Silver-White (The Great North Woods Pack #1) (8 page)

“
What?
”
she gasped.

“Do as I say.”

“Do what?” Evie began, but before she could
form the words her grandfather was gone.

In one fluid motion he had stepped from
his robe, dropped in height, lightened in color, spread in width, and in a
blink transformed into a massive white wolf; Evie felt his great weight
creaking the deck boards. Slightly smaller than the wolf of her dream, this
wolf too had eyes that absorbed all of the night’s small light and reflected it
in stormy pools of green. With sides swelling from his first deep breaths of
the night, he stared into her with those piercing eyes. A deep rumble started low
in his belly.

“Papa,” Evie shuddered, realizing too
late that it had been far easier to appreciate the beauty of wolves from the
safety of the house. With her back pressed hard to the porch railing, the human
side of her made its final appeal to reason, clamoring for safety, screaming in
her head for retreat. Every muscle in her body twitched with anticipation.

The rumbling from within the white wolf
grew louder. In it—through it—a single thought seemed to enter into Evie’s
mind. The thought grew bolder, louder, into a clear word; the word, a command.
“Run,” it said coldly. “
Run!
”

At Evie’s back there came the nearest
howl she’d yet heard.

With her head half turned, her eyes
moved quickly back and forth from the white wolf before her to the open field
at her back. From the dark tree line she caught glimpses of shadows moving into
the open, like living blots of that darkness spilling out from the blackness, their
eyes aglow, one after another, soon so many that she could not count in glances,
first gathering, yelping and grumbling, now on the run, now leaping the outer fences,
now rushing forward, fanning out in a blitz of the open fields. She felt the
white wolf inching closer. In her ears the sounds of frightened horses
whinnying and galloping came and quickly faded as they retreated to the barn.
The wolf shadows at her back continued blazing the field, nearing the house, all
of them massive, closer by the second, now leaping the inner fences, glinting
gray under the half-moon. Warm breath fell against the front of her neck, with
each heartbeat nearer, warmer.

When she turned fully forward again she was
greeted by the white wolf’s drawn back lips. With his gleaming teeth bared, he
inched closer, crouching, holding his great bulk low in a stance of ready power.
The rumbling from his belly rose steadily into a growl in his throat.

“No, Papa,” she shuddered. “It’s me.
It’s
me
.”

The white wolf opened his mouth wide in
reply, issuing a hot and savage growl that roared like a revving engine. And again
the clearest, loudest thought in Evie’s head screamed, “
RUN!”

It was a command, loud and clear. The
clearer that fact became, the less Evie felt capable of doing anything other
than following it. One moment her body felt frozen; the next, the mind-body
connection clicked, she felt herself moving, and off she went.

Over creaking boards she ran to the back
stairway. In a bound she cleared the small steps and landed hard on the grass
below, keeping herself from rolling with her outstretched arms. Across the back
yard she sprinted with all her strength. With every breath a burning scream, bare
feet cold with dew, out of old habit she made for the far corner of the yard,
the dark opening of the trail beyond the apple trees.

When she dared glance back over her
shoulder, the pack of gray and black shadows were falling in behind the white
leader in an arrowhead formation. Facing forward again, she ran for all she was
worth. And always gaining, the pack closed on her with the sound of many feet
thundering like a stampede, many great lungs breathing greedily, and many throats
grumbling with the joy of the chase.

“Run!” she heard the white wolf grumble
from a few yards behind her. “Run!” he said again, closer still. But Evie’s legs
could carry her no faster. Running cold just hours removed from a fever, her
limit came and passed quickly. Three quarters of the way across the back yard,
she hit the wall. She stumbled, staggered, moving forward feebly, and began
gasping frantically for air.

Within a second of slowing she felt hot
breath on the back of her neck; her pony tail fluttered against the whiskered
muzzle of a wolf. The next second she felt a jolt—a hard, jarring impact that
robbed her of what little remaining breath she had. And then for a moment she
felt nothing but cool air rushing by her weightless body.

