S.C. Dane's Blog, page 11

#Horses and Being

Yeah, I know. I’m writing another blog about horses and my stay here in Indiana rather than writing about—well…writing. I should be enticing you with excerpts from works in progress and deleted scenes from already published novels. Instead, I’m yammering on about my American version of a walkabout. I guess, indirectly I am writing about writing. As authors, our life experiences tend to play out in our work. Sometimes in subtle ways. Maybe we have a friend who is good at knife throwing, so we round out a character by giving her that hobby. A brief, one-line mention, but there it is. Now the reader has a vivid image of a woman thwacking knives into a tree at twenty paces.

What in tarnation, you ask, does this have to do with horses and being? *Drum roll, please.* My current lay-over is on a horse breeding farm, and I want to share with you what happened during my walk home from doing barn chores one night.

The moon was two-thirds full, and cast a silver sheen upon everything. Clouds obscured the stars, so the moon sat like a constricted pupil in the ring of a silver iris. Anyone know the legend that tells of the ring around the moon?

Anyway, the night forced me to pay attention to it regardless of my knowledge in such lore. Was it the pending rain? The ring around the moon? Or forces beyond our comprehension, where the primitive part of us sits up and takes notice? The cats, dogs, and horses certainly seemed affected. They were quiet, yet sought contact. It mattered not what species, so long as there was touch or sharing of breathing space.

This camaraderie continued as I headed for home—a half-mile walk down a long dirt road, where horse pastures bank either side. This night, my walk was accompanied by the horses, who followed along the fence until halting to hang their sage heads over the wooden rail, as though asking me in the silent way of horses, to stop, too.

Anyone who has ever had the privilege to stand near these creatures understands one thing: they are elemental.

So I listened. I stopped to share my breath as they in turn did theirs, their muzzles velvety warm. The cats and dogs remained, laying around together, the cats dragging shepherd-crook tails under the noses of the dogs.

It was a moment of Being. It was just us. A small group—eleven in all. One human, two cats, three dogs, and five horses. Yet the moment felt huge, beyond me, although utterly me. Where I was in that crucible of time was exactly where I was supposed to be. That feeling was paradoxically humbling yet empowering. It fed my heart to continue this trek across America, to push on through my walkabout across an unknown country.

I have no clue where I’ll end up. All I know is that I will wind up somewhere, and when I do I will be where I should be and who I am to be.

Thanks to dogs, cats, and horses. And the moon.

~S.C. Dane

#Road-trekking and Making One’s Home

I’ve been in Indiana for a month and half, having traveled here from Connecticut, and before that Maine. It has taken me a year and a half to get to this Midwestern state from my original starting point: Jonesport, Maine. I might as well have rocketed to the moon, it’s that different. First, my launching pad is coastal. Jonesport sits with her toes in the ocean, and most of her residents earn their livings from the bounty that ocean provides. My first re-fueling station on my travels was North Stonington, CT, which happens to sit mighty close to the historically famous Mystic Seaport.

I didn’t stray far from the scent of briny fog. Plus, I was still in New England, where Yankee sarcasm and ingenuity still thrive hale and strong.

Third stop on my road trek? A moonscape compared to the craggy coast and its spiking spruce trees. Indiana is flat in comparison, with acres upon acres of corn and soybeans. As I drove with one eye on the pavement stretching endlessly before me, and the other scanning the scenery, I developed a queer sensation in my gut. Yes, the sky stretched marvelously above me. Which wasn’t unusual. I’ve been on the ocean with no land in sight.

Land was the difference here. I was traveling across solid ground, not fathoms of an alien world beneath my keel.

Oh, and what a strange land it was compared to what I’m used to! With all that farmland flattened out on either side of me as I drove along, I delved deeper into that hollowness that was my gut. The deduction? All this agriculture without an animal in sight was unsettling. What my farming friends in New England would give for a quarter of the wide open acreage! Think of the many types of vegetables they could plant. They could feed their small collection of livestock right from what they yielded on the farm. Goats, pigs, cows—nothing would go hungry, no pastures chewed down to the roots. Imagine the grazing rotations!

