Growing Up Werewolf Read online

  Growing up Werewolf

  By Breukelen Girl

  Smashwords Edition

  © Copyright 2014

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It contains violent and sexual content. By reading and purchasing this book and downloading it, you consent to being of legal age for such material.

  This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

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  Writing takes time and effort and Breukelen Girl goes to a lot of it for your reading enjoyment. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  You can find more of Bg’s free writing on her blog “A Werewolf Blog in Brooklyn”

  http://altijdbreukelen.wordpress.com

  Free podcast series Red White and Werewolf is available from Itunes, SticherRadio and TalkShoe

  More Breukelen Girl novels are listed at the back of this novel

  1

  Growing up werewolf. You think you’d get used to it at some point in your life.

  Take me for example. I was adopted at four weeks of age by Dolph Sommers, Pack Alpha for the Breukelen werewolf pack in Brooklyn, New York.

  He made no illusions about hiding what I was from me. How could he? After all I was growing up in a completely werewolf orientated household. Doesn’t mean I’ve gotten used to what it means to be a werewolf even when I’m surrounded by them.

  He fathered two other alpha werewolves. The eldest, a boy named Aksel and the second oldest a girl named Bodil. Then there was Markus, a beta werewolf. I was adopted six months after Markus’s birth and the death of his, Aksel and Bodil’s mother. Love of Dolph Sommers life.

  There’s something more to their mother’s death to it than that. But I can’t figure it out without asking questions, questions that would hurt. A couple of years after the passing of their mother, Dolph met Annabeth, a beta werewolf. She gave birth to a beta werewolf, Joss. He is the puppy of the family.

  The Sommers family name is like a Police, Sheriff and Marshall’s badge, all rolled into one. Bullies thought twice about picking on me in school. It didn’t always stop them but it sure made them hesitate.

  It also got my sister into a lot of trouble on my behalf, sticking up for me. She likes to fight. Aksel says she’s temperamental.

  So I’ve always grown up knowing what I was, but never really understood what I would become. What it means exactly to be a werewolf? What is it to be adopted into the Pack, not born into it? Does anyone ever know themself? I mean isn’t that the point to life? To figure all that out?

  You see I was born a werewolf like my siblings. But just like any other natural born werewolf, the genes don’t fully kick in until puberty.

  My parents had been bracing themselves for this to happen to me since I was twelve. I’m fourteen now and I haven’t had a shape shift or any slight werewolf like thing happen to me yet. Maybe I’m a late bloomer?

  But this weekend the family is off to do what we have been doing for quite some time now - we’re going country.

  2

  It’s a well known werewolf habit. Most pack families do it with young pups. It’s a way to help us condition ourselves to the experience of becoming a werewolf. I’m told it’s a lot better to do your first shape shift in the county than in the city where we live.

  Cities freak animals out. Werewolves apparently aren’t all that different to this. Except when a werewolf freaks out it tends to lead to people running away screaming and some bloodshed, Which is not good. Especially for a first time. Try explaining that to the local authorities!

  “Well I’m sorry officer, but you see I was shape shifting for the first time in my life. Yes ever and oh, did I not mention I’m a werewolf? Yes officer I am. You see once a month I have to go furry under the light of the full moon. No officer it’s no myth, we do actually exist and live amongst you humans everyday.”

  Our country trips happen once a month, every lunar week, since none of us kids are really able to be left alone, to cope with the whole shape shift thing yet.

  Well Aksel is slowly trying his hardest to get out of each trip. He’s nineteen and seems more interested in the female species than family togetherness. I think Aksel works along the lines of “If I got through it so will you.” But father has managed to rein him in each time so far.

  I groan and look at myself in the mirror again. I still look the same as I have every other year. Shoulder length black hair, caramel brown eyes, full lips. I don’t know what I was expecting. Other than some sort of, well, advanced warning system to indicate this might be the time I shape shift.

  I have asked my sister Bodil about it before. She told me she knew when it was going to kick in. I asked her how and she said something about feeling everything – more. Like having super hearing, exceptional night vision, heightened sense of smell. Plus she seemed to hang around her male friends more.

  She seemed more flirtatious with them, but she didn’t tell me that. That was just my own observations of what I can remember from that time.

  I’m only three years younger than her and three months less than Markus who already shape shifted last month. Markus told me I’d do fine and get through it. We all would, because that’s how werewolves are built - the toughest biology of all.

