The Secret Wolf (Book One in the Tree Top Wolves Series) Read online

  As I walked into History I stopped when I saw that Dan was in his seat today.  I smiled at him when he looked up as I took my seat.

  "Hey.  Sorry I wasn't in yesterday, I wasn't feeling too good,” he said with a sheepish smile.

  "It's ok.  I was worried though, it seemed like I had gone from a tone of friends to none yesterday,” I said with a laugh.  Maybe I had just been paranoid.

  We were quiet until class ended, we had a quiz.  It wasn't hard but I really wished that he would have told us, I hate surprises.

  "I spoke to my folks; they're cool with you coming round tonight to work on the project."

  "Oh great!"  Finally hopefully we can finish it now, I thought.

  "Yeah I'll take you there straight after school if that's alright?"

  "Yeah, fine,” I said and walked off to my next class.

  I still sat by myself at lunch but today wasn't as bad as yesterday.  Maddi talked to me during my classes with her, she looked a little nervous which was strange but I was happy that I had someone to talk to.  I waited for Dan by his Range Rover after the last bell rang.

  As we drove to his house in comfortable silence I looked out the window.  He lived right in the middle of the forest, he said that there was a road that led to his house and the little community if houses there.  He said that I shouldn't walk slowly and that I should go straight to his house.  I found this weird, but Dan was at times, he reminded me of an older brother.  I've always wanted one but it's too late now.

  His house was brown and blended in well with the trees; I would have missed the turning if I didn't know where to look.  The houses were all the same, they were big and looked homey.  I sighed, this is the type of place that I wanted to live, I had always been drawn to the forest, ever since I was a little kid.  I hated the big cities that we lived in, I always felt as if they were closing in on me.

  Dan opened the door, the inside walls were a deep red and it looked like most of the house was, accept the kitchen was a dark green.  The house was pretty dark and I wondered if his parents were Goth.  We went into the living room and there was a picture on the wall of what I could only describe as death.  They were defiantly Goth.

  I pulled the war book that I found out of my bag, we were almost done with the project and only had to write our conclusion.  Was the war a good thing or a bad thing?  Of course it was a bad thing because so many people died and there was no reason for it, but on the other hand it was a good thing because otherwise Hitler wouldn't have been stopped.  History had always been my favourite subject and I didn't mind learning about the things again.  I had already done a report on the war so I used most of that.

  It only took about two hours to finish it and print it off with pictures.  Dan suggested that we go to the main house.  He said that they were all close, practically family here, and that they all eat in the same house.  It was odd I must admit but I followed him anyway.

  This house was bigger than the rest, it was still a dark brown but looked like it could room about twelve people and still have spare beds.  When Dan opened the door, all I could see were stairs leading up and rooms on both sides, I could smell food in the air and hear laughter from the room on the left.  Dan walked over to the door and pushed it open.

  "Hi guys, thought I'd ya know, bring a friend,” he said as he stepped to the side so I could walk in.

  I gasped, sat at the table was Nick and Maddi.  At the head of the table was a man older than Nick and slightly smaller in build.  He had black hair that was turning grey at the sides and bright blue eyes.  A small women facing opposite him turned around, she had blonde hair and forest green eyes.  These must be their parents.  Sat next to Nick was a beautiful redhead, with grey eyes.  Opposite her and sat next to Maddi was a man, he had black blue hair and grey eyes, my jaw dropped.  For this was the man that I had been waiting all my life to meet, this was him, my father.  He looked at me curiously, noticing our similarities.

  "Holy-,” Dan said.

  "But-,” Nick said.

  "It can't be,” the man, my father said.

  I felt tears come to my eyes.  I knew this was him, I felt it.  He must have too for he stood up and came over to me.  And then he sniffed me.  He sniffed me like a dog would.  Who sniffs someone? What a strange man.

  "Why don't you have a scent?" he asked.

  I stared at him blankly.  Why don't you have a scent?  What sort of question was that?  I had just met my father and he greets me with that?  I had fantasised about his for years, meeting him and how we would laugh and cry together and he would swing me around saying how much he loved me.  But instead I get this.

  "What do you mean?" I asked generally confused.

  "She's human,” Nick’s dad said.

  "Well obviously not, she is my daughter.  I just don't remember making her."

  I was obviously human, what else would I be?  This night was just getting weirder and weirder.  Were they not human?  What could they be?  Maybe they were those weird people that had watched Twilight and thought that they were vampires or something.  I couldn’t imagine Nick sparkling like Edward; his olive skin wouldn’t look the same and a ghost white person like Edward.

  I blushed and said quickly, "My mom ran away when she was pregnant with me, before you could find out.  She said your parents disapproved and that you had to marry someone else."

  "Lilly?  Is that your mother's name?" he asked.  He looked like he was going to cry.

  "Yes,” I said smiling at him.

  He cupped my face in his hand, brushing away the tears that I didn't know I had released.

  "How old are you, child?"

  "Alysha, my names Alysha.  I'm sixteen."

  He let a long breath out; he turned around and started pacing.  I still couldn't believe that I had found him, ok so he wasn't what I was expecting but he was my father none the less.