Alas, my Maine heart was saddened by the lack of such diversity. Corn and soybeans. Corn and soybeans. Corn and soybeans.

Not only is the land different, but so, too, are the homes. Granted, I’m generalizing here, but it seems I see more squat houses here in Indiana. Neither do many of the homes have large windows through which to enjoy the view. My suspicions? Tornadoes. Those sovereign entities of hell that would lay waste to the glass walled, high-reaching homes of the northeast.

You wonder then, what with my skin draped ’round my bones without their heart, why I’ve decided to stay in Indiana for a bit?

Frankly, at first, I wondered the same thing. Why didn’t I tuck tail and run back from whence I came?

Well, I’m not big on judging first impressions. I like to give things a little time for their true threads of gold to shine. Staying on in Indiana has achieved what I was hoping it would. With the dust settled from my move and the pace at the farm having grown into routine, I’m gleaning the gems from my daily living. The horses are now familiar, our relationships forming through daily interactions. My early morning hikes to the barn are resplendent with glittering stars in a wide, pre-dawn sky.

It’s the folks here, too, who have allowed me to coax my battered heart back out into the sunlight. A strange landscape this may be, but the people, as they are in New England, are the salt of the earth. They are not alien, but kind and generous. From what I’ve seen so far, they work damn hard for what they have, and are quick to stick out a hand to help a neighbor. Just like the folks I left back home.

So, here I’ll nest for the time being, writing novels and shoveling horse manure, until my longing to travel tickles my feet again.

~S.C. Dane

TESTING ONE’S METTLE

Writer’s lead glamorous lives. We’re rich, for starters. Second, we sit around acknowledging our adoring fans, who stand in line for city blocks while we pen our names on the inside cover of the book they just love, love, love. In our down time, we scribble out another book, before we’re off to do whatever the hell we want.

Riiiiight. Then we wake up, and the moment the sleep faeries release their hold, we’re thinking how we’re going to juggle all we have to do in a day. We’re not rich, for starters. Most of us have to hold down regular jobs to pay the bills. Second, if we’re sitting around it’s because we’ve greedily carved out a half-hour of uninterrupted time to actually write. Sometimes it’s not to create either, but to market our names and books. No mile-long lines of adoring fans for us.

Scribbling out that next book? We’re doing that at 11 p.m. when the rest of the household is asleep. It’s the only time we have where we’re not getting pulled into one million different emergencies of daily family life. Then we’re up again at 4 a.m. for some quiet creative writing before the devilish demands stir for another day.

If that’s glamour, then I need to double-check my dictionary, and question my thesaurus.

Yet, somehow we manage to fabricate fantastical worlds and characters, all of them as real to us as dust bunnies under the bed. Perhaps our hectic and exhausting lives are precisely why we’re so good at escapism. We need these fictional worlds in order to keep on keeping on. They are the rich blood that nourish us, giving our grinding lives the verve we all crave. You might read them, but we get to write them.

Every time we escape into our stories, we authors get the back road tour. We get a view of the bones, the scraps. We know our characters intimately, and sometimes in those midnight deliriums of writing we’re living vicariously, as absorbed in a scene as the players in it, our pulses racing, our skin electric with anticipation, too.

These are the moments that keep us going. As is the dream of not just getting rich, but of doing whatever the hell we want, of not having to carve out that half-hour to write, but to indulge the full day. Will it happen? Possibly not, but there’s always the maybe, the dream we’ve reached for that just might come true if we hang in there.

So, we test our mettle, see if we’re on this steaming train for the long haul. What we will discover on this journey is whether we have the iron and steel to lay the seemingly endless track.

Thank the Great Conductor we have our midnight snacks served to us as delicious scenes and scrumptious heroes.

~S.C. Dane

#Pants Down

Oopsie! I got caught with my pants down. It’s the weekend already, and somehow I lost an entire week. How does a person blast through entire days and lose track? You all know what I mean. Wasn’t it just two days ago you were cranking yourself out of bed to start your work week? You were a little refreshed, having had the weekend off. Maybe by Sunday night you were tired from your never-ending list of things to do, but Monday morning comes and you’re feeling all right. The coffee’s brewed, you know what to wear. And the routine revs its motor, hustling you and the family out the door.