  That kind of freaked me out a bit. I mean, I know Markus means well and all but he seemed like he wasn’t telling me something. Like how it really will be. The thing is I’m not allowed to watch anyone shape shift either. My father tells me that a lot of werewolves, especially those new to shape shifting, consider it a rather private moment. I guess I could understand that.

  Except I’ve seen my father shape shift before. It’s fast and smooth. It always seems like - blink and I’ve missed something in the magic trick. Watching him made me wonder what the big fuss over it, really is. But then I remember Markus’s words and Bodil’s coyness over explaining it more fully to me. And I think there’s something more I’m not getting about this. But I take in everything everyone says to me about it. I mean, it’s not like me and my friends don’t chat and swap horror stories over what we’ve all been told or you know, not told as the case may be.

  But I will. Eventually right? I mean, I’m a werewolf, I have the genes, it’s just a matter of time before I shape shift.

  The girl in the mirror is not giving anything away on when this will happen. My body is pretty flat. My girlfriends already have the whole bra thing underway. I sigh and shake my head. I pull my underwear back on and dress quickly.- t-shirt and jean shorts.

  “Markus!” I yell down the dark hallway. “Markus? Did you take my sleeping bag?” I wait for a response.

  Thundering footsteps and my brother appears running down the corridor towards me. Markus has brown hair and blue eyes, a combination of his mother and our father. We’re the same height, but he is bulking up now, becoming muscular.

  I wonder if this is because of his change. I wonder if this will happen to me too. Maybe I will get boobs.

  “Did you take my sleeping bag?” I ask crossing my arms.

  “Aw come on, that is not your sleeping bag, it’s just the best one we have.” He says smiling at me.

  “Which means it’s mine.” I said glaring at him. Every single trip we do this. I lay dibs on the same sleeping bag each time. Hell, our father even wrote my name on the bag cover in black marker to stop this from happening. “My name is on it.”

  Markus looks away. There really is no answer to that. He lets out a huff and walks off towards his
room. He’s older than me, he’s stronger than me. So he outranks me, he could try and pull that seniority crap on me and I’d probably give in to it.

  Probably. Maybe. Maybe not.

  “I don’t see why you can’t share Cadey.”

  Cadey short for Cadence. Nobody calls me Cadence anymore. The puppy whine of his voice, the use of my family name, I know he is trying to make me feel guilty.

  He reaches into the doorway of his room and produces the red sleeping bag and throws it down the corridor towards me. It lands a foot short of my bedroom. Sighing I walk out and get it as Markus disappears once again. I pick up my sleeping bag and wander back into my room, putting it with the rest of my stuff for the trip.

  3

  My parents make us take our country trip every month for the full lunar week. Even the two days after full moon. But my father doesn’t usually join us until full moon. As Breukelen Pack Leader he is a very busy man.

  There are five werewolf packs in New York City. The Breukelen, we inhabit the borough of Brooklyn. There is also the Manhattan Maen who have Manhattan, the Braganza who are in Queens, the Neiwe Teme in New Jersey and the Bronx Brown Wolves, in you guessed it, the Bronx.

  Werewolf packs of today are far more civilized than the werewolf packs of old. There are still rules to be observed, not that they always are. This is why having a strong pack leader comes in handy.

  My father has been pack leader of the Breukelen werewolf pack since before I was born. He’s a great pack leader.

  But this kind of thing, reigning in five kids and their highly adjustable teenage moods, is something Annabeth does exceptionally well. She knows exactly what to do with each of us, how to treat us each differently. She’s way smart like that. I think that’s why father put her in charge of our regular holiday outings because she is the calm in the center of the chaos of the Sommers household. Annabeth just breezes along with it making everything she needs to happen, work for her.

  “Bg, are you about ready?” She asks me, sticking her head into my bedroom. “The Holloway’s are going to be here soon to pick you up.”

  Bg as I’m affectionately known. It’s short for Breukelen Girl. I’m a girl, you know, not yet a real werewolf.

  “Yeah, I put my stuff by the front door. I’m good to go.” I say, grabbing an army green duffel bag and shoving some more clothes into it quickly. I’m going up to our regular holiday spot with family friends and their kids. My mother and father will shuttle the rest of the Sommers clan up there later.

