The woman jerked up from slumber. A gunshot. She left the bed, careful not to disturb her peacefully sleeping husband. The wife took one look at her surroundings. A simple and humble two story house way out in the country, with black shutters, red door and white outside. The woman slipped into a jogging suit, wondering what moved her to leave the safety of her snug home. Cathrine, for that was indeed her name, hopped down the stairs on one shoed foot, trying to pull the other shoe on as fast as she could. Cathrine opened the door and looked around. Everything was silent and dark. If it had not been for the full moon, Cathrine would not have been able to see a single thing. She thought for a moment of getting a flashlight, but after taking one look at the bright yellow moon, she shrugged and forgot about it. A wolf’s howl, quickly followed by another gun shot rang out. She shuddered and then felt a strange urge to got towards this sound. Good thing I’m not afraid of wolves, its the gun I’m worried about... Cathrine thought to herself. She ran, shoes pounding the cobble stone road. Suddenly another howl echoed far to the right. From the thick, dense forest. Cathrine paused. She thought of her husband, then of the child that Doc. Fals had said that she could never have. Cathrine sighed. She had always wanted children of her own dearly, but that was never to be. The woman then plunged into the thick, moon bathed forest. She broke into a run, holding her arms in front of her face as protection from the small low lying branches and bushes that ruthlessly sweated at her face as she ran. Cathrine ran deeper and deeper into the forest, following the sounds of the wolf and gun’s cries and bangs. She looked around, eyes wide with fear as she ran. Cathrine had never been out in the wilderness this far. She heard a whimper just ahead as she pushed her way through the foliage. Cathrine gawked. There, in a small clearing was a woman, no a wolf. The being kept slipping from human to wolf form. Cathrine could see why. Four gaping, bleeding holes show on her side. The wolf woman looks pleadingly at Cathrine as she bends down, finding that somehow, she is not afraid of the strange wolf woman. Cathrine reaches for the wounds, but the wolf woman suddenly jerks away and shakes her head weakly. Cathrine stares, confused by this strange being. The woman then reaches into a den-like hole, and carefully pulls out a tiny, wailing baby girl with intelligent golden/yellow eyes. “Me no live much longer.” The wolf woman gasped, her sides rising and falling jaggedly. “I beg you, please save my pup.... please.” She says weakly. Cathrine looks at the wolf mothers eyes. They are blank in pain, pain of her wounds and of her heart, of giving her only pup to another. “I... *cough* called you. Please.... save Thorndike.” The wolf woman repeated, holding the child out to Cathrine. Cathrine nodded. “I’ll save Thorndike, I promise. I’ll raise her as my very own.“ She said, taking the child, who was now in the form of a little wolf pup. “Don’t let hunters know she shifts, Thorndike should learn control.... Thank yo...” And with those final words, the wolf woman let out a relaxed sigh, and died. Cathrine held the babe close to her chest, not sure what to do. “HEY YOU!” A voice shouted, shattering the silence. Cathrine held the pup, Thorndike, and turned and ran as fast as she could. Back to the safety of her home. She stumbled through the door as the morning sun seemed to set the sky on fire. Cathrine looked around and saw Kal, her husband standing at the top of the stairs. He looked up and immediately brightened. “Cathrine? Cathrine! Oh I was so worri....” He stopped in mid sentence as he saw little Thorndike. Kal looked the child up and down, and gasped when her saw her golden wolf eyes. “A shifter. I thought their kind was hunted to extinction by those yahoos with guns. Noble beings, shifters.“ He said in awe. Kal looked up at Cathrine. “The mother. She called you, didn’t she? The last shifter. What is her name?” He asked calmly. Cathrine covered a yawn. “Yes, I guess her mother did. Thorndike, her name is Thorndike. We are her parents now Kal.” She said, surprised on how Kal was taking this. “Yes, we are. We must teach Thorndike not to trust. This world is not safe for her kind any more.”
Seventeen years later....
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