me in the back of the family car during the drive home. He pulled out a crystal bottle from the fridge inset into the car door and poured himself a glass. “There’s no such thing as a fated mate mark, Christophe,” he told me. “It’snonsense.”

“There isn’t?”Iasked.

“No,Christophe, there isn’t. What you have is just abirthmark.”

“But how didhe know it was there? He wasblind.”

“Don’t underestimatea wolf’s fully developed sense of smell, especially when they can’t use theireyes.”

“You and Motherdon’t havemarks?”

“Christophe,seeing the Teller is just a ritual we must perform in respect to tradition. What you must learn as the firstborn alpha of our family, Christophe, is that there is no such thing as fate, except for the responsibilities expected of you from your family. Don’t relegate your purpose in life to romanticideas.”

“Yes, Father,”I answered, and for the next twenty-two years of my life I kept my hope that I would someday find the fated love of mylife.

* * *