The EternalWolf Effect (Book V)

CHAPTER ONE - Sweet and Spicy

Timber Elizabeth Santelli was an unusual woman in many ways. In all outward appearances, she was a normal individual. She was often referred to as the Stepford Wife of her town but she never minded. As was the tradition on her aunt's side, she was a stay-at-home mother. She owned a large antebellum-style farmhouse near the edge of the small coastal town of Fort Bragg, California with her husband. She spent most of her days cooking, cleaning, gardening, and taking care of her family. That was not what made her unusual. What was unusual about her other, more wolfish side but none of the humans in her community were fearful of her.

Timber was born to werewolf parents. This gave her the unique ability to shift between a human form and a wolf form. When she met Henry, he was a werewolf but fifteen years earlier he went through a painful alteration and became the Wolf Lord. He received the ability to change forms at will like his wife, rather than having to deal with changes every full moon. After their son was born, Timber and Henry moved back to Haven to protect their son and to aid in the War of Realms. Renegade Frost opened Haven's gates after the war, allowing the citizens to live wherever they wished. Timber, Henry, and their son Renegade returned to their first house in Fort Bragg for a couple of years while their current home was built from the ground up.

Before Renegade started pre-K, Timber took an online course to get her teaching credentials. By the time he started school, Timber had everything she needed and took over teaching special needs children at Redwood Elementary school after Mr. Nelson moved away. She worked exclusively with children with Autism and other learning disabilities. She loved her work and her students but after four years in the classroom she never thought she would leave, she found one of her pack in crisis and quit her job to be available.

Timber was no longer as youthful in her appearance as she once was. Her light brown hair held flecks and streaks of grey that matched her silver wolf fur and lines were beginning to appear around her russet eyes. Despite her aging face, her eyes were still as vibrant as the stars and her body was still as strong as it had been before the war. Nearly half of her face was covered in the scars she acquired in the War of Realms, but she was used to them and no longer bothered by them.

It was a warm day in August and Timber was moving about the kitchen cooking dinner for her family and her son's friends, who spent a lot of time at the house. Timber loved to cook and she often felt fortunate that she was able to spend her days at home cleaning, cooking, and sewing, rather than working a nine to five job. She was given the time to prepare things like gumbo for her son when she wanted to. And that was what she was slaving over. She was adding the andouille sausage that she had cut into thick slices and thinking about how happy her son was going to be when he came home from his first day of school.

Renegade was starting his junior year of high school and he had woken up with shot nerves. Timber had fought with him to get out of bed as she had before but he was stronger than her now. So, rather than get Henry involved, she threatened him with a bucket of ice water and he gave her no further problems. He knew better because Timber never made empty threats. She had dumped ice water on him before. So, to make him feel better about the day, Timber was making him a large pot of his favorite dinner.

Three minutes after two in the afternoon, the front door opened. Timber looked up from the pot with a smile but it faded as soon as she saw her son. Renegade came through the massive doorframe in his wolf form and lay down on the floor. Timber, immediately concerned, looked over at her husband for an explanation. Henry, who was also showing his age, joined her in the kitchen. He was a little greyer than Timber and his wrinkles around his eyes were a little deeper but like Timber, he still held a youthful gleam in his hazel eyes.

"There's a new kid in town," explained Henry to Timber. "Not a nice boy."

"What happened?" asked Timber, wiping her hands on her old apron.