Whoa. Several days have passed since then. For me, another weekend has, too. I confess to not only getting lost in my day job, but also in my latest fictional creation. I’m on book two of a gargoyle series, and I’m getting sucked into it every time I open that document. The good thing is I’m spiraling deep into the world I’ve conjured. The bad news is that while I might be busy writing, I’m not writing for my blog and the people who follow it.

Sorry about that. But the story has threaded itself to my skin, tugging at me when I should be doing other things. But cripes, I’m hanging out with sexy and dangerous heroes. To heck with my real life skidding by like kids in socks on a hardwood floor, mama’s a little distracted here.

Therefore, I offer a sincere apology to my readers who look forward to the weekly posts. I hope when the new gargoyle series goes public you’ll enjoy it enough to forgive my distraction and my bumbling. Meanwhile, it’s Sunday night. Already. Again. Time to get the coffee pot ready to brew for 6 a.m. and remember to throw that last load of clothes into the dryer.

Till next week,

~S.C. Dane

 

#Muse Camp? I wanna go home!

Because it’s been a busy summer and I’m ready for things to slow down now. I feel like a bear in autumn whose inner workings demand the down time. Having stuffed myself so I’m replete, I want to curl up and feed off my fat stores. My brain has fed overly well this past summer. It’s fat with new knowledge, now it needs to kick back and digest.

But it’s not winter yet, and like the last run of salmon, another writing camp has shown up, splashing in a favorite stream to pique my appetite. So, I dive in with claws bared and emerge with a tasty morsel: Muse Camp. Hosted by Mary Caelsto, founder of Jupiter Gardens Press, where my novel No Little Thing has its home.

The moniker Muse is appropriate. She has interviewed several authors, asking them about their work, what inspired them, did they have any tips for other authors? So far, she has hosted Lynda K. Frazier, Stacy Juba, Naomi Bellina, and Jamie Saloff. This list may seem like a litany, but from these women I took away some helpful hints and a bit of inspiration. For example, Naomi Bellina was asked why she writes paranormal romance, and her answer could have been mine. She writes about the paranormal because she likes to imagine there is something extra in our contemporary universe.

Perhaps there’s something about dealing with the strange that makes us bigger, stronger, less fearful. Empowered.

Which is what each of these authors experienced, and I suspect, what a good many authors have felt when they received their first contract, or won a writing contest, or garnered a rave review. The rush of empowerment certainly infused my blood. I still feel ready to take on the publishing world. So long as I continue to hone my craft. And that, my friends, is why I tuned in to another Camp this season, even though I feel stuffed already.

I’m honing my craft, striving to improve my writing and marketing skills. It hasn’t been easy, especially from the marketing standpoint. So, Muse Camp was the shot in the arm it was intended to be. I am re-inspired, and I’ve re-tuned my ear to the power still humming in my veins. With just a couple of days left, I don’t really wanna go home. Not yet. The winter will be long, and I suspect there will be times during those long, dark days when my heart and brain will appreciate the extra nourishment.

~S.C. Dane—writer and bear extraordinaire.

#Bucking Horses and Rambunctious Foals

Well everyone, another week has passed and I have no clue where the time went! As I’ve lamented, I’m busier than a mouth at a pie eating contest.

I’m enjoying the new job working with the horses. Sometimes, though, I’ve been so busy I’ve forgotten to step back and take a look at the view. I’m not talking the landscape here, either, unless you count a herd of horses charging through a field. Which is what I remembered to enjoy today as I was calling in the mares with their foals.

I heard them first, rumbling across the earth as they crested a hill to charge toward the barn. I stood back as they galloped by me, hooves kicking up dirt clods and toplines stretched flat as they raced each other. Occasionally, a mare or foal would buck and hop, or kick up their heels and toss their heads. Happy horses, these.

We also put all of the yearlings together in a great spread of a pasture where they could run and establish the pecking order without any of them getting trapped, or seriously hurt because of it. Again, it was a moment I stopped to enjoy. This age is really when you begin to see the potential growing in these fine creatures. Their athleticism gained within one year is astounding. Until you watch the four year olds. Then, by glory, you see a magnificent horse with chutzpah!

