CREATURE by Henrik SKY

CHAPTER 1- THE NEW WOLF

DISCLAIMER- ALL THE CHARACTERS ARE FROM THE TWILIGHT SAGA SERIES EXCEPT FOR THE ONES I HAVE DREAMED UP IN THE POST TWILIGHT ERA WORLD. STEPHANIE MEYER OWNS THE MOST OF IT.

25 YEARS AFTER BELLA BECOMES A VAMPIRE

From the point of view of Aaron Redtree, member of the Quileute tribe, and wolf pack.

There hadn't been vampires in Forks for years now. Not even the famous Cullen clan had shown up in more than 20. I was just a kid when they had left, and when the true Alpha of our ancestral pack had disappeared. No one really ever talked about him anymore, and the elder wolf, Sam, would stare down anyone who mentioned his name.

When the Cullens left, the Quileute boys stopped turning. Collin and Brady were the last of them and I was only a few years younger back then. My time came when I was 15. The doctor and his family of parasites had left but there was talk among the elders of some of their friends coming to check in to see if they were still in the Olympic Peninsula. And like that, I wolfed out along with a bunch of guys I was in school with from LaPush. We became a new generation of wolves together, Sam was still pack master but we mostly ran together. We never really found out what the purpose of the vamp that came through was, since there weren't any killings or disappearances in the area.

Still that was when I was a teen, technically now I am thirty – six but I haven't changed physically since I was 20, and I looked more like in my mid twenties. The weird thing is, recently one of the Quileute kids who goes to Forks high school, has joined the pack. No one has wolfed out in years, my group is still the youngest left among the wolves. We searched the area for two weeks and we didn't smell vampire anywhere. There were also no knew kids registered at Forks high, the Cullens used to come back every once in a while, the elders told us. But this was too soon for one of their visits. If our kids where going to start changing there had to be something causing it.

I went to speak with Billy Black, the one elder who might speak to me about the "cold ones" as they put it. He was also the father of the true pack master, Jacob Black.

When I got to his house I walked in. He was getting quite old and busted in that wheelchair. No one ever made him come to the door. We usually called out that we were coming in and he'd call back to us. He had company that day, and it wasn't a Quileute.

" Hey Aaron," Billy waved me over. "Want you to meet someone."

The man sitting at the table with Billy was white, wearing a police uniform. He had to have been in his early to mid sixties with hair whitening around the edges.

"Hi," I stuck my hand out.

"Police Chief Charlie Swan." Said Billy as the officer shook my hand. " This is Aaron Redtree."

"Nice to meet you Aaron, call me Charlie." Said Chief Swan as he was sizing me up. He seemed to have made a decision about me, and it looked like it worried him.

"What can I do for you Aaron?" Billy asked.

I took a look at Charlie and then back at Billy.

"Come to complain about your group of friends?" He asked. Billy really knew how to get to the point in a discreet way.

"How'd you know? Maybe a little later though Billy."

And quicker than he could agree, I saw the look on Charlie's face as he popped off his seat.

"I gotta get going anyway Billy. Good to see you as usual, I'll be by for Fish Fry Friday. Nice to meet you Aaron." And with that he strutted out to the back where I saw a police car pull out of the trees and onto the main road.

"What's with him?" I asked Billy peering out. The reflection of my white wife beater tank and black pants mirrored me in the window as Billy spoke.

"Oh nothing he's just trying to avoid having to hear anything about wolves that's all."

"What? Does he know about us?" No one outside the tribe new about wolves, and especially about vampires. It was a part of the wolf thing you couldn't physically tell anyone.

"He has special privileges that man. He's been through….. a lot."

"Oh." Was all I could say.

"So I guess you're coming to talk about the newest member of the pack and why in fact things have started to….change again."

"Well yeah Billy, we haven't heard nor sniffed out anything that could explain why Brandon would change."

"Yes it does seem strange that without a vampire in the area this could happen."

Billy didn't say anything for a long time after that. We sat and starred at the table. I was thinking, I think he was waiting.

"What do you mean he's been through a lot?"

"You know I always knew… you were a smart one." Billy said. Now it was my turn to wait.

"I couldn't tell you why this has happened to Brandon, but I don't think that more boys will be changing."

"Why?" I asked.

"We'll just have to wait and see, though wont we."

I thought I would get more information out of Billy Black. But I really didn't ask him anything specifically or give him much to go on, so I can't really blame him.

I left and went back to my place. I shared a small house out by the beach with Embry. He became part of the pack in the group before me when the Cullens where last in town. Embry should be in his 40's right now but he looks just the same as I do, heck I've been alive now for about thirty years, more but we're not getting much older , every five years is like one. Sam and Paul are moving along faster than us, I think it's mostly because they've imprinted and have kids.

