Chapter 1 First meeting

Zoey

I was driving my car to my grandma's farm. She had asked if I could come over as soon as I possibly could. As high priestess of the House of Night in Tulsa I often had a lot of work on my hands. A week after her request to come and meet an old acquaintance I finally had time to come over. Stark had let her know in advance. Grandma sounded quite serious when she asked me to come over so this old acquaintance must be important to her. "Do you have any idea who it is?" Stark asked. "Yeah, I think I do. There was this woman she would often meet when I was little. Maybe now that everything has settled down and I have matured a lot she feels like sharing her mysterious friend." Stark nodded. We arrived at the farm and when we got out of the car we were immediately welcomed by my grandmother.

"U-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, it is good to see you again." She said while embracing me. She seemed a little nervous and hurriedly gave Stark a hug. "Come, come." She said and walked into her house. I stepped over the threshold and I wasn't met by the normal lavender sage smell that was always around my grandmother. Her scent was there but another scent was covering most of hers. I couldn't place the scent. Stark couldn't either and was suddenly in front of me instead of behind me. I had seen him get protective before but this was different. Then again I was feeling off because of that scent. I walked into the living room with Stark close by my side to find a girl in her early twenties sitting on grandma's couch.

"Zoey, Stark, this is my old friend Rysen Blackwater. Rysen, this is my granddaughter Zoey and her boyfriend Stark." The girl named Rysen had stood up when grandma introduced us and nodded when the introductions were out of the way. She did not shake hands with us. Strange. "Grandma… old friend?" I asked. "Why don't you sit, U-we-tsi-a-ge-ya." I sat down along with everyone else. "Rysen is really an old friend of mine because she looked like this when I first met her at the age of eighteen." My mouth fell open. This girl had to be an immortal of some sorts if she still looks like this. She was most definitely not a vampyre. Many questions crossed my mind and I could see Stark coming up with some of his own. Stark moved a little closer to me on the couch.

"You're not a vampyre so how have you not aged over the years?" I asked. "You must have asked yourself once 'Why do vampyres have no real natural enemy?'. You do have one or at least wolves used to be the protectors against rogue vampyres. Do consider that there weren't blood bags in, for example, the Middle Ages." I looked at Stark and saw the same look on his face that I knew was on mine. "Wolves?" Stark asked the stranger.

"Yes, wolves. We have existed in secret for millennia. Vampyres eventually came along and started to cause some trouble so we decided to take matters into our own hands and protect mankind from your kind. A lot has changed since the old times. Vampyres are a part of society now and we are most appreciative of this change. We are not werewolves like in those nice stories mankind has come up with. We are shapeshifters. We shift whenever we want to and everything we have on us in human form stays in-between when in wolf form. We cannot create any wolves, we are simply born as wolves. Humans are not allowed within our training camps but some, like your grandmother for instance, do know about us and are part of our society. I know this is a lot of information suddenly coming your way but with all that has been happening to you and with what is still happening I thought it would be a good idea to tell you that this world had another secret that you didn't know about. Darkness is rising as you are well aware, the white bull is set on the destruction of the black one and we cannot let that happen. Wolves will not be strong enough on their own and neither will vampyres so in order to save the world we will have to work together."

I could only manage to blink. This girl had been around for at least a century, she was a wolf and on top of all of that she was saying the world could soon meet its end. I knew things were still out of balance. I could feel it in my bones. "The white bull has set its eyes on the destruction of the black bull centuries ago… Why would he succeed now?" Stark asked. We already knew the answer. Neferet had shaken up everything well enough for the white bull to succeed in his plan. Rysen knew the question was already answered by ourselves and asked if we had any other questions.

"We barely know you and your kind and then you expect us to work together?" Stark said. I gave him a reassuring pinch in his arm to show him that it was all right. Rysen was grandma's friend after all. "In time, you will know more about my kind but for now I only have to know one thing. Will you be our allies in this battle or will you let the world fall? The wolves aren't that happy about working with vampyres because even now we are still natural enemies but we know this has to be done." Stark looked at me. sometimes I wished I wasn't Nyx chosen one and had never been marked that day. Everything was so much easier in normal high school. I took a deep breath and answered the wolf:

"We won't let the world fall. We saved it once from Neferet and we barely managed that. Defeating the white bull will need more. I will gather all of my friends and bring them up to speed. We all swore not to let Darkness taint this world and we hold to that oath." I don't think those words were totally mine. Being the chosen one at least had one perk. I was really good at public speaking. All hell would break loose once again. We would fight the Darkness once again. We would win once again. Rysen stood up from her place on the second couch and said:

"Sylvia, it was a pleasure to see you again and again sorry for your loss." Then she turned to me and I felt obliged to stand up. Stark rising along with me. "I would prefer to meet at the training camp, it's in these woods so you don't have to travel far. My preference has not anything to do with your House of Night but more with the wolves. When on grounds that aren't their own they tend to cause unnecessary trouble and when on our own lands any wolf tends to listen better to their alpha. The alpha is, in case you didn't know, the leader of the pack and in our case the leader of the whole community. If you truly have problems with coming onto our grounds then we'll have to find some neutral ground but close by that would only be the grounds we are now on." I had no problems with going to the wolf camp. I could see Stark didn't mind either but he didn't for a whole other reason.

As we drove back home not having any more time to spare to stay at grandma's place I asked him about it. "You're okay with going there because you'll get a good sense of their strengths and weakness, don't you?" He simply gave me his lazy smile indicating that I was absolutely right.