Chapter 1: Waking Up Was A Bad Idea

A/N: This is my very first attempt at fan fiction and I really hope you like it. Suggestions, constructive criticisms are most welcome. Let me know if you find typos and/or grammatical errors.

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Myra's POV

I opened my eyes and saw dim sunlight filtering through the dense canopy above me. It was early morning; the fresh dew on the grass I lay on told me so. For a split second I was comforted to see the forest around me but then I realised these weren't the forests that surrounded my cabin on the outskirts of New York.

Instead of oaks, birches and beeches I was being watched over by pine trees. Huge pines too. The dark green color of pine needles occupied my vision. All I could smell around me were pines.

Where the hell am I?

My head started throbbing painfully as soon as I lifted my head and tried to get up. I fell back twice trying to get up. Clearly the ground had fallen in love with me and didn't want to let me go. Neither did the fallen pine needles as they stuck to my hair.

While I waited for the pain in my head to stop I decided to make my hands useful and started to remove twigs, dirt and of course, pine needles from my hair and clothes.

The throbbing finally dulled and I looked around me. My rucksack and guitar case were by my feet. I was in unfamiliar surroundings and seeing my trusty old rucksack and my beloved guitar was a relief. I tried to remember the night before but I drew a blank.

I considered the probability of going to some wild frat party and maybe taking drugs by mistake but my immune system could easily fight that. Being a werewolf is awesome like that.

The other explanation that came to me was kidnapping. But then, why would a kidnapper leave their victim out in the open? Apart from my head, nothing hurt and neither were there signs of wear and tear.

I unzipped my blue rucksack and started to rummage through it to see what all I had the good sense to store in it. Maybe the contents would help me recollect the night before.

In the front zip, nestled among what seemed like a hundred chocolate wrappers, was my iPhone in its Avengers case. Never before had I been more grateful for that cuboidal metal device. I guess waking up among gigantic sweet smelling trees does that to you.

As much as I wanted to envelope my ears in my electric blue Beats headphones and get lost in the hits by Stone Sour, Pink Floyd, Eagles and Breaking Benjamin, I couldn't. I needed all my senses on high alert in this pine paradise.

First, however, I checked the date and time. According to my phone, it was a Tuesday on the 20th of September and the time was 5:21 a.m. Yup, I must have been on my way to the city. How exactly I got so far up north to be surrounded by pines was a mystery.

I went on going through the zips and pockets and patted myself for always keeping a variety of stuff in there. A lot of it was the general junk you'd expect to find with a 67 year old doing very well at pretending to be a 23 year old music-loving, future journalist; a thick journal, almost drained laptop, pens of pretty much every colour, magazines, books, travel guides to places I'd never been and probably never will, drumsticks with my initials on them, empty water bottle, Pringles, MMs, and obviously, a whole lot of Hershey's chocolate bars.

But there were some essential essentials too. Like my hair brush, a few changes of clothes and petroleum jelly. I've never liked the colourful lip balms which never last the 6 hours they claim to.

Moving on to my guitar case, I was satisfied to see my sunburst acoustic guitar completely unharmed.

Seeing the jeans, red checked shirt and sneakers I wore, along with the books, notebooks, guitar and change of clothes I had with me, I came to the conclusion that I must have been on my way to my cabin in the woods for the weekend or maybe back to the dorm from the cabin after the weekend.

Hell, I couldn't even remember the day of the week! Let alone trying to remember the freak accident that landed me in a goddamn pine forest.

Being alone with my thoughts made me realize my head was full of just me. Where were the thoughts and voices of the pack always there in the back of my head like irritating white noise? As much as I hated it, I missed having the assurance that the pack would be there for me no matter what.

Pushing these never-felt-before feelings aside, I wore my bag and slung the guitar case on my right shoulder and decided it was high time I got back to my cabin in familiar woods and curled up in front of a nice fire.

I took a big risk and lowered my mental defences to scan the area. It's like a sonar scan of sorts, I guess. You open your consciousness in a specific area. When you do this, you can feel the consciousness of every living being around you, even if they are not aware of it themselves.

The slow, sleepy presence of trees, the smallest ant scurrying around to collect food, the lazy hedgehog settling in for a nap, the sharp hawk swooping down to grab its prey. Of course, this forest just couldn't be normal like that.

The animals were pretty normal but the trees were relatively aware. What's more, I could detect some kind of spells used on them. On each and every one of them. Clearly the people around here were accomplished wizards.

I noticed something else too. I couldn't detect any kind of magic signature. Whenever a wizard casts any kind of a spell it leaves behind a signature, like a fingerprint. Everyone's signature is unique. Also, these spells felt different.

Mysterious, powerful and utterly secretive wizards. Great. Just what I needed. After all waking up on the ground adorned with dirt, twigs and pine needles, surrounded by huge pine trees, without the assurance of the pack by my side, just wasn't enough.

I was about to retract back into my mind when I felt another presence. It was unlike any human or animal I'd ever felt before. It was very well defended but again, it felt different from the protected minds I was used to.

It seemed complex, to say the least. But also incredibly intriguing. It pulsed with quiet strength. Like the sea, calm but with the potential for ruthless destruction.

I panicked and retreated to my mind and hoped the wizard didn't notice. But how could that ever happen? After all, fate was jealous of my long, dark brown hair and had taken a pledge not to be kind to me and so the wizard did notice.

Isn't that simply awesome? What was I thinking anyway?

As soon as I withdrew my mind I caught a scent. I was pretty sure it was the wizard's. It was intensely musky, much like the wolves in the pack, and it brought to my mind memories of comfort and good times. And it was coming closer. Fast.

It was definitely that wizard. Even though I was going to try to make the encounter peaceful, so I may be able to get some help from the wizard about my whereabouts and how to get back home, I still phased into my hybrid form.

Thick but soft and glossy black fur covered my skin. My bones stretched and elongated along with my muscles which grew bigger and my normally-human-looking canines on my upper and lower jaw became longer, thicker and much sharper.

I knew my eyes had become larger and were now a liquid golden, as they always did when I was I my hybrid form. The nails on my hands and feet grew and became deadly claws.

Thankfully, I had the good sense to take off my shoes before phasing so they were not destroyed as my hands and feet grew to a larger size with better grip. The same couldn't be said for my jeans and shirt though.

Your height increases by an average of 4-5 inches when you change into your hybrid form so my jeans now came up to my calves and my shirt exposed part of my belly. My senses, though already sharp being a werewolf, became even more sensitive now.

This transformation barely took two seconds but I grimaced as it still hurt just as much as it did the first time I ever shifted into my hybrid form.

A few seconds later I could hear footsteps which I would otherwise not hear. That is how light and fast they were. Soon enough, the wizard was standing in front of me. Barely 6 feet away. As expected, he was definitely not human.

In my hybrid form I was about 6'2" but this guy still seemed to be a bit taller than me. He was lean but muscular. He had dark, bluish black hair that came above his elbows. He only wore a white, embroidered loincloth wrapped around his thighs and waist. Shockingly, like me, he had fur all over him, except that his fur had a bluish tinge like his hair and had claws only on each of his middle fingers.

The most surprising feature were his eyes; yellow, beautiful, mesmerizing and staring right into my soul.

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A/N: Really hope you liked that. I'll be posting the next chapter in week or so.

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Update 26/1/17: Right, so, I have decided to rewrite this story from scratch. Not going to bore you with the details. If you do want details however, I will be happy to vent it all in a PM.

For my old readers, hang on a little bit longer and bear with me. This is all for the betterment of the story. The most major changes in the story are that Myra's age is now 67 years and Blödhgarm is a little over 100 years old.