"Embrace of the Wolven"
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A fanfiction story based on the canceled TV series, "Wolf Lake"
Disclaimers : I make no claims to the ownership of the rights to Wolf Lake, in any form. I'm simply having fun with what was left to us by the creators after they cast the series off. I am gaining no profit in doing this project or any other fanfic, except that which benefits and flatters my author ego… In other words, reviews!!!
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Author's Note – Hey everybody! I'm BACK!! Did ya miss me???
Well, here it is. The first part to my awaited new WL series, and sequel to "Welcome To Wolf Lake". (REMEMBER: This story has NOTHING to do with my Virtual Continuation. This is a completely fresh idea of taking the story left to us by the original series.) As usual, I'm very nervous about beginning a new series, so reviews are anxiously required to reassure me that I'm on the right track!
This will be primarily a L/S fic. There will be a bit of Ruby and John, but only because I couldn't force myself to just completely write them out of the storyline… Even so, as it is, I'll be keeping them down to a minimum…
This will pick up where the last ep. of the tv series left us, with Sophia's Flip bearing down on her.
This fic will be darker, and noticeably very erotic and angsty, in comparison to my other WL story. Thus the reason for the higher rating.
I've been looking forward to getting started on this story, and thus returning to the Wolf Lake genre, but despite my absence from it, I've still been pretty busy since the conclusion of my Continuation of Season One of WL… I've done stories for 24, John Doe, and two for Andromeda. I finally finished "Black Fire"(my E:FC series) and I redid my Birds of Prey fic "A Bittersweet Pain", as well as the prequel to "Black Fire" entitled "If Only For One Night"
I'm also the proud co-author of a spectacular "Dune" fanfic series. Considered primarily a sequel to the epic Sci-Fi mini-series "Children of Dune" (which I COMPLETELY fell in love with!) This story is entitled "The Forked Golden Path", and you can find it in the genre listing for "Dune" in the "Books" category if you are interested in reading it.
I will be beginning the Virtual Second Season in a few more weeks… and that is all I'm going to say at this moment. My main priority right now is this story. Please respect that.
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Thanks go to Lady Lioness, Ashione, Nightwriter2, and Surya for being my "critics" of this first chapter. They really helped reassure me that this chapter was ready to be posted, and that I had accomplished my desired effect… You guys were absolutely wonderful, and I'm humbled to consider you my friends. Lots of love to each and every one of you!!
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"Welcome To My World…And Watch Your Step…"
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Summary – As her wolven nature viciously fights to rise to the surface, and Luke's feral desires begin to incinerate them both within the ancient initiating embrace of their kind, Sophia desperately attempts to escape the hungers of her own body… and the one who will never let her go…
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Chapter One~*~
Shadows assaulted her. Light burned through her. Brief visions of incomprehensible images fell one after another in a constant but dizzying torrent like the shards of broken memories, as she saw them all with a pair of eyes that were not her own. At least not yet.
Wolves surrounded her. Swamping her. Swallowing her. Submerging her within their embrace. Welcoming her. Choking her. Holding her. Saving her. Killing her. She couldn't escape them. No matter which direction she turned, they were there. Depriving her of a place of security where she was safe from the pull of their seductive power.
They were finished with waiting. They wanted to taste her. Experience her. Whether she was willing or not, they would take her. She was theirs. She belonged to them…
They would do whatever they had to in order to keep her.
Heated fur – grey, black, brown, red – brushed against her naked skin like the personal caress of a lover… Cool tongues licked across her body like the brush of flickering flames, even as she struggled frantically through their masses. Desperately craving for air that wasn't thick with the cloying, feral smell of the forest that clung to the hundreds of their bodies. The signature scent of the Pack.
And they were drowning her in it. Coating her with it. Pulling her under. Rubbing it into her very skin till she smelled just like them. Was just like them. The only difference was that she was still human, while all of them were wrapped up in the wildness of their pelts.
But they knew how to change that, came the whispers… They knew how to change her. How to make her one of them… And suddenly with the knowledge of what they were planning to do, her heart, already pulsing so loudly in her ears, began to pound frantically in fear.
