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  “Just a small slip, my love, a momentary lapse in the dark, but what´s a short moment compared to forever?” Gun whispered softly.

  “I have chosen David and a life with him. Please be kind and leave me alone. Just go away,” I begged him.

  “You don't love him, do you?”

  “But I do. You see, you have never understood me.”

  “If I go, you´ll never find out where I took your dear husband and whether he´s still alive.” I knew Gunward was enjoying the situation and grinning like a beast behind my back, so I decided to keep still. Nothing aroused him like a good fight and I had no intention of giving him the smallest cause for anger. I only wanted to know what he had done to David and whether he had hurt him.

  “What do you think he will think when I tell him how willingly you came into my arms? How your body responded to my caresses. You, my love, are mine forever. It has been so since the day you emerged from your mother’s womb. It has always been you,” Gunward whispered.

  I shivered in his arms. I couldn't help remembering how we used to run on the mountains together, the cool night air caressing us. How we had hunted together and enjoyed our freedom, the solitude of wilderness, yet knowing we would never be alone. We would always have each other, forever. My body remembered how well it fitted with Gunward’s, how it had joined with this magnificent creature. It could not have been any other way. I was made to be Gunward’s partner as he was made to be mine. I was meant to carry his litter, which would be like us, shape shifters. But then everything changed.

  Gunward had gone off into the forest alone and wandered too close to a human village. The darkness had reached him. He had sneaked into the village to bring some food for me. A delicious chicken or lamb. But outside the cowshed there had been a little boy. About three years old. The boy had smelled more delicious than anything Gunward had ever hunted before. The child had frozen at the sight of the hunting animal. Then he had broken into a run and Gunward had torn his little body into shreds. Madness in his eyes, he had torn at the child until there was only a bloody mess on the grass. And then, when the beast had had enough of the child’s blood, it had lifted its bloody snout into the air and howled. A victorious and ferocious howl, which other wolves nearby had joined. I could have forgiven it as a momentary lapse in the darkness, but Gunward had gone completely mad. He had never tasted anything so good and he went hunting again. Only after he had killed nine children did the darkness leave his mind and he returned to me.

  But as we were one, I was with him on his gruesome hunts. My mind experienced everything he had, the same craving imprinted into his brain when he tasted a human child. I knew I had to escape. The only way to achieve this was to leave Sweden permanently and to take a form whose mind would be out of Gunward’s reach. I transformed myself into a sparrow hawk and flew into a small forest on the slopes of a nearby fell. I stayed there for days, sheltered by the trees. I struggled deeper into the forest with my little wings. My little heart was hammering in my chest. I felt Gunward’s mind search for me, felt how mad with rage he was. I was lucky that the mind of a bird was too simple for him to find me. My heart quivered and my body ached, as I knew I had lost him forever.

  “Sofia, are you asleep?” Gunward whispered.

  “No, I´m just waiting for you to disappear,” I snapped.

  “I will, once you confess that you belong to me now as you always have.”

  “That day will never come. I´m married to David. You have made your choices like I have made mine. We no longer belong to each other, is that so hard to understand?” I hissed, trying to wriggle out of his grasp

  “You cannot ever belong to anyone else,” Gun barked dangerously and tightened his grip so that I felt a whiff of panic in my mind. He must have felt it too, for he quickly loosened his grip and let me draw slightly away from him. “But I´ve never taken you by force and I won’t do it now. I´m going, but not far. If you really want to, you can find your beloved David in your wine cellar. I locked him in there like a rabbit. Does he know who you really are?” I remained silent.

  “I thought so. Your dear husband might not want to be with you if he knew you are a wolf and no closer to a human than a dog,” Gunward snapped impatiently.

  Gun pushed me aside and got off the bed. I couldn’t help looking at him and as he noticed this he turned his intense golden gaze to me and stretched so luxuriantly that all the muscles in his glorious body tensed. I felt my mouth go dry and I found breathing difficult. His gaze softened to a dangerous tenderness. He came straight in front of me and took me gently by the chin.

  “I love you, Fia.”

  I felt myself sinking into his gaze. How strong the bond between us was. I forced myself to break free of his hold, as I knew that Gunward’s gentleness would melt me down in a mere moment, leaving me totally helpless.

  “If you truly love me, you will leave me alone,” I flared.

  “I would leave you if I could, my love, but I´m bound to you as you are bound to me. I would never hurt you. I came to warn you, because the other shape shifters are not as understanding. They are young and hungry and they think that if you don´t belong to me, you should belong to another male shape shifter. Your place is with our pack. You've been playing your games for long enough, but now it´s your time to take your place as a member of the pack. David is not for you, and you know it.”

  “My children,” I began.

  “No one is going to hurt your children. You are mathair, but your children do not belong among us. Leave them. David will look after them when you return to take your place beside me,” Gunward said in a tone that brooked no opposition.

  “Are you crazy? I will never leave my children! How can you even imagine something like that? You´ve gone completely mad,” I screamed. Gunward grinned boldly.