But I’ve skipped a couple of growing years in between! Needless to say, there is beauty in every age. Even the older broodmares bear a wisdom and a kindness that make them a true pleasure to work around. I never forget to take a few moments to enjoy these women. While I’m picking stalls, I offer to scratch an itchy spot here, or caress a tender muzzle there.

All these moments I’ve described are what make the stall cleaning worth it. Just the smell of the barns, or the soft nickers at feeding times are enough to keep me enjoying my work, no matter how physically tired I am at the end of the day. I think it’s why I can still write, even though my body feels like all it wants to do is stand under a hot shower to slough away the dust and manure streaks. Which is fine, since all I need to ask of it by then is to rat-a-tat my fingers across a keyboard.

But it’s my brain and spirit which are still surging strong, despite the wear and tear of a busy day. Am I getting as much time as I crave to write? Of course not. There are only twenty-four hours in a day, and I can’t do everything I want. But living and working with a large herd of horses isn’t a shabby way to spend one’s life. It’s all about doing what we love and finding the balance that works for us. Someday, there will be a reversal. I won’t have the strength and stamina to do what I’m doing now.

I know this, which is why I’m enjoying my trek across our beautiful country while I have the energy to juggle all the flaming pins I’m holding. Will I get burned? Perhaps. But where would be the breathtaking moments if I didn’t chance it?

~S.C. Dane

Five Star Review!

YIP,YIP, AAARROOO!

Hey all, I’m celebrating! Luna: Book One of The Luna Chronicle just received a five star rating from READERS’ FAVORITE. My tail is wagging, I’m so happy. Not that I live or die by a reviewer’s pen, but still. It’s good to see my book do well out there. Yeah, I know my readers like my stories, and I always love to hear them gush and rave. Those pats on the back are the encouragement every struggling author needs. I’m grateful for the support. So what if I usually get lost in the narrative and forget about the real world. It doesn’t mean I don’t know the tangible exists—I’m just immersed, that’s all. Eventually, I come back. When I do, I’m glad to see my friends and fans hanging out, anxious to read what I’m writing next because they’ve enjoyed what I’ve done so far.

An author’s head can get awful big with that kind of encouragement. I choose to use the accolades as a yardstick by which to measure my writing. Now that utter strangers hold one of my books in high regard? Well, folks, them are some mighty big shoes to fill, even if they’re my shoes I’m filling! You, my readers, have expectations and I will stretch myself in order to measure up. I can’t disappoint!

And I won’t. Now that I’m moved into my place and I’m getting settled in the job, I can carve out the times I’ll be writing and find a groove in my schedule. No easy feat, that. There are 52 horses to know—who eats how much, what foal goes with which mom, and who gets turned out when and where. Add stall cleaning to the day, and I’m a little whipped. Where will I get the energy to be creative?

Easy! I love what I do, plain and simple. I love the horses I work with, and I love the characters in my stories. Spending time with both nourishes my spirit, so no matter how physically tired I am, when I sit down to the computer I’m whisked away. Man, it feels good to have that. The balance gives me comfort, makes me feel as if my life is better than okay, as if there’s a sparkle of magic to it. With my loyal fans and friends folded into the mix, what more can I want?

Not a thing. So, I’ll quit yammering for this week and sip from my recent success while I’m shoveling horse poo. Both of which should put a smile on my face.

Want to read my review? Click here: http://readersfavorite.com/book-review/12775

~S.C. Dane

#Roadtrekking to the Mid-West

#Roadtrekking to the Mid-West

Which explains why my post is a little tardy. I’m on the move. Actually, I’ve finally landed after driving for two days, but there are a lot of details and ducks to get in their rows. Internet service being the first biggie. I didn’t have it for almost a week, and couldn’t blog until I got it.

Fine by me. I had a lot to do once I parked my Roadtrek van for a permanent rest. Moving into a new home is never easy, and I’m doing it on my own. My traveling pal SalGal isn’t much help, either. Sure, she’s great on the road, but do you think I could get her to lift a paw and lug the belongings? Do you suppose she’d help me clean the new place before I unpacked? Uh-uh. No can do, she says. Sal’s tired from watching me drive. The passing scenery exhausted her.

