Raised

Hello, welcome to my first submission! I hope you like the prologue and I hope it makes you want to come back to read the first chapter. Please give me your feedback about the story, I'm new at this writing (and publishing) thing and English isn't my native language so every bit of help I can get is precious. Do criticize but do it in a constructive way and please be nice or leave ; ).

TPiM

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Prologue

Little Jade Bluebell ran through the woods as fast as her small legs allowed her, searching for some place to hide from her parents' attacker. Only wearing her flannel pyjamas and wool socks, she ran through the gelid night in the peak of winter. She ran as fast as her small legs allowed her.

Earlier, Jade had been woken up by a loud crash coming from somewhere inside her house, she thought it might have been a burglar, or worse, a monster and even though she was scared, she managed to gather the courage to get up and wake up her parents. Jade was already a big girl "I am four! I'm not a baby I can do this!" She told herself. Jade got up as silently as possible and walked slowly to her bedroom door which was slightly open and peeked through with one of her big round eyes.

Jade could hear voices, but there was no one in sight. She opened the door gently and ran to her parents' bedroom, her woollen socks effectively muffling the sounds of her steps. She closed the door behind her and ran through the dark room to their bed but it was empty and the sheets were cold.

The little child felt like crying but controlled her anxiety because she knew she had to keep being brave, in case there was something wrong going on. Then while she was pondering what to do she heard her mama's voice, she was crying but she couldn't understand her words. She muffled a sob with her little hand, "someone is hurting my mama!"

Jade gathered her now severely shaken courage, got up, and quietly opened the door and walked along the wall past her room into the kitchen door. From that position she could peep into the lit living room. Her mama gagged and bound to a chair and her papa lying on the floor also restrained with a man straddling his torso while holding a knife to his throat. Her vision got blurry with tears; someone invaded her home and was harming her parents, and there was nothing she could do! The attacker had his back turned to her and was leaning against her papa and saying something in his ear, her papa looked scared. Then she looked at her mama thinking on what she should do, her mama saw her and shook her head in panic without the man noticing, she wanted her to flee.

Jade returned to the kitchen and hid under the table, she was very scared and didn't know what to do, didn't know who to call for help, since she lived in a small cottage in the woods with only her parents. Jade would have to walk down the road through the woods, she was very scared of the dark and of walking alone in the woods, and her mama had told her that there were wild animals in there but she had to do something to save her parents. She decided she would be brave and she would go find someone who could help her.

She unlocked the back-door in the kitchen, remembering to grab the flash-light that her papa had left hanging on a nail beside the door. "I should take it with me, so I won't be scared of the dark", she thought. She stretched on her tip toes and managed to take it of the nail. She quickly left the house and walked through the front yard into the road, once she was far enough from the house she started to run down the road with the lit flash-light guiding her steps.

Jade was getting really tired of running, she never ran for that long before and she was the fastest girl in her class. She knew her mama was friends with their nearest neighbour - June, an old lady that always baked yummy sweets but they had never walked from her home to June's. She didn't know how far from her home she was but she kept going.

Less than fifteen minutes had passed since she had left her home when she heard a noise, leaves shaking and she stopped petrified, maybe a hungry bear was coming to eat her she was looking around for a place to hide when a small ball of fur rolled into the road and landed revealing its nature, it was a big puppy! It ran down the road without seeing her and Jade relaxed, she loved dogs but everything was scary in the dark.

She was about to resume her journey when she heard another rustling in the bushes behind her, she turned around while a big wolf came out of the bushes sniffing the ground. She thought he was going to eat her for sure and she cried as loud as she could, the wolf approached her slowly with his head lowered to her level and his ears pointing upward and forward in an inquisitive fashion and then everything went dark. Jade fainted.

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Oliver McCall was pursuing Thomas, his younger brother who ran away in the middle of the night to play in the woods...again. He was going through a wild phase; he thought it was so cool to be a wild animal that Oliver hadn't seen him in his human form for a week. Thomas apparently enjoyed being as filthy as possible, the only baths he took in the current week were saliva baths and he loved to escape from home at night and go howl at the moon, he was really wrapped up into being a wolf. He was a little terror in the form of a cute little grey wolf.

Thomas was a troublemaker since the day he started walking and could not be left unsupervised for five minutes or he would set fire to the housing compound. Today was the full moon and because his little brother couldn't be left unsupervised he had to stay with him while his twins and his parents ran with the pack in the full moon hunt, this month it was his turn to babysit. Luckily Nina stayed behind to make him company. Nina was a really hot 18 year old from his class, they weren't dating or anything but he knew she had a crush on him and she wasn't a prude so he asked her if she wanted to come stay with him while he babysat his brother and she accepted. He had smuggled a bottle of wine from the kitchen, he thought it made him look cool and maybe it would make him lucky too.