  “If you will not be mine, the rest of the pack will ensure that you´ll join us one way or another. They’ll pick another male for you. You´re much too valuable for our pack to choose for yourself.”

  “And you would calmly accept another male claiming me?”

  “No, Fia! I will not accept it. I will fight for my place and for you,” Gunward roared with anger.

  “I will more than likely have to humiliate a few younger males until the rest of the pack figures out that you are mine, but I´m prepared to do that. The pack is very strong, though, and I can’t be sure I will manage to keep you for myself. You’d be surprised to know how strong these newcomers are, but I will try to protect you till the end.”

  Tears were already streaming down my face. I loved that magnificent man, but a part of me already belonged firmly with David and I could not leave him and the children. I loved David too. I knew, though, that once Gunward had found me he would always be around and come when I needed him. But I had no wish to torment him. It was time for Gun to continue his journey.

  “Please go,” I whispered. Frustrated, Gunward hit his fist on the wall and pulled his clothes back on.

  “I warned you, Sofia. The other males will chase you without mercy. You are the only female shape shifter who hasn’t yet had a litter. Who wouldn't want to see their lineage continue. So be very careful,” Gunward warned me hoarsely.

  “Will you be close to me, a chroi?” I asked quietly.

  He looked at me intensely with his golden eyes and eventually said, with resignation: “Forever, you know that. I can forgive you this David as I know he only has now with you and I will have forever. Our bond is too strong for me to desert you, even if I wanted to.”

  Gunward's expression hardened for a moment.

  “You humiliated me by leaving me, but you do know that the elders - that includes your parents these days - would never acknowledge your union with a human. I could simply force you to go with me, but I know you would just run away again. I want you to come of your own will and I can wait, so I've decided to stay close by.”

  “Thank you, a chroi,” I said gratefully.

  I firmly believed that as long as
Gunward was on my side, he would protect me and my family. Even if it brought him pain, he would do it, because he truly did love me. He pulled me close and wrapped his mind around mine. Then he gave me a wolfish grin and was gone.

  I felt an overwhelming emptiness. I knew he was right. Any pack of wolves would think my union with David a joke, and a very bad one at that. Wolves were strictly monogamous. They really did stay together till death did them part, and this meant forever in a situation like Gunward’s and mine. Wolves also mated with only one male, so I may well have been the only wolf in history who was separated. A separated wolf with a spouse still alive. Thus, in the eyes of the wolves, I was still as married to Gunward as I had been in 1820.

  CHAPTER 5

  I was born in Norway, in the province of Tromsö on the island of Senja in the year 1818. Our pack was a small one. It consisted mainly of my small family and two of my mother’s brothers. My mother, Faol, and my father, Baz, were both shape shifters. My mother’s family had lived in the moors of Scotland for centuries, but when there were no more shape shifter wolves left, my mother and her brothers had slowly migrated northwards and ended up in Norway, where my mother fell in love with my father. In the usual course of events shape shifters would mate with their own kind, but occasionally a shape shifter wolf fell in love with an ordinary wolf, and slowly the number of shape shifters diminished. Cubs from matings between shape shifters and ordinary wolves showed no signs of being able to transform, and the shape shifters had to migrate farther away from their home ranges to look for their likes in other packs.

  My mother’s brothers were wolves of this kind. They had both fallen in love with ordinary wolves and when their spouses had fallen victim to hunters, they had become widowers. When my mother decided to leave Scotland in 1610, her brothers gladly followed her. Farkas and Gur were both magnificent large males. Their fur was clean white and soft, their bodies muscular and strong. Their yellow eyes were set well apart from each other, and slanted. They were about 1.5 meters tall and weighed some 75-80 kilos. Both were extremely dangerous, even though when looking at them play with me and my brothers, one would have thought one was observing large household dogs at play. But I had seen them change in a flash from kind uncles to killers who protected our pack from danger. All my mother’s family had been killed by 1743, and my mother refused to return to Scotland. My father’s family was the only family I knew, and even that for only a short while, because when I was a year and a half of age I fell in love with Gunward and migrated with him to Sweden. We wandered to the Sarek national park in northern Sweden, as this was where his small pack lived. The pack consisted of a few shape shifters and three of their offspring, who were unable to change. Sarek was an absolutely fabulous place. Even though I had loved Senja, Sarek with its stark beauty made me breathless. The unspoiled wilderness seemed to stretch forever. Wherever you looked, you could see breathtakingly beautiful mountains and valleys. The rivers ran wild and, best of all, there were no other packs of wolves living there. The hatred towards wolves was even worse in Sweden than in Norway, but this small group of shape shifters had managed to stay alive due to their unique skills, and although the pack included mortal wolves at times, their shape shifter relatives managed to hide their tracks within moments. I had never met a more tolerant pack.