She tried to fight them. She pushed and pulled away. Twisting. Writhing in an attempt to escape their swarming forms. But there was always another furry body to hold her captive within their circle as they herded her forcefully towards a new destination. Flinging their forms into the backs of her legs and the small of her back when she tried to hold her ground. Forcing her to either move, or be knocked to the fog-coated earth beneath her bare feet. She didn't want to fall. She knew if she did, they would descend on her and all sight and sound would forever be rubbed out by the hard press of their furred, wolven forms.
She didn't want to know what would happen then. Whether they killed her, or claimed her as one of their own… maybe it was just death either way.
So she went in the direction that they wanted her to go. Heart in her throat… Reluctantly placing one foot in front of the other. Helpless against their combined force.
And then, from out of the mass, a single form rose slowly in front of her. Standing on two feet instead of four. Tendrils of fog clinging to the pale yet beautiful skin that swathed his body once more as he shed his silver and grey fur. Familiar aqua green eyes replacing the gold, set in a face whose lines she knew as intimately as her own, yet strangely, he seemed older…different. Harder. Yet more stunning. Hair the color of honey and longer than she remembered, glittered in the glow of the moon above and falling over the shadowed planes of his forehead.
She should have felt calmed by his presence. She didn't. Something wasn't right here, and somehow she knew he was responsible.
The surrounding wolves fell away. Leaving her suddenly and strangely bereft and cold without the warming yet disconcerting crush of their bodies. She looked around her at them as they formed a loose but constantly moving circle about twenty feet away. Their strange eyes never leaving the pair that they had brought together.
She felt it then. The insidious whispers brushing against the inside of her mind like the stroke of the finest of wings. Each one leaving behind the faintest crack in her resolve. Each one striving deeper and deeper to hit upon something far more intimate than just her mind.
/Join us… Run with us… Give yourself to us…Give yourself to him…/
Suddenly unable to catch her breath, she swung her head back to look at the one in front of her… and in the depths of those familiar green eyes she saw a hunger as elemental as time itself, and just as old. It burned there with the presence of a thousand fires. It confirmed her fears.
She knew then, as she gazed upon that burning, that if she let him touch her, than those fires would overwhelm her. Burn her up. Consume her. Own her. She would never be free from it. From him.
She heard what those voices whispered to him… saw their messages reflecting back at her in the frightening depths of those eyes. They were urging him to bring her to them. Promising her to him. Pressing him to take her. Claim her. Make her one of them once and for all.
And he would… and she would be unable to stop him.
Shaking her head in a movement that felt like she was sinking in quicksand, she backed away, and then turned abruptly off to the side and tried to dart away. Not caring which direction she went, so long as she escaped him.
But she had forgotten about the wolves…
They fell upon her, tripping her, taking her to ground… Air currents swirling in almost freezing traces around her as she landed on her back in the thick carpet of moss and soft underbrush. The breath knocked from her lungs.
The wolves swarmed over her. They blocked out all traces of the moonlight just as she had known they would. Opening her mouth, she tried to scream again, only to have the sound swallowed up in the heavy, muffling press of their suffocating bodies.
She had never known such fear.
She couldn't move, couldn't rise. They kept her body pressed firmly into the musk-scented ground. Trapping her there... Holding her for him… Waiting…
And he came... Crawling sinuously on all fours towards her. At some times his moments were slow. At other times shifting faster than was humanly possible. Body consorting smoothly in such a way, that she knew he carried muscles in places that no mere mortal would ever have. He looked like the creature he was.
The wolves around them parted away like the spill of water as he was suddenly leaning over her. Trapping her beneath his weight. Now the one holding her captive with nothing more than the aggressive press of his body against her own.
He rose above her. Straddling her. Eyes intense. Muscles along his shoulders and chest rippling under his naked skin as they flexed slightly. His hands gathering up her wrists before she had a chance to struggle and pinned possessively above her head. His message clear.
She couldn't escape them. Escape him… Not now. Not ever.
Part of her was screaming… but another part… another part was stirring. Awakened from its slumber... Called by the promise shining so brightly in those glowing, inhuman eyes… and by the scent of the wolves pressing close yet again. Shadows caused by their anxious forms flitting across her peripheral vision. But she didn't look at them. Her gaze was ensnared by the one above her, and she couldn't turn away.
And that was when she felt him touch her. But not with his physical form. He touched her with his mind. And with his mind, he touched places within her body that he had no permission – but frighteningly every right – to touch…
He shattered her control with that one touch... Leaving her vulnerable to the overpowering arousal that was suddenly welling up from within her. Slamming back into her depths with an almost penetrable force. Staking its claim on her very soul as liquid fire roared throughout her veins and pooled deep within the tightening she felt beginning between her thighs.