  "April,” he said gesturing to the red haired girl, "is my other daughter, your half sister."

  We both said hi to each other and went back to staring at our dad.

  "I wasn't going to mate with her you know,” he said turning. "It was your mother that I loved; if she had stayed I would have mated with her, one way or another."

  "Mated?" I asked, confused.  Only animals mated and I knew he wasn't an animal.

  "Oh yes, you do not know do you?  Your mother has hidden it very well; I now know why she wanted those pills.  You're a werewolf Alysha, just like everyone else in this room."

  I stared at him for a moment before I burst out laughing.  He raised a brow at me, this only seemed to make me laugh harder.  A werewolf?  He was funny, werewolves weren't real, but even as I was thinking it I knew deep down that they were.  I knew that Nick’s dad was the Alpha, and that Nick was my black wolf.

  "I think someone's been watching too much Twilight and Vampire Diaries,” I said laughing at the thought of them sat watching the DVD's.

  They all stared at me with frowns on their faces.  I knew they were serious then, they were werewolves.  I looked from one person to the other and I could match them up to the wolves in the forest, it helped that their hair and fur colours were similar.  I knew that the wolf that had walked me back to the house the other night was Dan, he was a brown wolf.

  Tears were streaming down my face and I didn't realise I was in his arms before I heard Nick trying to sooth me.  "Hush,” he whispered in my ear over and over again.

  "You take pills every day, don't you?" her father asked once she had stopped crying.

  I pulled back and blushed at the mascara stains on Nicks white shirt.  "Oops, sorry,” I said to him before turning towards my father.  "Yes I do, how do you know?"

  "Because your mother asked me for the name of the pills that will block out your wolf before she left.  Since you didn't know that you were a wolf, my best guess is that you've been taking them."

  "Oh.  So what now?" I asked looking around at the shocked faces.

 
"Now you must stop taking those damn pills, but hide them so that your mother thinks that you've been taking them.  Once you've had your first change, we will then go and have a chat to your mother together,” he said with a wink, knowing my mom would freak out.

  "So she will be mated to Nick?  She is your first born after all,” Dan said.

  My father laughed.  "By the look of how they are acting already, I'm thinking that Nick never wanted the mating between him and April, so yes, he and Alysha will mate."

  Nick laughed and picked me up swinging me around before kissing me.  His lips were soft and I opened my mouth with a gasp when he run his tongue against my lips.  The world disappeared; all I could sense was his lips touching mine.  His outdoorsy scent was wrapping itself around me.  I wrapped my arms around his neck, my wolf, my mate, mine.  We heard someone clear their throat and I pulled back blushing and hiding my face in his top.  I heard Dan laugh, then the door burst open.

  I turned to look at the short boy in the doorway; he was blonde with blue eyes.  He looked angry and nervous all at the same time.  I was amused by him, as I saw that everyone else was.

  He walked right up to my father and said, "April can't mate with him, sir.  I love your daughter and would be honoured if you would..."

  He stopped as my father's laugh grew louder.  "You can have her Carl; I have found my other daughter so you two can mate because Alysha is older, by three months."

  Carl looked at me in Nick's arms and then went over to April and kissed her gently.  I laughed and leaned into Nick as he wrapped his arms around my waist, I had a feeling that this was how it was meant to be.  It made me smile to see everyone happy and laughing.

  My happiness only lasted so long however, because at that moment Carly walked into the room.  She looked at me in Nick's arms and scowled; she then looked at my father and smiled.

  "What's going on?,” she asked sweetly.

  "Well, we've found out that Alysha is Chris's first born and therefore she will be mated to Nick in the summer,” Nick's dad replied.

  "How exciting!  I know how much they like each other,” she said with fake enthusiasm.

  "Yeah, I'm the luckiest guy around,” Nick said pulling me closer and looking down into my eyes.

  "You better be getting back before your mother thinks something has happened to you,” dad said to me.

  Dan had to drive me home so that my mom wouldn't suspect anything.  I missed Nick already, it was weird knowing that in a couple of months we will be married, or mated as they call it.  I knew I loved him though, from the moment I laid eyes on him I knew.  My dad said that the effect of the pill should go in a couple of days and that my wolf will be trying to break through, he also said that it would probably be painful because I hadn't changed before.  I was nervous and excited at the same time, I had always known that a part of me was missing and I'm hoping when I've got my wolf that I will fill the gap.

  It has been two days since I first met my dad and found out that I was a werewolf, I stopped taking my pills and I could feel changes in myself already.  My hearing was better and my sense of smell - literally I could smell food from five miles away.  If I thought that Nick had smelt good before my senses kicked in, he smelt incredible now.  He always smelt like the forest and to me he smelt like home too.

  I had been spending a lot of time at Nick's, getting to know the pack and him better. When I wasn’t with him I was with Maddi.  She was teaching me about the pack’s history and about how her great, great, great, great grandfather came to settle at Tree Tops.  It was interesting, until her mom would come and collect me for my daily Alpha Female training.  Now that was something that I found boring, I had to learn how to cook, clean and how to settle the pack when they had disagreements that could turn into a fight.

