Chapter 6 Memory Howl

The days following the trial blurred together in a haze of research and revelation. Connor and I established a makeshift laboratory in the back room of the clinic, where we worked tirelessly to understand the silver blood condition spreading among the packs. Elena reported daily with updates from Shadow Creek—three more cases, all showing the same symptoms Jacob had exhibited.

My own blood had become our most valuable research tool. Under the microscope, it appeared human in most aspects, but contained unique antibodies that neutralized the silver particles. I had extracted these antibodies and developed an experimental serum that was showing promising results in our lab tests.

"It should work," I told Connor as we examined the latest batch. "But I need to understand why my blood has these properties in the first place."

Connor looked up from the microscope, his expression guarded. "You know why, Alison. You're just not ready to accept it."

He was right. All evidence pointed to a truth I'd been avoiding: my connection to the pack wasn't coincidental. The horseshoe scar, the memories that didn't belong to me, my body's accelerated healing—they all suggested I was something more than human.

"The grandmother wants to see you," Connor said, changing the subject. "She's been asking for three days."

I'd been avoiding the ancient wolf matriarch, afraid of what more she might reveal. "What does she want?"

"She says she knew you. Before."

The simple statement hung in the air between us. Before. Before what? Before I became Dr. Alison Carter? Before I had memories of a childhood in the city with my father?

"Fine," I agreed reluctantly. "I'll see her tonight."

The rest of the day passed in focused work. I treated patients, monitored our serum tests, and tried to ignore the whispers that followed me through the village. Word of the trial had spread, and I'd become something of a legend—the human doctor who could calm a transformed Alpha with a touch.

At sunset, Connor led me to a small cabin at the edge of the village, set apart from the others and surrounded by ancient pine trees. The grandmother—whose name, I'd learned, was Willa—sat on the porch in a rocking chair, her milky eyes somehow finding us as we approached.

"Silver daughter," she greeted me, her voice stronger than her frail appearance suggested. "You've finally come home."

"I'm not—" I began automatically, but Connor's gentle hand on my back silenced my denial.

"Sit," Willa commanded, pointing to wooden stools arranged before her. "The stubborn one may stay too."

Connor smiled faintly at this description of himself, taking a seat beside me. Willa's unseeing eyes studied me with unnerving intensity.

"You don't remember," she stated. "They took that from you."

"Who took what?" I asked, though part of me already knew the answer.

"Your father. The human who called himself your father." Willa's gnarled fingers reached for my hand, finding the marked palm with unerring accuracy. "He took you from us when you were five winters old. Took you and erased what you were."

My heart pounded so loudly I was sure both wolves could hear it. "That's impossible. My father raised me in Chicago. I have memories—"

"False memories," Willa interrupted. "Implanted to protect you. Or perhaps to protect himself from what you might become."

Connor leaned forward. "Grandmother, you're saying Alison lived here? In Gray Ridge?"

"Not here." Willa's milky eyes shifted toward the north. "With the Shadow Creek Pack. She was their gift to us. A peace offering after generations of conflict."

My mind reeled. "A peace offering? You mean I was... traded? Like property?"

"No, child. You were honored. The first human child to be raised by both packs. Six months with Shadow Creek, six months with us. Until your fifth year, when a human tracker found our village."

"My father," I whispered.

"A scientist," Willa corrected. "Hunting our kind with silver and science. He found you playing with the cubs and saw what we had missed—that you were special. That you carried both worlds within you."

Connor's hand found mine, offering silent support as my world tilted on its axis. "How was I special?" I managed to ask.

"You bore the mark from birth," Willa said, touching my collarbone where the horseshoe scar lay hidden beneath my shirt. "The sign of the silver mother. When the wolf mother claimed you as her own, the mark appeared on its own—not bitten, but born from your skin."

Images flashed through my mind—a dark-furred wolf nuzzling a small child, the sensation of running through forests on stubby legs, howling at the moon from strong arms that held me safely above the ground. Not imagination. Memories.