What was my response to her throwing in the towel? I shrugged, dipped a shoulder like a charging bull, and tackled my new living quarters. Cobwebs and other peoples’ dirt: Beware! I had a mission, and would get myself settled before starting the new job if it killed me. Or forced me to skip meals.

Got it done, too. The place looks as good as it can, and with my own belongings arranged around the house, it’s feeling home-y. And ready for me to come home from a hard day on the farm to write.

So, you wonder, where am I? Where did I road trek to exactly?

Answer: Indiana.

What fun! You say? Or, are you wearing a perplexed expression like most everyone else I’ve told about my move. Indiana? What the heck is in Indiana?

My new job, for starters. Yeah, it was nearly one thousand miles away, but that was the point. I’m road-trekking. Eventually, I’ll work my way clear across this beautiful country. I’m not independently wealthy, which means I take on horse-y jobs to pay for my journey. And I write.

Despite the blank expressions from Easterners, Indiana is going to be a cool place to conjure my next novel. The wide open space reminds me the sky is the limit. I can do everything I’ve set my heart on doing. Will it be hard? Heck, yeah. I’m working full time on a farm. At the end of a day, I’m tired.

But it’s a gorgeous farm with gorgeous horses. And lots of countryside around me on every side so I don’t freak out. Cities wig me out and wear me down without feeding my spirit. So the remoteness of the farm, and the proximity to the animals and the earth are like blood for my body—necessary.

The writing will come easy. Do I wish I already made enough to finance a switch-aroo, where I could write all day and work the earth part-time instead of it being the other way around? Sure, I do. I’m just not there yet. I’m paying my dues. Running the gauntlet.

Someday. Someday, I won’t be the starving artist. Someday I can devote my attention to my readers and the stories they want. For now though, I’m enjoying the ride. Not only am I meeting wonderful people through my writing, but I’m meeting beautiful people everywhere I’m traveling. For those cynics who think the world is going to hell?

Maybe it is. But I’m discovering that in those small towns, and even in the big ones, or in the most unlikeliest of places, I’m running into good people.

So, my road-trekking has reaped some unseen rewards. I didn’t know when I started my walkabout what path my life would take. Has it been hard at times? Of course. But not so difficult I’m cowed by the unknown that lies ahead of me.

I have all the people I’ve met, in person and virtually, to thank for my courage to press onward with my dreams. I’ll keep shoveling manure, scraping the dirt from under my fingernails, and writing till my tired eyelids flutter shut.

Because my spirit is sated and electrically alive.

~S.C. Dane

#HOWLING SUCCESS PRESS, INTERVIEW N0. 417 (deceased)

#Howling Success Daily Press, Interview no. 417 (deceased)

Being that this is the end of the first full week of Grane: Book Two of The Luna Chronicle’s release, I thought I would offer something a little different to my readers. I hope you like it.

~S.C. Dane

Bootlegged Interview from “Howling Success Daily Press”

With guests S.C. Dane and Luna-Beth

H.S.D.P.: Welcome to the Howling Success Luna-Beth and paranormal romance author S.C. Dane. We’re pleased you could take time from your wildly busy lives to join us. Our readers are hungry for the opportunity, so I don’t dare disappoint and will go straight for the jugular, if you’ll pardon the expression.

HSPD: First, I must say for the benefit of our reading audience the resemblance between the two of you is striking. Are there other characteristics besides the physical you two share?

S.C. Dane: Our running and hiking in the woods, which was the catalyst for writing The Luna Chronicles. I came across Luna-Beth during one of my excursions on the Heath and I’ve been tailing her ever since.

Luna-Beth: She’s not kidding! If she wasn’t such a kindred spirit, I’d be a tad wigged out by her presence. But, I owe her a lot, so I put up with her voyeurism.

HSPD: That’s a funny, yet apt way to describe an author’s hand in her novels. Are you jealous?

L-B: No

SCD: Yes.

