Prologue

Astrid was sitting outside her house enjoying the beautiful night sky, as she was staring up at the stars, events were occurring that were going to change her life forever. The Autumn equinox was approaching, and change was imminent. Astrid had lived a remotely normal life so far. She was a witch but that is slowly being accepted more today. She has a husband and 3 daughters, Helga who is 15, Ingrid who is 13 and Freya 12. They lived in a small town in Tennessee about an hour from Nashville. Astrid’s best friend Sylvi owned the local diner. The two women had known each other for the last 10 years since Astrid and Kilian had started over here. They are from Massachusetts born and raised but they wanted to get away from the busy-ness of the north east and enjoy their lives raising their family in the county.

Astrid hadn’t always made the best choices in this lifetime. She was one of the strongest women out there for taking responsibilities or all her actions no matter what it was. Sylvi had grown to admire her best friend more and more lately. She could sense the time was coming that their lives would change forever. She just hopped that her dearest friend would understand when she realized Slyvi had been lying to her for the last 6 months. She needed to tell her friend her secret but once she did, it would put events into play that had been foreseen centuries ago.

She had slipped up a few times over the years, but luckily it was always something easily covered. Two weeks ago, Sylvi and Astrid had gone for a hike in the woods. Fall was their favorite time of the year. Sylvi thought it would be a great idea for them to go enjoy the cool air. She didn’t know that while they were out there they would be followed.

She had left Astrid at the top of the mountain when she caught the scent of the stalker. She told her she was just going to check something out quick and Astrid was more than happy to sit and enjoy the view. Something about being away from everything seemed to calm her down when she was stressed, and that was a daily occurrence for the last couple months. Sylvi knew something was bothering her friend but she didn’t want to push the issue. Astrid would tell her when she is ready.

Once under the cover of the forest Sylvi shifted into a beautiful tan wolf with crystal blue eyes. Her wolf was larger than other females, her father was one of the top warriors at pack, and she was trained to follow. She had doubled-back and came up behind the wolf that was following them. Luckily, she had the advantage since she had already shifted.

She pounced as the intruded caught her scent. He was not expecting her to be in wolf form in the middle of the day. There are a lot of humans that use this trail and werewolves are a bit larger than regular wolves you may see hanging around. The intruder lay flat on his back on the ground, both her paws on his chest pushing him into the ground. Her snarl echoed down the mountain as the saliva dropped down from her snout onto the intruder’s face. He shoved Sylvi off himself, but she was able to stay on her feet. As he began to shift, she used all her strength from her hind legs and lunged at him. She latched her jaw on his arm and tore it off, tossing it aside as she landed.

The man now trying to get back to his feet was pushed face first into the ground whimpering. Sylvi now shifted to her human form and kept the arm he still had pinned behind his back. “Why are you following me? What do you want?” She wasn’t going to ask again. The sound of his laughter as a response was bone chilling.

“What do you mean following you? You have nothing that he wants, but he will get her, don’t you worry!” He spat at her. Sylvi pushed down on the back of his neck snapping it in one motion.

“Yeah, well you won’t be around to see the outcome regardless.” She spat at his corpse.

Being covered in blood she could not go back to meet her friend at the top of the hill right away, she ran to a lake and cleaned up. She was gone for over an hour and it did not go unnoticed by her best friend. She shrugged it off to Astrid that she was somehow turned around, they both knew that was not the case.