"The scientist took you," Willa continued. "And when our hunters tracked you to the city, they found you changed. Your mind altered. Your connection to us severed."

"That's not possible," I argued, clinging to rational thought. "Memory manipulation isn't that advanced, even now."

"For humans, perhaps not," Connor said quietly. "But there are chemicals, derived from certain plants our kind have used for generations. They can selectively target memories tied to emotional states."

"Wolf's bane," Willa nodded. "The forget-me tincture. It would have been in your food, your water, for months. Until the wolf memories faded like dreams."

My father's face flashed in my mind—his careful monitoring of my diet, the bitter tea he insisted would "keep me healthy," the way he'd check my eyes in strong light. Not the actions of a loving parent, but of a scientist monitoring an experiment.

"Why?" I asked, my voice breaking. "Why take me only to experiment on me?"

"Protection, perhaps," Connor suggested. "If you were truly born with the mark, truly the silver mother of prophecy, many would seek to control or destroy you."

"Or perhaps he sought to use your gifts for his own purpose," Willa added. "The blood of the silver mother has power beyond healing."

I stood abruptly, overwhelmed. "This is insane. I'm a doctor, not some mythical figure from werewolf prophecy. My father was a pharmaceutical researcher who loved me. He—"

I stopped short as another memory surfaced—my father in his lab, drawing my blood, smiling as he told me it would "help sick people." Monthly blood draws throughout my childhood, always followed by those bitter teas.

"He used me," I whispered, the truth crashing down like a physical weight.

Connor rose beside me, his hand steadying my elbow. "Alison, we don't know everything yet. Don't jump to conclusions."

"The memories are there," Willa said confidently. "Buried, not destroyed. The blood exchange with our Alpha has awakened them. More will come."

As if triggered by her words, a sharp pain lanced through my temple. I gasped, doubling over as images flooded my mind—running with wolf cubs under moonlight, being carried on the back of a massive black wolf, a woman with kind eyes teaching me to identify healing plants.

"Alison?" Connor's voice seemed distant through the barrage of memories.

"It's starting," Willa observed calmly. "The remembering."

Connor helped me to a bench as the memories continued to surface—painful, disjointed fragments of a childhood I'd forgotten. I clutched my head, overwhelmed by the dual reality forming in my mind—the human childhood I'd always known and this wild, feral existence among the wolves.

"Make it stop," I pleaded.

"Fighting it will only cause more pain," Willa advised. "Let the memories come."

Easier said than done. Each new image brought physical pain, as if my brain was rewiring itself to accommodate these recovered experiences. Connor knelt before me, his hands gently holding mine.

"Focus on me," he instructed. "On my voice. I'm right here with you."

His steady presence anchored me as the memories continued to surface. Gradually, the pain subsided, leaving me exhausted but clearer-headed than before.

"I remember a woman," I said finally. "She smelled like pine and always wore blue. She would sing to me at night."

"Your wolf mother," Willa confirmed. "Elena's sister, Marina. She died the winter before you were taken."

"Elena?" I looked up sharply. "The Alpha of Shadow Creek?"

Connor nodded. "Marina was her younger sister. She was childless and claimed you as her own when you were brought to the pack as an infant."

"But where did I come from originally?" I asked. "If I wasn't born to the pack, how did I end up there?"

Willa and Connor exchanged glances loaded with meaning I couldn't decipher.

"That is not my story to tell," Willa said finally. "Ask the one who wears your blood."

Before I could question this cryptic statement, another wave of memories hit me—stronger, more cohesive than before. I saw myself as a small child, standing in the ceremonial circle. Connor's father—I somehow knew it was him—stood before me, a young Connor at his side. Blood was exchanged, a drop on my tongue, a drop on his. A binding ritual of some kind.

The memory shifted to a moonlit night, wolves howling in distress. Men with guns and silver nets. A woman—Marina—pushing me into a hidden hollow beneath a tree's roots, her eyes wild with fear. "Stay silent, little one. Whatever happens, stay hidden."

The sound of gunshots. Howls of pain. The scent of blood and silver in the air.