That night we went running together, this was Brandon's first run with us. It was nice to see the run through his eyes, all fresh and new, the way it was when I first joined the pack. His thoughts were quiet and mostly reactions to physical rush of running as one connected unit. We stopped at a river in the woods a few miles north of LaPush to drink and build a fire. I had been holding a bag with our clothes in my teeth as we ran. It felt good to put it down.

Embry was sitting across from Brandon who looked windswept and elated from the run. He was growing fast since his wolf puberty hit.

"How many inches you grown so far?" Embry asked him.

"About five." He smiled.

"Damn I remember my knees and shoulder aching." Embry said throwing some branches into the fire.

"They do but it feels good to run." Brandon said.

"Brandon," Sam started, "We as a pack have a purpose to protect our tribe." Everyone became still. "Protect from a certain danger out there."

"The cold ones." Brandon answered.

"Yes, the cold ones." Said Sam, he paused and then continued, "Not for many years have there been vampires in our territory and the treaty with the coven known as the Cullens still stands…..on a technicality."Sam continued. " Our pack emerged after many, many years because of this coven's return to Forks, this trait in our genetic line only shows itself when their presence is a threat to our people.

So you see there is a problem we are trying to solve…. Not a problem but a mystery. The Cullens have not returned, and there hasn't been a trace of vampire in the area for about twenty years now."

Everyone was still and silent as Sam explained. Brandon's brow furrowed as he listened to Sam's words.

"Brandon we need to know everything that happened around the time you became a wolf. Start around about a month ago."

Brandon sat hunched over, in a gangly state. This full strength and muscle hadn't fully grown in yet. Everyone's eyes were on him.

"Um…"

"Well start maybe the week you changed, did you notice anything different any new people you might have seen around school? Did you go into the woods alone? Have you traveled to Seattle?"

"No…, I- " Brandon looked nervous. "So vampires have to be around for us to change."

"That's the way it works." Said Jared. "But we've been running practically as far out as we think would do the trick and we haven't picked anything up. That's what is confusing us. We had those tics up our asses for about three years because of Ja-, the Cullens living in Forks and they're kind coming through." Jared caught himself. The tribe didn't talk about Jacob anymore. After he left the pack there was no returning. A few other wolves joined him but they disbanded. It was still unclear why Jacob broke off from Sam and why Lea and Seth joined him.

"Well I haven't really left the reservation except for school. Plus my car broke down on Friday, so I haven't been able to go out much." He said this and we all smiled. The days of modern transportation stopping us from travel seemed far off and irrelevant.

"Yeah I heard you came home in a police car, naked, you're mom freaked." Brady teased.

"Yeah she thought I had done something weird." He laughed.

"You came home in a police car?" I asked suddenly.

"And naked!" Jared teased.

"Yeah, so what?" Brandon started getting defensive. Typical of new wolves with their anger.

"Do you remember the name of the officer that brought you home?"

"Yeah, Starsky, David Starsky." He joked. "I don't know. He knew Billy though."

"Officer Sawn?" I asked.

"Yeah that's it. How'd you know?"

I was on my feet and taking my shirt off facing the woods before Sam could stop me. For some reason I knew Charlie Swan was involved somehow in what was happening. Billy already knew as well, he just wanted me to figure it out and go see because maybe his current state wouldn't allow him too. And what did he mean Charlie had been through a lot? I made my way back to the beach house and opened my computer. I did a search for Charlie Swan. Two things popped up; his badge number with the white pages current address, and a news article.

The article was about a graduate of Forks High who had contracted a strange virus on her honeymoon. Her name was Bella Swan, her father was Charlie Swan. The article didn't say who in town she married, but it was dated around twenty five years ago, a very significant time in our history. The older wolves would have maybe seen her around if they went out to Forks.

I memorized the address and ran out to Forks through the woods. Charlie Swan lived close to the end of a residential rode with a few houses. I slipped my black pants on after changing and quietly walked around the house. He was in the living room watching some sports event on TV drinking a beer. I heard someone moving around upstairs and climbed up the tree out front to get a closer look. Maybe there was an office up there where he kept some file on the Cullens or unexplained disappearances.

A light went on in the front bedroom and a crouched in the shadow of the branches to see. Into the bedroom walked a tall slender girl with pale white skin and long black hair like a Quileute. She had full breasts and long legs, and her eyes were a deep dark…. red? But that slight detail didn't matter. Because in that moment the fact that all she was wearing was a blue towel had no effect, not even the wet droplets of shower water on her skin stood out in a way another man would notice.

I sat there in the tree, and the ground disappeared, the tree fell from underneath me, and the house was thin air. Nothing in the world was real but her, and I knew it would physically pain me to move away from this spot where I could see her. This was my sole reason for existing. She was everything, she was mine. I had been a wolf for almost twenty years and in no part of that life could have prepared me for the moment when I would imprint.