  So far I had managed to burn sixteen meals, managed to turn clothes the wrong colour twelve times.  That was something you should have seen, defiantly when Nick's dad came down one day with a pink shirt on.  I’d laughed so hard I had tears rolling down my face, when he gave me a chilling look it just made me laugh even harder.

  I did however, have to stop a fight the other day, Nick's mom doesn’t like people smashing her things.  Anyway, they were two of the older males in the pack and they were arguing over sport, typical men, I had to stand in the middle of them and tried to calm them.  I ended up just losing it and punching them both in the stomach, I’d had a satisfied grin on my face when they both went down giving me evils, that was until I turned to face the door and Nick's mom was there staring at me with anything but amusement.

  Nick would walk with me through the woods, sometimes in wolf form and others in human.  They think that if I am around changed wolves enough I will change quicker and that my wolf will recognise her pack.  I can tell you for a fact that she recognises Nick, she would always whine when he wasn’t with me and then yip happily when he was.  Although I could sense her and hear her sometimes I couldn’t change yet, she wanted to come out I could feel it, but something was blocking the change.

  The full moon was in two days and everyone was hoping that I would change then, so that I could run with the rest of the pack.  It was amazing how accepting they were of me, I had always wanted a large family and now I had one.  Maddi was like a sister and a friend, and Dan and Ed were like brothers to me.  The only people that didn’t actually like me in the pack were Carly, Jess and Max - no surprises there.  I knew why Carly hated me, she would always be jealous of what me and Nick shared, she wanted to be his mate.  I thought it was more that she just wanted the power that you get with being an Alpha Female than Nick himself.  Nick didn’t seem to notice her affection and when she flirted with him - when I told him about it he laughed.

  "I have never noticed before, are you sure you're not getting confused with the respect that she has for me?  Maybe she's just trying to please me because she knows that one day I will be Alpha?" he said.

  "I don’t know Nick, I feel like she wants to be your mate,” I said, biting my lip and looking at him through my lashes.

  We were sat by our lake; we had a picnic and had a little fire going.  I loved being here under the stars with him.  He took my chin in his hand and kissed me softly.

  "You are mine.  I am yours,” he said seriously.  "I have been waiting my whole life for you and I thought I would never get to be with you when I finally found you.  I only have eyes for you Alysha.  I want...No; I need you to believe that.  You're my world now; nothing's going to change that."

  I could feel tears coming to my eyes, I had been doing that a lot lately, I don’t know what was wrong with me.  I never cried before I came here, I was always emotionless, but that was the only downside I could find of moving here.  I loved Nick, I hadn't told him, whenever I went to the words wouldn’t come out, but I knew he understood.  We didn’t know each other well, that was why we have been going on a date every night.

  "I know, I feel the same way about you,” I said.

  He kissed me again; his lips were always so soft.  I opened my mouth to allow his tongue access.  I could get used to this, it made me wonder why I didn’t have a boyfriend before, but then it wouldn’t have be the same and I was happy that my first kiss had been with Nick.  I always felt a spark when our lips or hands touched; it sent shivers up my spine.

  "Right, lets get you home before your mom sends a search team,” he winked at me and got up holding his hand out for me.

  My mom still didn’t know about me and Nick.  I couldn’t tell her because she would try to keep us apart and I didn’t want that.  She knew that Nick was a werewolf and that’s why they couldn’t meet, whenever we would meet up it would have to be at his house or in the forest.  If we were out at the coffee shop we had to keep our distance and act like we weren't together, it was the same in school too.

  I hated it, hated lying to my mom, we used to be close but then again I guess she hasn’t exactly been honest with me.  I still felt guilty though, s
he had a good reason for hiding this from me and I wanted to find out what that was.  When we were on the outside of the forest by my house Nick kissed me and phased into a big black wolf.  I ran my fingers through his fur, I was always shocked by how soft it was.  My wolf whimpered trying to get out, but it was still too early and she couldn’t, she wanted to run with her mate.  Nick rubbed up against me and when I bent down he licked me on the face, leaving a trail of slobber behind him.

  "Ewww Nick!  You're gross!" I screeched laughing all the while.

  He gave me a wolfish grin, lolling his tongue out on the side.  I laughed at him.  He yipped and ran off into the forest, that’s when I heard a howl, my wolf wanted to throw its head back and howl with the pack.  I walked into the house feeling depressed.  I couldn’t wait to turn and run with them, my pack, my family, my mate.   My mom wasn’t home when I walked in, I haven't seen her since she saved me that night in the forest from the pack.  From what my father has told me, she wouldn’t want me becoming a wolf.  My wolf growled whenever I thought about what my mom had done to me.

  I woke in the middle of the night covered in sweat, my body temperature rising.  A pain went through my body and I rolled over stifling the scream in my pillow.  Forest, I had to get to the forest.  I climbed out of bed making sure to be quiet as I passed my mom’s room so I didn’t wake her.  When I opened the door the wind immediately hit my face, drying the sweat on my forehead.  I walked into the forest, the pain just seemed to be getting worse, and when I got to the lake I let out a scream knowing that no one could hear me.