The great head of the white wolf had dropped
and driven low into her back, striking forcefully square. Then, lifting her
with an upward toss of his powerful neck, he’d given her flight; the gift of
intense focus and single-minded desire—the power of mind in the face of absolute
necessity.

Helplessly Evie left the ground. In
suspense she hung no more than a second or two. And when she felt solid earth
once more, instead of the hard impact she’d expected, she felt smooth, controlled
contact. Two feet struck the ground. Two feet gripped firmly with soft pads and
wide-spreading toes. Momentum carried her forward. She felt the third foot
strike. Then the fourth. And before she could wrap her mind around what was
happening, she surged forward at a startling rate—like being in the front row
of a rollercoaster on its downward plunge.

The change had happened instantly, painlessly.
And like a flash from the close-crowding pack shot forth their newest initiate—a
young and sleek silver-white wolf streaking the dark woods as a meteor streaks
the night sky.

Much happened in the following seconds. The
white wolf had knocked the wind out of her, and then there’d been a few seconds
of limbo. But after her four feet touched the ground, even before comprehension
set in on her, she felt bodily control returning.

Evie’s first conscious act as the wolf
was to breathe. In a single gulp she took in a mass of cool air that heaved her
sides, and like breaking the surface after being too long underwater, she felt
life anew rushing in and expanding within her—the explosion of vitality. It was
like she’d never breathed before; she’d been suffocating all her life until
now, in that single breath, she tasted fresh, energizing air for the first time.
In that breath came to her a sense of old things passing away, new life breaking
forth from the old in a flash, rushing forward as if fired from a cannon. Weakness
was well behind her now, a thing of the past fading from significance along
with the fluttering remains of her tattered clothing.

As the comprehension of her new body
settled in on her, she understood that she was running.
Really
running, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Her
four legs worked with steady, rhythmic ease, and her lungs worked comfortably
after the initial deep breath, enlivened by great quantities of the crisp air.
Into her keen new ears flooded a myriad of distinct night sounds, and above
them, the louder and strangely reassuring sounds of the pack behind her,
trotting, breathing, and grumbling. Her heart beat furiously in her deep chest,
yet somehow at a rate that felt easily sustainable. And her vision was sharper;
even at great speed she saw the shadowy woods passing by in a clearer tint of gray.

Her mind began
working clearly within a few seconds of the extreme shot of oxygen. She
recalled talk of being
wild
, and running
as the wolf, she now understood why. She did not simply feel wild, she
knew
it. Not as a mindless rage or a
blind fury beyond conscience or control—though that potential existed in every
drop of her burning blood. More it was the feeling of a great escape, the willful
shattering of barriers, the defiant breaking free of restrictions that erupted
into a swift and boundless energy. Her great heart pumped adrenalin-laced
promise, and every fiber of every muscle, every nerve and tendon in her body answered
that promise, harnessing that throbbing power, and driving it to the ground
with sure-footed ease.
She
was
still herself—but stronger,
bolder, more capable.
For
the first time in her life, her body could keep up with her mind.

Control was her
next realization. Controlling this marvelous new form was a thrill ride—like
being in the cockpit of a well-tuned machine. Only so much better. She
was
the machine, powerful yet nimble, sensitive
to the smallest feedback—smells, sights, sounds, the mere feel of her
soft-padded paws striking the earth—and instantly responsive to the slightest
input of thought. Each breath produced in her a rush greater than a caffeine
overdose, and each subsequent push of her springy paws propelled her faster. Faster
than seemed possible. Faster than a dream.

In the fervor of this first run, within twenty
seconds Evie had pulled well ahead of the other wolves. At her back she soon heard
a distinct change in their sounds. Alone they were not enough to stop her, but with
those sounds, new thoughts began entering Evie’s mind, piquing her curiosity,
demanding her attention. As when the white wolf had ordered her to run, so now the
word-thought
slow
kept repeating in
her head.