When I emerged from the memory, I found myself clutching Connor's arms, my nails digging into his skin. He didn't flinch, just watched me with concern in his eyes.

"The raid," I whispered. "I remember the raid."

Willa nodded gravely. "The night of blood and silver. Six pack members died. Three were taken for experiments. And you were found the next day, traumatized and silent."

"After that, the packs agreed you should stay with us permanently," Connor added. "Away from the border where the hunters had found Shadow Creek."

"And then my father—the scientist—found me," I concluded, pieces falling into place. "He was part of the hunting party?"

"We believe so," Connor confirmed. "Though we never saw his face. The hunters wore masks."

The implications were staggering. My father—the man who'd raised me, educated me, encouraged my interest in medicine—had been a wolf hunter who'd stolen me from my pack family. Had he known what I was from the beginning? Had my entire life been an experiment to him?

"There's more," I said slowly, another memory surfacing. "The night of the raid. I saw something before I hid. A man with silver eyes. He looked directly at me but didn't alert the others."

Connor tensed visibly. "Silver eyes? You're certain?"

"Yes. Not like your amber eyes during transformation. Pure silver, like liquid metal."

Willa made a warding gesture. "The silver curse. It was beginning even then."

"What curse?" I asked.

"The sickness that turns our blood to silver," Connor explained. "It's been in our legends for generations, but we've never seen actual cases until recently."

"Until Jacob and the others," I murmured. "And your lunar fever."

Connor nodded grimly. "The prophecy says when the blood turns to silver, the silver mother will return."

"That can't be coincidence," I said, my scientific mind working despite the emotional turmoil. "The timing of these cases, my arrival at Gray Ridge..."

"The wheel turns as it must," Willa intoned. "You were always meant to return when the silver curse began."

I stood again, needing movement to process everything I'd learned. "These memories—they change everything I thought I knew about myself. But they don't explain how my blood can neutralize the silver."

"Don't they?" Connor asked quietly. "You lived among wolves during your formative years. Your immune system developed in response to our biology. And if you truly are the silver mother of prophecy..."

"I don't believe in prophecies," I interrupted firmly. "I believe in science. In medicine. There must be a rational explanation."

Willa cackled, a sound of genuine amusement. "The human mind inside you fights so hard against what the wolf heart knows to be true."

Another memory surfaced, less painful than the earlier ones. I saw myself as a child, maybe four years old, kneeling beside a young wolf cub who had cut its paw on a sharp stone. I remembered placing my small hands on the wound and feeling a strange warmth flowing from my palms. The bleeding had stopped almost instantly.

"I could heal," I whispered. "Even then."

"The gift of the silver mother," Willa confirmed. "Born once in many generations."

Connor's expression was troubled. "If your father knew about your abilities, it would explain why he took you. Why he monitored you so closely."

"The monthly blood draws," I realized. "He was studying my blood all along."

"And likely using it to develop treatments or weapons against our kind," Connor added darkly.

The betrayal cut deep—deeper than I would have expected for a memory I hadn't known I possessed until today. I felt tears welling, and angrily brushed them away.

"I need time to process this," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "And we still have patients who need help now, prophecy or not."

Connor nodded, respecting my need for practical focus. "We should return to the clinic. The new serum batch should be ready for testing."

Willa reached for my hand one last time before we left. "One more truth, silver daughter. The wound that sent you here—the patient who died. It was no accident."

"What do you mean?"

"He was sent to you deliberately. A message and a summons in one." Her milky eyes seemed to see through me. "The silver-eyed one has found you again."

Back at the clinic, I threw myself into work, desperate for the clarity of medical science after the confusion of recovered memories. Connor gave me space, focusing on preparing the serum vials for transport to Shadow Creek.

Around midnight, as I was examining cell cultures under the microscope, a particularly vivid memory struck without warning. Unlike the earlier fragments, this one played like a continuous film in my mind.

I was five years old, playing at the edge of a stream while Marina gathered herbs nearby. A butterfly caught my attention, leading me farther into the forest than I was supposed to go. When I looked up, I was lost—the stream and Marina nowhere in sight.

