Chapter Four

She smiled up at him and he chuckled,

‘They will not have it all their own way my love, you know what the plans are for this pretty blue planet it will be an interesting experiment watching how they all develop.’

The male creature had one more act he needed to perform, and as the She-Wolf's belly grew big with the approaching birth it made it difficult for her to hunt and she knew it was essential that both her and her Pups survived. Two days before she gave birth she did what she had to do and killed him as his meat would feed her and her Pups until the Spring thaw she had given birth to six Pups, three male and three female but only four of them mattered, they were the new Species and when the time was right they took the lives of their siblings and their mother as they needed the food to help them survive.                                        The world settled around them with the great continents detaching themselves from each other to form the land masses of today and the Homo-Erectus evolved into the Homo-Sapien and spread out across them all. In the meantime, the four siblings evolved into the ones who would become the Homo-Sapien's greatest enemy the Lycanthrope, [From the Ancient Greek language meaning wolf-human] right alongside them.

Homo-Erectus did not settle in the snow wolf's vicinity, somehow instinctively it knew to stay as far away as possible from this inhospitable frozen place preferring warmer climates with a more abundant easy-to-catch food supply. Other creatures settled there instead, those animals that had evolved to survive under the harsh freezing conditions, all of them prey to the powerful, silent snow-white shadow killers who not only survived but thrived and multiplied.  This was the land owned by the Snow Wolf Pack, every single Werewolf could trace its ancestry back to those four original siblings, Alexander, Artemis, Anastasia and Anouchka, who had been Blessed by the Moon Goddess herself. Those related to Alexander had brilliant blue eyes, Artemis gave his ancestors glittering emerald green, Anastasia gave hers silver and Anouchka’s had the purest blood of all Lycan’s and their eyes were molten gold. Of course, as the centuries passed the bloodlines became diluted with others and pure Lycans were rare, maybe one or two of each generation had their white fur and blue/green/silver eyes but the true Lycanthrope, with its long, thick snowy white fur and stunning golden eyes was the rarest of them all, they had not been seen for many generations. They were the Werewolf of every urban legend, myths and faery-tales told to the young pups at bedtime but no one had seen one and the Elderly Leaders of the Packs believed they had died out forever.  

The Homo Sapiens evolved into what is now known as the human race and as their technology and understanding of the world around them increased they became curious about this strangely haunting land. Expeditions set off to explore the icy plains but they never stayed long those who were brave enough to venture into the snowy wilderness were so traumatised by their experiences that they either ended up deranged and locked away for their safety. Some of them even took their own lives so terrified of the ferocious ‘beasts’ that haunted their dreams they wanted to escape them forever and this was the only way they knew how to do it.

Vottovaara belonged to the powerful, elusive, Snow Wolf Pack, the deadliest of Werewolves they kept themselves to themselves operating outside the Council of Immortals created by the Werecreatures and the other Immortals. Humans coveted their magic and quickly developed ways to kill or hurt them and then they began to capture them to use for experiments to try to find ways to control them. Many more different Species lived, worked and traded alongside each other peacefully occasionally there were crossovers where different Species found they were Fated Mates. The Goddess allowed this even though it diluted the pure bloodline, Immortals found it difficult to breed so their numbers stayed small, unlike the humans who bred rapidly encompassing every continent.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      The desolate Vottovaara tundra was home to the Snow Wolves and the other Packs would have been surprised to find they had joint Alphas, a male and a female and it had always been that way ever since the Goddess first created their Ancestors and Blessed them with the land. When the Male Alpha found his Fated Mate they marked and mated each other as quickly as they could, the Alpha biting his female ensured she became Alpha making their Leadership doubly strong. They were very different from their European and American counterparts, all of them were huge snow-white wolves, and it was what marked them as members of their Pack. They were rightly proud of their long, thick snowy coats that blended in so naturally with their surroundings. They were virtually invisible to the naked eye as they moved silently through their snowbound domain which was why the humans who braved the inclement weather thought the area was haunted.                                                                                                                                   How else could they explain waking up to find their colleagues murdered as they slept beside them?           They never saw or heard anything and it was terrifying to know something had snatched that person never to be seen again. Those who returned could only rationalise it by saying the spirits who lived in that cold inhospitable land did not want the human population there.

They gave no other explanations instead they were so terrified that they fled quickly back to their towns with their wild stories of ghosts and spirits.

The Goddess watched over her Species with loving care, they were all stunningly beautiful, their bodies toned and in the case of the males muscular, they were taller than their human counterparts and much stronger.

Their unique abilities, apart from being able to shift into their animals, including healing at a rapid rate, broken bones knitted together in a couple of hours, deep cuts would stop bleeding and the skin close up within minutes, it was difficult to kill them but not impossible. They had mated with almost every other species so that almost every creature now had its shifter version, Wolves, big cats, bears, birds of prey etc. and they knew of each other.