A Guardian's Life Except Copyright 2012 All Rights Reserved Katherine Rochholz

     I woke up in a start. Damn, I really hate hunting werewolves. So hard to tell the difference of the two breeds sometimes. I was knocked out, don’t really remember how, but I knew it had something to do with James. I hated hunting werewolves. Before I sat up and really woke up my mind drifted back to the reason I hated hunting werewolves.
     I was hunting one, in the early stages of the American Revolution. Of course right before the war started, everybody knows the story. Just not the true story. I was hunting a werewolf. I do not know how I knew he was one, as there were no deaths, that suggested werewolf, but still I found the trial and was hunting him. I found him as The Minute Men stood facing the Red Coats; he was there, standing so still. I watched them, nobody moving. I thought I would take a shot. I aimed toward him and took a shot, but instead it went right by his ear, slightly grazing it. And instead of getting a chance to get another shot all hell broke loose so to say and the war started. I had started a war, trying to take out a werewolf. So I joined the American Revolution. Couldn't let the bloody Red Coats win after all. It took me a few weeks to track him again. But I found him. I was coming up behind him, I thought I had followed him, without him noticing, but at the last moment the wind changed. And he caught my scent. He moved so quickly, he pushed me against a tree and he took a claw and stabbed into my heart. Before I died I saw a moment of shock on his face.
      I woke up the next night determined to kill the wolf. I woke up to a fire, and the smell of food. I sat up, the pain of my body coming back to life. My soul raw and the food smell so good. I turned to the fire and saw the werewolf sitting by the fire waiting.
      “You are a damn Guardian.” He stated starting the conversation. He had his shirt off and I could tell even in the faint light he had a back tattoo of a symbol, it was so strange, but it fit him. I wanted to ask. It looked like an anchor in a way but with no curved hooks. It was like an upside down cross with a ‘2’ on one side and a backwards ‘2’ on the other.
      “Yes and you are a werewolf. What does your tattoo stand for?” I could not help but ask.
     “Born and raised. It is the mark of my pack. I am the alpha. It is called The Gray mark. Our tribe is called the Gray Wolves.”
      “Well now you die.”
     “I know your blood.”
     “What?” I was confused.
     “It is my father’s blood.”
     “I don’t think so. And again now you die.”
     “I don’t think so. What is your name?”
      “Martha.” So I lied. I haven’t used my real name since my death.
      “I want your real name. Or do you want to go back to hell?”
      In my weakened condition, I couldn’t take him in a fair fight. “Catherine Von Kampen. And you will die.”
      “I don’t think so.”
      “Why is that?” I need a moment before I attack anyway.
      “Because you really are my half-sister. I am Dante Von Kampen.”
      Now I was confused. “You better explain.”
     “Our father was a werewolf, as was every male in our family. The gene starts showing around fifteen or sixteen. He left my mother before he even knew of my existence; he was tricked by that demon that is your mother.  In females it is a recessive gene, shows up about the age of twenty, in about five percent of females.  Most females are transformed by a special type of witch, upon the age of twenty or through a marriage ceremony.”
      “Werewolf? Father was no werewolf.”  And I never turned into any wolf.
      “He was, he could control it, and wanted forget about that part of himself. Your younger brothers would have become werewolves as well if they had lived.  You would have been a werewolf...”  He smile a sly smile.  "You are a werewolf, your Guardian status is making it a submissive trait... pity..."
      “How do you know?”
      “Your blood, it smells like mine. No matter how many times it changes, it is always going to smell like family.”