And then the wolves descended upon her – them – again as if suddenly summoned by some unseen or unheard command. Drawn by the innocent scent of the budding heat within her.
They pooled over their bodies in a constant flow. Taking away her vision almost completely as they brushed up against her naked sides. He kept the force of their weight off of her, so she wouldn't be crushed by them, but still… He welcomed their presence, even as he sheltered her.
She expected any moment that the feeling of fur would shift to that of yet more skin, and the air would become thick with the intoxicating smell of the magic of the transformation…and then the entire pile would become some type of feral orgy with her trapped at its core… with him staring down at her like some dark prince, with those eyes that saw far more into her soul than she would have ever wanted them to see… The invitation to join him – join them – was clear.
She felt that overwhelming fear rise again. Choking in her throat, and dueling with the desire…She fought him now. Nails raking down the muscled skin of his chest and forearms as she struggled with his unforgiving strength. Desperate to get away from the wolves. From him. From what they both represented. From what they all were…
But he wouldn't let her up. His desire was the Clan's desire. The Clan's will was his will…
He was one of them… And he wanted the same part of her that they wanted. The same part of her that she did not want to give them…
The same part of her that she now understood he would take by any means necessary...
And the same part of her that was tied so irrevocably to him.
He lowered himself over her, covering her. His body pressing more firmly into hers until her struggles became hopeless. She could feel the moisture of his own blood running over her skin from where she had cut him, and she felt an insane moment of regret that she had marked up the perfection of his beautiful skin, and then an even more frightening moment when she felt such a wanton desire to drop her head down to where she had sliced him, and lick the wounds clean…
But then her thoughts fell away, as entire world became one of not thoughts, but of senses, as she was completely, helplessly, hopelessly, lost to the sea of warm, living fur pressing in on them from every direction and those glowing eyes just inches from her own. Glowing eyes that she found herself sinking further and further into until she felt as if she was swimming in the depths of that golden fire, and forever caught within the embrace of the Pack… And then his lips were pressing into hers, and his tongue was slipping between her lips and into her mouth in a rasping caress that sent her instinctively pressing her lower body into his and a small gasp from her throat. Which earned a strange rumbling growl in response. A sound that had no business coming from such a human – but yet not – form.
The wolves began to howl triumphantly. Filling her ears with the sound of their haunting, timeless song… and even as hopelessness and throbbing fear still rode out deep inside her body – at war with the ever increasing and traitorous desire that he had summoned from within her – she felt an answering call… this one coming unwittingly from some deep recess inside of her that had heard the sound… and responded to it.
It was her wolf…
…And he was awakening it…
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Jerking awake, Sophia shot up into a sitting position in her bed. Eyes glazed in shock and momentary disorientation. Ragged breaths that cut through the complete stillness of the room like a knife. Echoing the intense beat of her heart pounding hard enough in her chest to shake her entire body, as it fought off the unwanted sensations of the dream. Unable to control the violent tremors that were racing through her muscles. Echoes of the adrenaline that was still coursing so strongly within her veins.
Sweat beaded on her burning skin. Causing her thin camisole to stick uncomfortably to her chest and back, and the moisture to pool in the hollows at the center of her collarbone and between her breasts. Chasing across the small of her back, and dipping between her thighs and the tender area behind her knees.
Dark, half-wild eyes darted around her incomprehensibly. For the moment, still locked within the overwhelming sensations that the dream had invoked in her. Unsure of where exactly she was, or if what she had just experienced had been dream or reality… if she was truly alone, or if there were wolves lurking in the dark shadows shifting about the room…
But she wasn't in the woods… hell, she wasn't even in another's bed. She was at home. In her own bed. No one was with her… She had nothing to be afraid of…
But then the earlier memories of this same eventful night came flooding back, and she realized that she suddenly had everything to be afraid of.
The moments that had come after she had attacked Luke for interrupting her date with Scott, were blurry at best. Clouded by fear and the unfamiliar and untrained senses that tended to get in the way and cause everything to sort of run together. She vaguely remembered going to her father, and him taking her home… whispering endearments all the while… Promising her that everything was going to be okay… She was going to be just fine…
She wasn't going to be fine. Nothing about what had happened tonight was fine.