HSDP: You’ve given our readers two conflicting answers. Care to elaborate?

SCD: You go first, Luna-Beth. The place of honor as the heroine of the novel, and all that.

L-B: You’re very kind, as usual. See how I can’t be jealous? S.C. has been very generous. Without her, I would have never met my wolf-mate. I never would have had our wolf-babes, or met the wolf-people. Which means I would have never met Suma and Grane. Who, by the way, you should interview sometime. If they’ll let you.

SCD: The pleasure has been all mine, really. It was Luna-Beth’s courage that got us deep into those Maine woods. Without her brass, I wouldn’t have met the wolf-people either.

HSDP: You two are like the Mutual Admiration Society. Aside from your obvious respect for one another, is there something about the other you would change if you could?

SCD: Ha! At the risk of getting someone’s jaws clamped around my throat—I’d say I wouldn’t mind being Alec’s mate. Luna-Beth is a very lucky wolf-woman to have such an attentive lover.

HSDP: Your silence Luna-Beth is leaving your fans on tenterhooks. Care to explain it?

L-B: You want the PG-rated version or the R one?

HSDP: It’s probably best to keep your response family friendly. I mean, human family friendly.

L-B: Glad you made the distinction, because showing one’s affection isn’t something the wolf-people hide, or save for the privacy of one’s bedroom. There is no shame in my and Alec’s love-making. No matter how heated it gets.

SCD: I think you made our interviewer blush!

L-B: I can’t help it. You know very well I’m not good at lying.

SCD: I know, except for when it matters.

HSDP: S.C. Dane raises a good point, Luna-Beth, and it’s one I wanted to ask you about since earlier you mentioned Grane. I apologize ahead of time if my questions become too personal, but that wolf-man kidnapped you from Alec and your pups, and his pack leader almost raped you. I think our readers find it curious you were able to forgive Grane and accept him into your pack.

L-B: Yeah, well, he’s got a kind heart despite what he’s done. Sometimes our grief can consume us, and we lose sight of who we really are, indulge in the beast who’s tearing our insides out. I saw that in Grane when I healed his wound. He had much to grieve about, even though I instinctively liked him.

SCD: I have to say, apart from the birthing of your babes, Luna-Beth, bearing witness to your captivity was the hardest part for me. I mean, you almost died, and so did Alec, who came to rescue you. It was touch and go there for a while.

L-B: You’re telling me!

HSDP: Well, ladies, as soon as you two let each other go from your handholding, we’ll finish up here. Not that seeing firsthand how intimidating you are, Luna, hasn’t been a real eye-opener. One of these days, I’ll share with our readers of the “Howling Success” just how hard the hairs on my skin are prickling.

SCD: You kind of just did. Isn’t she beautiful? Alec thinks so, too. Forget that he’s wolf and very loyal, or that Luna-Beth is a coveted prize. She’s easy to love, even if she is fierce when she loves you back. All of the wolf-people, myself included, count themselves lucky to reside in her heart. I’m glad you got the chance to see a little of that Luna shining out from Beth.

HSDP: Me, too, S.C. even though I regret that extra cup of coffee I had earlier. But I couldn’t have said it better, and our readers will be grateful for your description of our heroine. Thank you ladies for dropping by. It has been my privilege.

SCD: The privilege has been ours. Right, Luna-Beth?

L-B: Any chance to kill a human ranks high in my book. This one doesn’t get away.

HSDP: Ladies? Er…what are you…holy, those are some sharp teeth. Surely, you—

So, I had a little fun with the abrupt and violent ending. For those who know Luna-Beth, I’m sure they weren’t surprised. None of the wolf-people like humans, for good reason. Unless of course, that human is Kenrickey. But that’s a story for the next book in The Luna Chronicle series.

~S.C. Dane

#Free Wolves and Tagged Lupines

Free Wolves and Tagged Lupines

A double title, and each subject joined by their natures. Wolves.

The first is a chin-lifted-to-the-sky celebration, howled to the moon by a lucky winner of a free copy of Luna: Book One of The Luna Chronicle. I offered it up at The Romance Studio’s Summer Bash, and it got snagged in minutes. Luna found a new home.