  4

  Our lunar week trips are done with a few Breukelen pack families. So there are usually more kids than parents at these things. This means we all go our separate ways. Well as much as we’re allowed to.

  When we arrive at the camping grounds, the parents set up the trailers and tents and get everything the way they want home ground to look like.

  The kids are roped in to help set up their own families area. The families camp close together such is the nature of pack. I have learned that most werewolves inherently have a need to be around other werewolves. Pack werewolves are raised on a sense of community.

  Once this has happened then it’s the kids turn to go off stake out their territories. The older kids take over and dominate the younger ones, taking the best bit of camp ground and surrounding forest for themselves.

  The kids are split into two groups. Teenagers like my brother and sister Aksel and Bodil’s age and above. Then there are the younger kids, the “pups” like me and Markus. Only this time, Markus gets to hang with my older siblings at their camp fire.

  Once you’ve shape shifted and if you’re considered cool enough, you can do that.

  Our two packs break off in their own directions and form their own territory. Which means both camps stack up on junk food and drinks. Neither the teenagers or the younger kids are allowed to camp out, at our territories. All kids have to return to the parental camp ground before the end of night fall.

  But the parents are relaxed enough to allow us kids to stay out in our territories for most of the night. I think the parents see it as a chance to have a night off from us pups. And we pups see it as a chance to have some freedom. It’s a rather mutually beneficial arrangement.

  The teenagers only over come over to the younger kids camp if they want something from us namely our food supplies.

  Or if they’ve been ordered to collect a fellow sibling to return to the home camp ground. The younger kids never go over to the teenagers’ camp. It’s not allowed. We get told that, in no uncertain terms, again and again from the teenagers themselves.

  “Whelps not welcome!”

  “Pups stay at the playground!”

  The playground is what the younger kids’ camp is called. Whilst it might seem like the parents are quite lenient towards us kids running around and staying out at night, they do still, surprisingly, keep an eye on us all. They take it turns to do the occasional random check up on each group.

  Sometimes the teenagers even hire a pup to play look out for them when they want to get up to something they shouldn’t be doing. This is the only time the teens and the pups really work together and get along. Otherwise, it is a case of each to their own. Never the teen and pup shall otherwise met. Which is the way both camps liked it.

  Walking towards the pup’s camp my arms are stuffed with chip packets and soft drinks. Walking beside me and chatting away a mile a minute is Jeanie Halloway. Jeanie is one of my friends in school has yet to experience a shape shift either.

  I should point out, that if a parent suspects a child of being about to shape shift, they generally rein them in to hanging around the their camp ground. The parents whilst enjoying their time out from us kids and pups, where still there to do a job to help us all through our first shape shift should it occur.

  “So what you think? Do you think it’ll happen this week?” Jeanie asked enthusiastically. She always asks, every time we came here.

  I often wondered why she was so enthused about the shape shift. She seemed to believe it would be a rather magical experience.

  Jeanie never seems the least bit anxious or worried about what could happen with a shape shift. Like say it somehow went wrong. I don’t know how it would go wrong, but she never even seemed to entertain the idea.

  “I dunno. I don’t feel any different than normal. What about you?”

  “I hope so. I think I’m ready for it. Not that I feel any different than normal though. Do you think that means it won’t happen, again?”

  “Probably.” I muttered. “I think the more we think about it the less likely it is to happen.”

  “Kind of like we’re blocking it or something.”

  “Yeah! You are blocking my way!” A loud male voice behind us, had us both turning around in time to see Charlie Halloway, Jeanie’s brother, grinning as he leaned down towards our armful of food supplies.

  “Hey!” Both Jeanie and I whined as he stole the large bottle of cola Jeannie was carrying and confiscated it to his laughing, teenage co-horts.

  As they all passed around us on their way to the teenage camp ground. Charlie reached forward for my armful, like he was going to take a lucky dip. I stepped sideways quickly out of his grasp.

  “No way man, you can not take our stuff!” Charlie and his friends laughed.

  “Says who pup?”

  “Me.” I state rather defiantly causing all the other teenagers around Charlie to make loud sounds of surprise. “You want something of ours, you got to trade for it, including the cola.” I lift my head up and nod at the large bottle in his hands.

  Charlie straightens up his eyes fixed on me. “That’s pretty smart kid.”