She had tried to ignore what had been happening to her body of late. Her inability to sleep, her restlessness, her increasing sense of sight and smell and hearing… and her visions. And the way her eyes glowed afterwards.
But this… what she had done tonight… She couldn't ignore it like she had everything else, and hope that it would just go away.
She couldn't just pretend that it hadn't happened, when others had witnessed it... When Luke had seen it himself, and who knew how many others that might have been out on that street at that time had seen it as well.
By this time tomorrow, she doubted highly that there would not be a single one of the Others who wouldn't know about what had transpired tonight. It was just too good a piece of gossip for it not to circulate fast.
No… there was no way she was getting away from the subject of her awakening duel nature this time. It was strange… just a week ago, she had been all too willing to accept it. To welcome the Change… but now, after seeing Luke with Presley…
She had tried to stamp it all out of her mind. To forget how invigorating she had felt at various times throughout the last month… she had tried to stamp out the memory of Luke Cates' eyes, with that of a pair who were all too human.
She had made the decision to leave all of that behind, for a chance at a normal human life with a normal human guy… One who could never get under her skin like he had done, and then crush her heart so completely.
And it had been wonderful… The entire date had been wonderful… Scott was nothing like Luke. He didn't challenge her, press her, make demands of her… he didn't unnerve her or confuse her. He didn't use her. He was exactly what she had needed. A break from the madness that surrounded this town.
But then Luke had shown up, his motives still so unclear… and everything had gone to hell once more. Slamming her unmercifully with the cold hard truth that 'normal' just simply wasn't in the cards that had been dealt to her.
Still… the strength had been incredible. Awesome. Extreme. It had filled her veins to the bursting point. Till she had felt like she could take on anything or anyone. Like she could run for miles and not even have to draw in one single breath... It had been unbelievable… Incomprehensible...
And it had proven to her just how inhuman she was becoming. This… this, she couldn't ignore. Couldn't pretend that it hadn't happened. The Otherness was awakening inside of her. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.
But that wasn't what had really frightened her… What had really sent her fleeing from both Scott and Luke, was the two completely different expressions that had graced their shocked features. One had been of complete disbelief and fear… the other of incredible satisfaction. Joy. Acceptance.
Scott, who she had chosen to be with, had been terrified at what she had done. By his standards, a biological impossibility.
Luke, who she had turned away from, had been thrilled. The look in his eyes had been filled with dark promise. He had stared directly into the soul of her Otherness, and he had welcomed it with open arms.
Finally releasing her death grip on the sides of her mattress, she flexed her stiff fingers and slowly sank back down onto the mattress. Having finally caught her breath from having been startled awake so badly. She stared up at the familiar ceiling above her… and was immediately assaulted by the vivid memories of her dream. Of having her back crushed into the soft moss and ferns, of him above her… Against her…
Moaning softly under her breath, she rather viciously jack-knifed off her mattress as she tried to escape the sensory flashback, and tumbled to the rough carpet. Hitting it on her hands and knees. Causing a spill of sheets to crumple with her… twisting around her legs.
Kneeling there, swathed in darkness, she curled her body into a ball. Resting on her shins, with her fingers threaded through her long sweat dampened hair. Pressing into the back of her skull as if desperately attempting to bloke out the realistic flow of memories. When that didn't work, she wrapped her arms tightly around her ribcage, and rocked slightly. Still shivering, but it wasn't stemming from being too cold. At least not physically.
The dream had been so frighteningly real. She could still smell the scent of the Clan. Still taste the flavor of Luke mouth… still feel the echoes of desire pooling in her veins… still feel the knot of fear in the back of her throat…
Now she understood why her father had wanted to save her from this world. Now she understood why he had wanted her to stay away from Luke.
But that understanding had come just a little too late.
Suddenly tensing, she turned her head towards her windows and the silver moonlight pouring through them, but her eyes were unseeing. She was listening.
She heard it again. The lone howling of a single male wolf. The cry was haunting. Beautiful. Ethereal. It sent a shiver down her spine, even as it raised chills under the surface of her skin.
She knew whose cry it was. Knew it as surely as she knew the sound of his voice. He was nearby… and he was inviting her to come out and join him under the beauty of the night with the promise of his song.