  Gunward, as the strongest male, was the unchallenged alpha male and I was accepted as the alpha female without question. The pack included Gunward’s sister Gormal and her partner Anndra, who were not shape shifters. This didn't stop Gormal trying to shift, as she couldn't understand why she was unable to change her form when her brother was one of the most powerful shape shifter wolves of all time. Gormal’s attempts might have provoked ridicule, but her desperate trying and her sadness at her constant failure caught on to us, and thus her attempts mostly left us feeling thoroughly depressed. Anndra had accepted his fate a long time ago and had no heart to stop Gormal from trying. He stood by his spouse to the best of his ability, though it was hard at times.

  The third mortal wolf of the group was Iosaph, who had managed to wander to Sarek from Russia. The old wolf’s coat had already shaded to grey and even though he was not the alpha of the pack, everybody respected his experience and listened to him carefully. The two youngest males of the group were shape shifters who had wanted to follow Gunward and Gormal after leaving the old pack. Pol and Nial were boisterous and sometimes played head-spinning tricks, to the extent that Gunward had to reprimand them sternly lest they endanger the whole pack. No one had the heart to be angry with them for long, though, because when they set their minds to it they could look laughably miserable. It seemed that these males had, with an unspoken consensus, agreed to share the title of omega in the pack.

  Gunward had noticed already when he was a cub of a few months that he could change his shape. A taste for experimentation had honed his skills of shape shifting to a unique level and he had acquired the skill at such a young age that it had become a part of his personality. Gunward was, without argument, one of the strongest shape shifters who had ever lived and also one of the most ambitious. As a three-year-old mature male, he felt his own pack of mortal wolves was not enough for him and he decided to leave it. Gormal, his sister, decided to go with him. No member of Gunward’s birth pack knew any other shape shifters, but they had heard there might be some specimens in northern Norway. Gunward had decided to find himself a spouse who was as strong a shape shifter as him and whose skills of transformation were exceptional.

  Gormal warned him that this mission could prove to be impossible, but Gunward appeared obsessed with finding a female shape shifter. Gunward and Gormal were wandering at the western border of Sweden when they came upon a pack of six male wolves. Hunters had taken down the two females of the pack, and the males were heartbroken. One of the males, Anndra, took an interest in Gormal and they became a couple. Gunward felt a strange bond with the younger males of the group. The young ones were about a year old, but Gunward recognized something of himself in them. Gunward and his sister spent the whole summer with them.

  The love between Gormal and Anndra grew stronger and Gunward figured out the secret of the young males. Both Pol and Nial were shape shifters, but their ability was very weak. They could change from wolf into dog, fox, or coyote, but they couldn't remain in their changed forms for longer than a year. When summer turned into autumn, Gunward decided that it was time to continue their journey. Anndra and the young males wanted to join Gunward’s pack, and at the end, three other males from the pack decided to migrate to Dalarna to find a new pack; a pack that also included females. Gunward and his pack meant to travel to northern Norway, but winter came early that year and the wolves had to settle temporarily in the Sarek national park in northern Sweden.

  Sarek’s wild, untamed nature enchanted the wolves and they decided to settle there permanently. When spring came, a restlessness took hold of Gunward and he decided to go to Norway alone. There were not many wolves in northern Norway, but the few that Gunward met told him about the strong pack of shape shifters living on the island of Senja. Gunward wandered into Senja and settled down close to the mountain range of Breitinden.

  His patience paid off, as a few days later I literally ran into him in the forest. I had never met such an extraordinary male wolf. All my senses urged me to run away, but my feet refused to obey me. The wolf stared challengingly into my eyes and I saw a demand in his golden brown eyes. He was the largest wolf I had ever seen. His coat was dark brown, nearly black, and shone in the sun. He wrinkled his muzzle so his white incisors came into full view. I should have been terrified, but I could have sworn he was not threatening me but rather being curious and smiling at me. My senses told me to trust this huge, magnificent male and I decided to see how good his nerves were. There, in front of the brown black beast, I shifted into a beautiful young woman, with hair the color of my magnificent coat, a light golden brown and naturally curly. My body was slender and beautiful and my golden eyes were filled with la
ughter.

  I was absolutely certain the wolf would run away and I nearly choked when he transformed into a handsome young man, whose dark shoulder-length hair was exactly the color of his coat, and his eyes - his eyes were indeed the challenging golden brown eyes of the wolf! I drew a sharp breath. Unbelievable! I didn't know there were other shape shifters nearby, besides my pack. Shouldn't I have sensed the skill in him at once, the moment we met? The man grinned boldly and pulled me close. He kissed me roughly on the mouth and my mind went blank. Every cell in me, every part of my body responded to that kiss. My body was screaming for his touch and I entwined myself with him tightly, yearning for more. I had waited for this moment from my birth and, I knew, so had he. We fitted perfectly. I knew that from that moment on, my life was tied to his, whether we wanted it or not. And we really wanted it. From the first touch on it was difficult to keep our hands off each other and we found ourselves gorging on each other. We touched and kissed in wonder and only the wolf rules of propriety stopped us from coupling right there on the wet moss. Every touch brought such enormous pleasure that I could do nothing but sigh with contentment. We laughed and basked in our newborn love. We needed no words, as our senses had now opened to each other and we shared each other’s minds. Our thoughts ran between us as if moved by a gentle breath of air.