Melina, a spirited high school girl, kindled Leo's heart with her thirst for adventure. Despite initial hesitations, she succumbed to Leo's charms, and their love flourished over the years. Celebrating their two-year anniversary, Leo proposed, and Melina eagerly accepted. Their newlywed bliss led to aspirations of parenthood, but conceiving became an unexpected struggle, straining their relationship. Leo distanced himself, claiming to have found someone new and sought a divorce. Melina, shattered, grappled with the reality of her pregnancy amidst the chaos. Fearing disruption of Leo's new life, Melina retreated to seclusion with her family's aid, raising her children in peaceful isolation. Yet fate intervened when Leo uncovered her whereabouts. Despite fabricating the children's ages and parentage, a unique father-son bond emerged, compelling Melina to reconsider their relationship. She softened, allowing Leo a chance to make amends and embrace his newfound role.
Chapter 1 I
I'm Melina Alden, and this is the story of how adventures made me meet the love of my life, but also took him away from me.
This story begins when I was sixteen. At that time, with youth boiling in my blood and my incessant search for excitement, I ended up joining my school's running club.
The adrenaline rush of starting a race is what won me so many trophies and medals, but my life as a runner didn't end when the starting bell rang. Many students gathered after school to drink and have fun in the Hidden Falls forest, but it was also the scene of clandestine lycan fights.
Wolf fights had become a criminal offence many years before, but none of those young people cared, least of all me. No feeling of freedom was greater than transforming into your wolf form and running after a deer with the moon at its zenith to witness.
I was one of the fastest, but I didn't always win, which only made the race that much more exciting. A wrong turn, a second of inattention or a false step could cost me the win.
In addition to the bends, ravines and rocks that served as obstacles, many wolves didn't respect the rules of the hunt and attacked the other participants. I had to keep my guard up whenever I found a deer because a wolf could come out of the shadows and try to steal it from me, or even worse.
The only rule that everyone was obliged to follow in order to take part was not to see the transformation of any opponent. The main intention of this rule was that none of us could finger the other in revenge for losing, but also because in order to transform, we had to be naked.
Before I started taking part in these races, the biggest winner was a black wolf much bigger than most of us who was named "Shadowclaw". Being named in that kind of race was an honour for few, and until I arrived, only two wolves received such prestige.
I was the third to be named. My nickname took a while to be chosen, but in the end they chose "Blonde Blitz" because, although my fur was very light, I was the fastest of all the wolves. It was an indescribable feeling to have so many people talking about you with admiration without knowing that they were really talking about you.
Alena, my best friend who I'd known since primary school, was probably my biggest fan. She would show me the videos from the cameras she set up around the forest to record the race every day and I had an inexplicable urge to tell her that that wolf was me.
It wasn't because I didn't trust her, it was because I didn't want my parents to find out I was doing it. She was really bad at keeping secrets and always ended up letting it slip in front of them that I'd done something. She was afraid of authority, so she was very easily intimidated.
My strategy for entering the race undetected was to hide downwind before the start and wait for the start in my wolf form. When I managed to capture a deer, I would carry it to the indicated spot and walk away while the spectators were still cheering.
The satisfaction was so great that it was worth every scratch, bite and bruise that I had to hide afterwards, but the injuries meant that I only had to take part in races at weekends, which is why my nickname took a while to earn.
The consolidated rivalry between me and the black wolf was also a great motivation. The two of us always played fair with each other, but the tension when we ended up bumping into each other in the forest made our hair stand on end. His eyes and mine remained fixed on each other until he disappeared into the shadows or I ran after some noise in the woods.
Because he was so big, he wasn't as fast, but because I had a light colour to my fur, I couldn't hide as well. Because we were so opposite in our ways of hunting, we ended up creating a kind of competition of our own in which one always waited for the other at the finish line to sing victory.
For me, the weeks that passed were just an extension to the next hunt. The moonlight and the cold night wind invited me every Saturday and Sunday to slip out of my window and run into the forest, which was not far from my home.
The smells, sounds and sensations became more intense with every beat of my heart. The eyes shining through the forest brought the flavour everyone wanted of imminent danger. Every time the wind blew with the scent of prey or an adversary, attention and caution had to be tripled instantly.
Committed, every wolf in the forest did its best to be the first to win. Many would use it as an escape from their personal problems, many didn't even care about the race itself and just wanted to have fun, but the few who took the hunt seriously remained quiet and sneaky until the last breath of their prey.
Growls that began in the throat of a predator and ended in the throat of a prey, paws light as feathers as they moved nimbly through the trees and heavy as lead as they captured their targets. Huge mouths full of teeth that would soon be painted blood red.
Every aspect that defined a hunt was extremely attractive to us. Even with different motivations or objectives, inside Hidden Falls we were all a pack.
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