Chapter One

Sweat rolled down my face as I shot up from the bare patch of ground I used as a bed. My black hair was plastered to my golden skin and I knew my golden-brown eyes must've looked wild in the early dawn's light. I hadn't had a good night's rest for over two years. It all started that one damned night on the hunting trip with father. The biggest wolf I had ever seen attacked our camp, shredded my father's body, and wrapped its jaws around my waist.

Soon after my sister and I put our father in the ground, I felt the moons calling to me for the first time. I had no idea what was happening to my body. Parts of that night are engraved into my memory forever. Other parts I can't recall regardless of how hard I try; most likely I wouldn't want to remember what happened.

I can remember storming out of the house in a rage at some small comment my frustrating sister said. I could feel my blood pumping to every fiber of my being. As I stood outside, I could hear the voices in the houses around me in Gweden Village. It was so loud that I could feel a headache coming on and it only added to the intense emotions building within me. I became so enraged at the noise that I kicked a barrel of salted fish over and ran into the woods.

As soon as my feet began crunching the leaves, my mind felt better. However, my body grew even tenser. It wasn't my nerves anymore; my muscles began to bunch and my intestines felt as if they were shifting under my skin. I continued to move further into the woods and soon began to rip my own clothes off to ease the pain. Then I fell onto all fours because my feet could no longer hold me. I looked at my hands and they appeared to be deformed and were changing in front of my eyes.

I blacked out soon afterwards and can now only recall flashes. I remember running on all fours. I remember the taste of blood in my mouth. I remember waking up nude in the forest. The next morning I found my clothes at the edge of the woods near the village and then I walked straight to the pub.

After months of me drinking and constantly being on edge, even my once a month hunting trips – which happened to coincide with the time of the full moons – couldn't convince my sister to let me stay in the house anymore. She finally kicked me out after I hit her across the face during a heated argument. I grabbed my hunting gear and began walking through the forest. I knew I deserved it, but I didn't want to admit it to her or even myself.

I walked as far from civilization as I could and when my legs couldn't carry me any further, I threw down my things and undressed. I didn't walk on two legs again for three weeks. I tracked bears and I shredded man and mer alike. When I finally returned to my Altmer form, I walked to Anvil and sated my other appetites at the local inn.

I remained at the Count's Arms when I had the coin and slept on benches when I didn't. I picked up odd jobs to try and get by. I learned how to take down pray in a way that kept the skin in good condition and made most of my coin selling pelts. However, I still had a drinking issue and at one point even picked up a skooma habit in order to hide from the change. It helped keep the need to change into beast form at bay, but I soon realized the urges it caused could be arguably worse. The throes of withdraw sent me into my beast form and I ran from Anvil as a wolf.

This change was nearly as bad as my first, except this time I could remember it all. I took down man and beast that crossed my path. Day and night began to blur together and I lost track of how long I stayed in beast form. Finally, one morning I woke up in my sweaty flesh and I found myself nude in the dirt. Across from me sat a tiny, blonde Bosmer woman adorned in animal skins with a bear head hood.

"First change?" She asked in a harder voice than I had expected to come from such a soft face. She tossed me some deer hide to cover myself with.

"What do you know of it?" I asked gruffly. She pointed to the scar that stretched across my abdomen and then lifted her animal skins to reveal a similar scar that wrapped around her thigh.

I nod to her in acknowledgment that we share the same curse and then grunt, "No."

"Then you really owe me for cleaning up that mess you made. You should know better than to leave a trail of bodies behind. Even if you don't live in these parts, you shouldn't screw it up for the rest of us." When I only grunted my apologies, she continued, "Do you know they put out a bounty for a werewolf in Anvil? Am I wrong to assume that was you?"

"I've been going through some…difficulties," I tried to shake off her questions as I wrapped the skin she provided around my waist.

"If you don't get over it soon you'll have the Companions down off their mountain onto all of our hides."

"The who?"

"Seriously? How long have you been a wolf for?"

"How is it any of your damn business?" I snap.

"Obviously not long enough to get control of your emotions," she muttered. "Do you do this sort of rampage-and-kill-all-the-villagers thing often?"

I took a deep breath trying to calm myself. I couldn't stop the growl that came from my throat as I said, "No."

"I can smell the lie on you. Are you a drunk?" She asked, tilting her head to the side in question. "Skooma addict?"

"Thanks for the furs, thanks for the help, now get lost!" I shouted at the small elf.

"I think I better stick around," she purred challengingly. "If you skooma-wolf again I'll have to put you down. I can't have the Companions coming down here. There's too much on the line."

Curiosity got the better of me and I asked, "What's on the line?"

"Oh, let's see here…my life for starters. The Companions are a bunch of ice-veined Nords who believe any wolf outside of their precious Circle is a feral dog. When our kind is at risk of being exposed by, oh say, a skooma-wolf like you, they'll descend from their damned frozen peaks in Skyrim and exterminate all werewolves in the area simply for fun."

"They sound like a jolly bunch," I muttered.

"Again I ask, how have you not heard of them? Wait…" She stood up and stalked towards me, reminding me more of a hunting saber cat rather than a wolf. She placed her body uncomfortably close to mine and looked up into my eyes. I couldn't help but avoid eye contact with her unsettling black Bosmer eyes. She was very short, barely coming up to my chest. She grabbed my long chin with nimble fingers and forced me to look at her, "Am I the first wolf you've met?"

"Of course not," I said defensively. The tiny, ferocious woman made me uncomfortable and I didn't want her to view any of my weaknesses.

"Lie. You need to stop doing that. I can smell it!" She hissed. "How long since you were bitten?"

I realized resistance was futile. She wasn't going to let me out of her sight until the skooma withdrawals – which were beginning to set in again – were completely over, and she wasn't going to let me get through it in silence. "Two years. It was a hunting trip. It killed my father," I said it all in a blank monotone, not wanting to dwell on the pain that still came up when I thought about it.

"Two years and no one to help you? How did you know anything?"

Trying to ignore the shaking in my hands, I explained, "Books. The first semi-sober day I had after my first change, I traveled to Anvil and scoured their libraries."

"Seriously?" She tilted her head in question again and then shook it pityingly. I didn't want to be pitied. I wanted to stand up for myself – anything not to look weak – but sweat had started pouring down my face and my muscles began to cramp up.

Seeing the changes in my demeanor, the woman turned her back and grabbed something behind a large rock. She rolled out bedding and said, "Here, lie down. I'll go fill my water skin for you. Don't you dare change while I'm gone. I won't hesitate to put you down."

I did as I was told and when she returned with the water, she poured some over my head before offering it to me to drink. Some point during this time of withdrawal, before I passed out from pain and exhaustion, she told me her name was Lilissandra.