Part One

My name is Kiran and I have sinned. I have sinned against both the wolf in me and the human in me. My biggest sin and failure was that I lied. I lied mostly to protect those I cared about, but I also lied to myself.

I had many sins and as the future Alpha of our pack, my sins were worse than anyone else doing the same thing. My father, Malachi, was grooming me to take over from him and I’d always taken the responsibility seriously.

What was my sin? We weren’t allowed to mate with humans. That means no dating, no relationships, no human life partners, and definitely no sex. In my defense though, I couldn’t help myself and maybe that was where my rebellious streak started.

She was such an amazing person. Yes, she was. As in, no longer alive, and that is my second sin. Sarah was your typical high school cheerleader type of girl, except that she was smart and beautiful, but she was also compassionate and caring. She was the best person I knew.

Sarah was petite with shoulder length blonde hair and dancing brown eyes. She was witty and funny. In short, simply the most amazing human I had ever met. At that point in my life, I blamed the raging hormones – both human and wolf.

Karani would always encourage me on the bad days with her super mother-hug and say that the best was yet to come. I just had to be patient. She would say that in answer to almost every problem I ever had.

Karani was a beautiful woman. She had long, pitch-black hair and striking blue eyes. She went through life with a song in her step and according to her, every problem had a solution. She knew about Sarah, of course, she was my mother.

Karani was the typical Alpha wife, she entertained, she soothed the pack, she was after all the Mother of the pack and she raised me. She was that type of mom, the one at every basketball game, every soccer game, every wrestling match, well she would have been, if I had participated in any of those sports.

Malachi was a lawyer and he spent much of his time behind closed doors, either in the courtroom or in his study, but keeping his pack safe and intact was high on his list of priorities. His hobbies included training me and keeping me out of trouble. We spent many afternoons at the back of the den, training. Malachi believed in being able to defend yourself, both as a human and as a wolf.

Fighting as a wolf comes naturally but fighting as a human takes training. Malachi was an expert in Krav Maga. He had been to Israel many times, where he joined the IDF’s training camps.

Karani had an immensely magnetic personality. She could get people to tell her almost anything at will, or so it seemed. She had a beautiful smile, she was warm and safe. She was my mother and I’m not afraid to say that I loved her as fiercely as she loved me.

Our family has lived in Seward for generations. It’s small, remote and mountainous. We lived at the back of the woods and you followed a dirt road to get to our house. The woods were literally between our house and the town, which was best for protecting howling wolves from prying eyes.

In ancient times Herodotus wrote of the Neuri, a nomadic tribe from Scythia which later became part of Russia. If folklore were to be believed, they were a tribe of magical men who could change into wolves. If you asked Malachi, he would laugh and say that those men probably wore wolf skins because of the harsh climate of Russia and were mistaken for wolf men.

Nobody can be certain when wolf people first originated, but the wolf god, Fenrir, is universally accepted by all wolf packs as the first creator of our kind. Although Fenrir had no magic of his own, Freyja represented the Seiðr or magic that existed in our realm.

On my sixteenth birthday I had my resurrection ceremony. Boys shifted earlier than girls as males are meant to act as the protectors. This is known as the dark period. You suffered mood swings, terrible headaches and blackouts.

Your personality changed as you settled into your wolf personality. You had to find the balance between wolf and human and figure out how to co-exist within those boundaries. It’s during this time that we were at our most dangerous to the outside world.

Your lack of self-control, for one thing, was dangerous. It’s something you had to acquire as you settled the wolf inside of you. I avoided school for three months and Karani just told people that I was ill. After your first resurrection in the clearing, you’re able to shift at will.

Uncontrollably transforming into a wolf with every full moon was nothing more than a myth. Although the moon does affect our moods, we are wolves, not werewolves. There really is no such thing as a werewolf.

I’d wake up in a cold sweat on the forest floor, not knowing how I got there. Each time Malachi was by my side, guiding me through the process, teaching me control. For an Alpha, the change is harder, because you’re bigger than the average pack member. Your emotions are more tumultuous because of the added responsibilities you inherit with your Alpha status.

The battle within myself was intense. The struggle with my physical changes over those three months took its toll. You become taller, bigger, and more muscular. Your body aches all the time for those first three months after your initial resurrection as your body changes.

The dark period also only happened to male wolves. The females’ first resurrection was just as painful as ours, but they didn’t go through that three-month darkness like we did. Female wolves were just as ferocious but when mated, they were more docile towards their partners, more submissive to allow the males to take the lead.

My Alpha lessons took up more of my time and increased my wolf guilt. Three months later the passion between myself and Sarah had only escalated. I would meet Sarah and my wolf guilt would be non-existent.

Wolf guilt washes over you in waves when you break the laws that were instilled in you from a young age. Human guilt and wolf guilt can be switched off at will but it can also burden you as the human part of your soul fights the wolf part.

I knew Karani didn’t approve, and yet, she never told Malachi. She knew how that one would end. She did warn me that she wouldn’t be able to protect me from Malachi if he ever found out. She meant physically. I didn’t understand it then, because Malachi had never before been physical with me, unless we were training.

It was a chance I was willing to take. The stupidity of being young and carefree. If I had known what would eventually happen, I would have switched off my emotions and steered well clear of Sarah. Unfortunately, like most things in life, regret came too late.