Oliver and Nina were on the couch, they had drunk just enough to be uninhibited but not drunk and they had started to make out! He could still remember the softness of her big boobs and her pert nipple against the palm of his hand. He had finally reached inside her top when he heard the front door closing. That little bastard had run outside! He would be in so much trouble if he didn't find him before his parents got home.

Oliver quickly got rid of his clothes and shifted so he could track his brother faster. He was a big black wolf with a white spot in his chest, and the same amber eyes he had as a human, he was almost as big as his father and was still growing.

His father was the Alpha and he was next in line to be Alpha so most of the pack members respected and love him and all the cubs obeyed him without question...except Thomas the little devil. The only person Thomas feared was their mom, well anyone would fear their mom if she called them by their whole name...even his dad. And that is why he would have to find Thomas before their mom noticed he was gone.

He followed his brother's trail easily through the woods while he sent him a mental warning that he was in big trouble if he didn't come back at once but he was ignored, he was going in the direction of the road without noticing, Thomas was warned to never go into the road because he might be seen by a human, now he would really have to catch him as fast as possible. He saw Thomas running 50 meters ahead of him when he slipped in a twig and rolled into a bush and then right into the road, he couldn't see him anymore and so he ran faster.

He jumped into the road almost colliding with a little human girl, younger than Thomas, with huge dark eyes and silky curly black hair in her pyjamas and socks looking really scared. He cautiously approached her trying to look as little as possible like a big bad wolf. Obviously it didn't work and the girl released a high pitched scream and lost consciousness on the road. It was now officially the worst night of his life.

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Jade woke up feeling really comfortable and warm, thinking she had had a bad dream. Jade thought about calling her mom to tell her about her bad dream, but when her vision focused she was in a strange bed, in a strange bedroom and there was a big man with his back turned to her, so Jade closed her eyes again, to pretend she was asleep.

Oliver noticed the change in depth of the girl's breathing, indicating she was conscious again; he turned to her and saw her eyes were close, she was probably scared of him and instead of crying she was pretending to be asleep. "I know you woke up, I want to help you. You can open your eyes and tell me what happened; you're safe here with me." The girl opened her eyes and looked at Oliver with suspicion.

The little human was now visibly calmer so he spoke: "My name is Oliver, you are in my home. I found you passed out in the road. What happened to you? Did you run away from home?"

Jade shook her head and looked down, she was still very afraid and he was a stranger but she needed help so she told him what had happened, "I fainted when I saw this really big wolf, I thought he was going to eat me!", she said anxiously. "I was outside looking for help, a burglar tied my mama and my papa while I was sleeping, maybe he didn't know I was there, so I got out to get help but I was very far away from anyone who could help!" Jade couldn't hold her tears any longer and started crying after she told him what happened. She was truly scared.

Oliver was very worried, it looked like her parents had been attacked in their own home, the little girl managed to escape apparently because the attacker didn't know she was home or maybe because he thought she was sleeping and chose to restrain her parents first.

He had to do something, this girls parents were in danger and everyone was away hunting but he had to help them. He quickly contacted his father mentally and told him about the situation, "Dad, I found a little human girl alone on the road; she saw me in my wolf form and fainted, She came to just now and told me her parents were attacked in their home, I want to go there."

His father quickly replied, "OK son, you might go but wait for John to go inside, he'll meet you there. Your siblings are going home to watch Thomas and the girl right now. Once you get to the girl's home send me directions. Keep me posted."

Oliver knew Thomas was already regretting his escape since their parents would have to know what happened but still he tried to explain the gravity of the situation to his little brother "Thomas, what you did today was very dangerous, and you will have to explain to mom and dad what you did today, and we both will probably be grounded for a long time but I need your help."

Thomas was too ashamed to look at Oliver so he continued. "You know I found the human girl in the road. Apparently she was searching for help. Her parents were attacked and I'm going to her home to see if they're ok, and I need you to stay near her, keep your human form" Thomas nodded and without another word went to Oliver's room where the girl was resting.

Oliver shifted and followed the girl scent for about ten minutes from the point where he found her. The house had the lights out so he cautiously approached the house from the side and looked into the living room window; he saw two human figures lying on the floor, apparently none conscious. He didn't detect anyone else in the house or outside but still advanced carefully.

The front door was open, he reached mentally to his father, "I'm at the house, it seems like there are two people unconscious in the living room, the lights are out and the front door is open." his father quickly answered, "stay outside John is just a couple of minutes away."

Just then John, his father's Beta arrived in his wolf form, both decided it was best to remain in that form so they wouldn't leave further evidence of the presence of humans that could implicate them in the crime. They secured the house, which was empty except for the people in the living room. Oliver went to the living room while John searched the perimeter outside.

Oliver turned the lights on, what he saw almost made him puke, on the floor were the girl's parents, both dead on a pool of their own blood, there was blood spatter everywhere and there was a message on the wall written in their blood – "I will find her too".