POV: Chaos
After jumping down from the altar, I ran in full panic. Everything hurt. I ran through the guards and into the forest and just kept running. It was dark before I was forced to stop in exhaustion. The awakening, the binding, and our first shift finally took its toll. I was by a lake and had a long drink.
Kyas was quiet in my mind, seemingly asleep. I couldn't see him through the barrier, now no longer a mist but solid and immovable. He was there though, he tried to get me to slow down many times, but in my panic, I just couldn't. I don't know if I should have heard him after the binding, but I also noticed that the barrier didn't completely block us. It would be an effective stop to Kyas and me shifting back, but we can still talk with each other, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't supposed to happen.
The next two weeks were tense. In addition to the constant fear that Alpha Silas had sent wolves after me, Kyas' treatment before the shift had left us malnourished. I was capable of so much more than I could physically accomplish. It felt like my days were spent in constant vigilance for either hunters or that which could be hunted. After a few lucky wild bird catches, I was physically catching up. I became quite good at catching small fauna, then more birds like quail and ducks, and once a rabbit.
During that time, Kyas filled me in on his childhood so far. It wasn't a good story. As we got stronger, Kyas kept insisting that we return to the pack. I admit that part of me needed the pack but they weren't very nice to him before the binding, I can't imagine they'll be any nicer now that he can't help in the kitchen.
On the fourth week, they found me. I was asleep, back by the lake, as had become my pattern, and they attacked me. I knew better than to fight, there were too many of them. After they had me crying in submission, they shifted, tied my muzzle shut and hogtied me, carrying me back to the packhouse.
They dropped me at the feet of Alpha Silas. His face had healed from my scratches, but it looked like one scratch had been deep enough to create a slight scar through the lower part of his eyebrow. He beat me for that. He then grabbed my muzzle and told me that if I ever tried to leave the pack again, the next time they found me, I wouldn't come back alive. Looking straight into my eyes he said that. He meant it. Yes, Alpha. Finally, he declared that I was now a dog, and would be living with and working with the pack dogs.
They carried me, tied up and badly beaten and dropped me into the dog pen. Where the dogs set on me. Again, they didn't stop until I was crying in submission. During that beating though, they chewed off my restraints and I was able to hide in a hole another dog had dug under the water trough.
For two days I lay there and recovered, sneaking out every few hours to drink. While doing so, I watched the dogs. My first four weeks of "life" since awakening had been spent on my own. Kyas had lived in a pack, but as a slave, not even an omega, so neither of us really knew what Pack was really about.
It was obvious, as the new guy, and the only wolf shifter, I was considered different by the pack, but I determined to try to fit in with it, otherwise, I don't think I would make it. Also, I am not a full-grown wolf, Kyas was only ten. Even among the dogs, I'm nowhere near the biggest. I watched the dogs comparable to me. Younger dogs that had already learned the pack hierarchy and who to push boundaries with and who not to.
In the dog pen, I had a new Alpha named Todd, going by the names used by the kennel master,, and his Beta was Romeo. On the third day an adult female named Connie brought over an old bone and dropped it for me. Imitating the younger dogs, I thumped my tail and showed my belly, and waited until she walked away to grab the bone. There was still some marrow in it.
Also on the third day in the dog pen, the kennel master brought food that included me. He made sure each dog, got at least one fish but then he tossed the remaining fish all around the yard, letting the dogs squabble for them. Once every scrap was gone, one of the dogs, named Fred, came and laid down next to me. He was an easy going dog, but also clearly an omega. In less than one week, I knew something that Kyas had never known. We were definitely NOT born to be slaves or omegas.
Locked in the back of my mind, Kyas and I talked a lot while I healed. He taught me what he had been able to learn as a human, and we talked about how instinct guided many of my movements. While in wolf form, Kyas kept me… well, as human as the wolf side of a wolf shifter gets. One of the things that bothered me was his insistence on referring to himself as "this one" or "it". I didn't like it. I told him he didn't have to do that since he can't come out. He didn't have to do that with me. It wasn't supposed to be like this, the wolf is supposed to retreat when he needs rest and let the human control the day-to-day. This is new territory for both of us.
Since Fred had decided to befriend me, I started modeling his dog behavior. I emulated his easy-going, forgiving nature, and especially when the Master was around, his stupid, goofy dog attitude. It wasn't long though before some of the dogs that bullied Fred learned not to bully me. Ever respectful of Todd and Romeo, I reached a middle-of-the-pack rank and contented myself there.
In a shifter wolf pack, regular dogs were kept for four reasons. To be extra eyes and ears on patrol and guard the pack house, to assist in the hunting of game and fowl necessary to sustain a large pack, for companionship to shifters that had yet to find mates, and to work. The largest dogs were put to work running sheep and goats, working on cattle drives if the pack kept cattle, and pulling things like sleds, heavy objects and pretty much anything else they could be trained to do. Many dogs, the smart ones, often had jobs that changed with the seasons. Dogs that helped hunt in the fall would find themselves pulling sleds over snow in the winter months, and patrolling the borders in the spring and summer when rogues were in mating mode. I wondered what they would end up making me do.
Whenever the kennel master entered the yard, I kept my distance. The dogs crowded him, being the source of food and petting, but I knew two things that kept me away. One, it was a sure fire way to get in the middle of a fight with Todd and Romeo when they began resource guarding and felt like the other dogs were getting too close. Two, the kennel master was a shifter and I didn't know how much he knew about me. If he knew I wasn't a dog, but was thrown in here with them, he might beat me like all the other shifters beat Kyas.