It wasn't until she found herself almost rising to her feet in order to walk across the flooring of her bedroom, that she recognized the allure for what it was, and sat back on her heels. Body anchored to the carpet, and nails digging fiercely into her palms where the rested on top of her thighs. Eyes never leaving the window.
//…Come with me…//
An incoherent sound escaped Sophia's throat as she heard his words whisper deep inside her mind like the brush of fur against skin. That part of her wanted to reach for him, but she wouldn't let it. She felt it stirring beneath the surface again for the second time that night, called by the seduction of his presence…
But she wouldn't release it. She had a mental image of it snarling viciously at her in defiance and betrayal. Lunging against the thick leashes of control she had it anchored to. Not understanding why she wouldn't let it loose when the both so obviously wanted the same thing.
Closing her eyes, knowing without taking a look in the mirror that they were sparking with fire the color of glowing honey, she continued to kneel there. Listening tensely as the last chords of the male wolf's song finally died out. But he was still there. She knew it as surely as she knew that he was also listening… Listening to her. Listening to the pulse of her heartbeat, and waiting for her to respond… Waiting for her to come to him.
But she didn't respond. She didn't come. She just sat there. Eyes closed, and fists tightly clenched. Aware of nothing but the internal battle waging from deep within her as she sought to remain in control. Not even aware of her own blood trickling through her numb fingers and splashing into her lap from the deep cuts she had inflicted to the surface of her palms with the sharpness of her nails…
…or of the glitter of tears that fell from her closed eyes. Clinging like lost stars shining in the shadowed moonlight to the dark crescents of her lashes, before spilling over the paleness of her cheeks. Falling from her skin like cast away diamonds to land amidst the thin rivulets of crimson staining her thighs.
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Clouds were rolling in. Blanketing the brilliant night sky, and threatening to blot out all light from its pale moon. Shadows shifted, lengthened, and darkened within the forest, and the fog writhed and twisted under the tall canopy that the rustling leaves created at the very tips of the wizened trees.
The scent of rain and impending daybreak began to fill the air… Chasing away the lingering traces of the cloying musk of power and fur that claimed this land each and every night, as the wolves of the Pack regretfully left the protection it offered to its children from the eyes of the natural humans, in preparation to rejoin the façade that was their lives. Shedding the freedom of their pelts in order to entrap their souls in the every day prison that was so necessary for their survival.
But they did so with the promising knowledge that, with every sunset, they would once again be offered the keys to their cells, and they would… once again… run under the glittering blanket of stars that became the lights to their playground. Reveling in – if only a little while – in the beauty of their legacy.
It was their gift… and their curse. It was who they were… and what would always be a part of them.
One lone wolf lingered, even after all the others had left. Hugging the thick line of trees that shrouded a single house in particular. He paced back and forth, the mist weaving in and out between his furred legs and shimmering in his thick luxurious fur, as he waited… His eyes never leaving her firmly locked window.
But the one that he was waiting for never came. Never revealed herself. Her wolf was rising ever closer to the surface of her skin, and for that alone he wanted to lift his muzzle to the moon and howl out in triumph for eternity... But she was fighting herself. Fighting who and what she was…
She was fighting him.
But it was a fight she was going to lose.
Finally, he turned his sight away from the house long enough to glance towards the lightening horizon as the sun began to rise. Only then, did he retreat from his rigidly held position and disappear into the woods…
But not without one last look towards that window… a look that spoke volumes, burning there in a pair of wolven eyes that were far more sentient than they should have been.
He wasn't leaving out of a sense of resignation, for this particular hunt was nowhere near its conclusion…
Indeed… It was truthfully only just beginning…
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Is it any wonder why I'm scared?
If I was a little younger, would I care?
Feeling like the walls are growing stronger…
I don't know if this cage can hold me any longer.
You never dreamed you'd have to live your life so guarded,
'Cause they'll find a way to make you feel discarded…
I'm not afraid of tomorrow…
I'm only scared of myself…
Feels like my insides are on fire,
And I'm looking through the eyes of someone else…
Never thought they'd want me to go any faster,
Never thought I took my foot off the gas…
Everybody loves to be in on the pressure…
But I know they're all waiting for the crash.
Is it any wonder why the answers keep me petrified?
Is it any wonder why I'm scared?
~Lyrics from "Tomorrow" by SR-71 ~