In a heartbeat she made a decision; in
the next she reacted. With a great leap she threw herself into the air,
twirling her long frame in a graceful spin. And clawing the ground as she
dropped, she scratched to a crouching stop, face-to-face with her pursuers. The
word
slow
faded from her perception.

The riotous mob slowed to a hasty walk. The
white wolf stood back as the rest—numbering nearly twenty—closed around Evie in
a wave of heavy bodies, yipping and whining, their hot breath meeting the cool
air in plumes of fast-dissolving steam. Their noise was immense.
Some bowed their
heads before her with outstretched forelegs, respectfully and playfully. Others,
the more excitable, nuzzled the young wolf with anxious muzzles, whining in and
tickling her sensitive ears with prickly whiskers and ice-cold noses.

It was a greeting, Evie realized; a
happy, rowdy greeting. She relaxed her stance, though in such close quarters
she found it difficult to move after the freedom of the run; she was being bumped
and pushed from every side. Several times she reared up on her hind legs, as
other wolves did in their own excitement. Other times she sprang on all fours
in quick, jerky bounces when her excitement became too great to remain still.
She wagged her tail and shook her head and her tingling scruff. And best of all,
she found she could execute these small celebrations without a trace of
self-consciousness. Like a child—an ecstatic child the size of a show pony.

The pack’s noise increased. With each
sound from the wolves, a new thought entered Evie’s mind. Fast and choppy, these
thoughts were at first difficult to discern, even harder to follow amid the
ruckus of so many at once. But as she listened, tuning her delicate new ears
carefully, she began to perceive their meaning, and soon began recognizing their
voices. One-by-one she linked their sounds with the word-thoughts forming in
her mind and traced those voices back to the wolves that made them. In so doing
she discovered the distinct relative within each shaggy body crowding her.

With a tremor of elation Evie reached
full understanding. Their noises were not noise at all. They were meaningful
expressions—words of greeting and congratulation, admiration and unrestrained
affection inexpressible by clumsy human languages. From every side compliments
streamed into her ears. Words such as, “Lovely, beautiful, elegant, graceful,”
poured from the females. And the males agreed, adding, “Sleek, speedy, agile, spirited,
a natural.” If the realization of their beautifully simple language wasn’t enough
to stagger Evie’s senses, the love they expressed with it surely was—it nearly
broke her heart.

Her response to their outpouring began
as a feeling—a jumpy delight deep inside of her. While her body whirled back
and forth, struggling to face so many other faces at once, in a matter of seconds
the feeling swelled until it felt her chest would burst with emotion. From her
chest it climbed to her throat, and almost before she knew what was happening,
she was speaking a new language through a flurry of reciprocated whines and yelps.
It was a wild, ancient language spilling from her muzzle—one lived rather than
learned, basic yet proficient, flowing effortlessly as a softly-hummed song. No
fumbling or searching for the right words obstructed her. As her feelings
formed into precise thoughts, she simply
willed
which ones to set free. And out her messages flew.

She could hardly believe it. Even
talking as the wolf was better.

By now the pack was a mass of writhing exuberance,
excitable like puppies, only much,
much
larger. Evie’s quick understanding and subsequent responses had excited them
further, and on all sides of her now she saw many splendidly-muscled bodies
shaking themselves, beginning from the great heads and ending with fanning twists
of their fluffy tails. These seemingly harmless tails lashed other wolves as
well as nearby trees, sounding as dog tails knocking happily against walls or
doors. Small, low-hanging branches stood no chance against the restless movements
of their heavy bodies, while ferns and small underbrush beneath their feet were
quickly trampled to nothingness. But though they shook and celebrated without
restraint, still their crests bristled atop their backs with the tingle of
excitement that they could not shake off. And their collective sounds took on a
heightened pitch, rising in tone in harmony with their elevating mood.