The second portion of the title refers to Grane: Book Two of The Luna Chronicle. Once you read the book you’ll understand what I’m referring to. Things don’t go well for my title character.

In the story, at least. Outside of the book’s binding, things are going great for the gray wolf. He gets set free. Onto the general public. Effective midnight tonight, August 18, 2013.

In the pale light of a waxing moon, Grane will emerge from the shadows of Melange-Books LLC to show himself in all his scarred skin and yellow-eyed glory.

Here’s a taste:

The Luna with her mate.

I kept my nose tucked under my tail and feigned sleep so that I could watch them. They belonged together; it showed in the curve of their bodies as they folded in and around one another. I lay still, and when they had finished talking and Luna had fallen asleep, I could see their bodies rise and release in the harmony of their breaths. They were beautiful. And I was a fool to have ever taken her from him.

Alec, her mate, watched over her while she slept, his tender vigilance illuminating just how much he had missed her, and how ardently he protected her. From the likes of me.

Yet, they offered me consolation when it was I who had stolen Luna from her family, seized her from this fierce love. How could they overlook my crimes? My mauling by Meron’s pack of wolves would have been a fit ending to my wretched life, they should have left me to endure the justice of a cruel death.

But no, instead they protected me, and offered sanctuary to my little group from the violence of their daily existence. For that kindness alone, I owed the alphas more than my loyalty. I revved my spine and shot the blood to my skin so I could speak to my new leader with words and not my wolf body language.

He watched my transformation with a quietude born of confidence. “You do not sleep, Grane,” he whispered. Luna stirred in his embrace, but did not open her eyes. She smiled in her sleep, and looked nothing like the frightening creature I had witnessed earlier that day, when she had fisted Meron‘s head in her hand for us all to see.

I pulled my eyes from the vision of the Luna to watch my new pack leader. Like his mate, he smiled because they were whole again. Truly, I did not deserve to witness such affection, and I answered before my self-disgust overwhelmed me.

“No, we are too close yet to Meron’s pack. If they followed us…” I let my sentence trail away with my fretful thoughts. If these two creatures were harmed?

“I do not think they will come,” he predicted.

His conviction was not misplaced. My sister would not send anyone, nor would they come voluntarily. The Luna’s threat had pierced into the hearts of every wolf present. I had seen the dread in their eyes, their rigid bodies. She had not only challenged the pack leader, but the entire army of wolves, and they had focused on her with a terror born from survival. I know, because I had been just as frightened as the others. The Luna, with her poison, could have killed us all. Sweet deliverance, I had sat on that ground a bloody mess, and she had offered me her smile and her hand, a safe place within her family. I had stretched my arm across that terrifying reach, and had accepted her heart.

What right had I? A tremor sizzled across my back, and I spoke to quiet my thoughts.

“I believe you are right, Alec. But still, I tend to be cautious.”

“It is a trait that will benefit our pack, Grane. We welcome it.”

I dropped my eyes from his earnest gaze. He had uttered the word we as if he spoke for them all inclusively, and my charred heart fluttered with hope. I asked for my leave before I revealed my torment, and retreated into the woods to conceal myself in a cluster of alders.

I was a disgusting, spiteful wolf who did not deserve this opportunity for redemption! For too long I had been under Meron’s sway. How did I let myself dare await such promises? I was undeserving. Armand was the one. As were Ane and Elga. It was they who had needed deliverance. My atrocities against my fellow wolf deserved no forgiveness.

My lungs filled with my anguished howl, and I clamped my jaw to stifle it. That one wail would unleash too much from my scarred spirit, and I gripped the silver stems of the alders that offered their shelter to diffuse the tension that balled my muscles.

I would humbly serve this pack even if it tormented me. I would bow to each and every member to repay them for my barbarity, and for their kindness to mine. I let myself go and burned into my wolf form so that I could hunt to distract my thoughts. We still had far to go before we returned to the territory where I had stolen Luna.

Great suffering! We were returning to the origin of my crime. I moved my paws to silence my brain and shackle my heart. I had a debt to pay and I would own it if killed me.

~S.C. Dane