Fear gripped me, but before I could call out, I heard a low growl. A massive wolf emerged from the trees—not one of the pack, but a true wolf, wild and dangerous. It advanced slowly, sensing easy prey.

I backed away until my small body hit a tree trunk. The wolf lunged—and was intercepted mid-air by a blur of black fur. A young wolf, barely more than an adolescent but already showing Alpha potential, drove the wild wolf back with vicious determination.

The fighting was brief but brutal. The young wolf took a serious wound to his shoulder but managed to drive the intruder away. Then, bleeding and exhausted, he turned to me. I recognized him immediately—Connor, years younger but unmistakable in wolf form.

He approached cautiously, nuzzling my hand to ensure I wasn't hurt. I remembered placing my small palm on his bleeding shoulder, feeling that same strange warmth flow from my fingers. The wound had closed before my eyes, leaving only a faint scar.

After, he'd transformed—awkwardly, painfully, as young wolves often did—into his human form. A boy of perhaps thirteen, with serious eyes and a solemn expression.

"You're not supposed to be out here alone," he'd scolded.

"I got lost," I'd replied, unafraid despite what I'd witnessed.

He'd knelt before me, studying the mark on my collarbone that was visible above my dress. "You're the human cub Marina adopted. The one they say will bring peace."

"I'm Alison," I'd introduced myself proudly.

"I know who you are," he'd replied. Then, with a formality that seemed odd from a boy so young: "I am Connor Blackthorn, son of the Alpha. I will always protect you."

He'd carried me back to the village on his shoulders, making up a story about finding me picking berries to spare me Marina's scolding. It was the beginning of a bond neither of us fully understood—a bond that had somehow survived twenty-three years, memory erasure, and all the barriers between our worlds.

The memory released me, leaving me gasping at the lab bench. Connor was instantly at my side, his hand warm on my back.

"What did you see?" he asked quietly.

"You," I replied, meeting his gaze. "You saved me from a wild wolf when I was five. You promised to protect me."

Recognition dawned in his eyes. "The day by the north stream. I'd forgotten until now."

"You knew me," I said wonderingly. "All this time, you knew who I was."

"Not consciously," he admitted. "When you arrived that first night, something felt familiar—your scent, the mark on your collarbone. But the memory was buried deep."

"Like mine were."

"Yes." His hand moved to cover mine on the lab bench. "But they're returning now. For both of us."

I turned my hand to clasp his, the mark glowing brightly at the contact. "That day by the stream—I healed you. Just by touching your wound."

"You did," he confirmed. "It was the first time I witnessed your gift. The pack elders were both awed and frightened by what it might mean."

"And now?" I asked softly. "Are you frightened by what I might be?"

Connor's eyes held mine, steady and certain. "I've never feared you, Alison. Not then, not now."

The intensity in his gaze made my heart skip. For a moment, we stood frozen in a tableau of recognition—not just of our shared past, but of something growing between us in the present. Something neither of us had named yet.

The moment was shattered by the clinic door bursting open. Lydia rushed in, her face pale with urgency.

"It's Elena," she gasped. "She's here—and she's showing symptoms of the silver blood."

Connor was instantly alert. "Where?"

"Your cabin. She came alone, in wolf form. She's too weak to transform back."

We grabbed our medical supplies and the experimental serum, racing through the darkened village to Connor's cabin. Inside, on a makeshift bed of blankets, lay a large copper-colored wolf, her breathing labored. Silver lines traced visible patterns beneath her fur.

"How long has she been like this?" I asked, kneeling beside her.

"Unknown," Lydia replied. "She must have run all the way from Shadow Creek. Hours at least."

I checked Elena's vital signs, alarmed at her elevated temperature and erratic heartbeat. "The silver is spreading faster than it did with Jacob. We need to administer the serum immediately."

Connor prepared the injection while I monitored Elena's condition. When I placed my marked hand on her flank, she whimpered—not in pain, but recognition. Her amber eyes fixed on mine with desperate intensity.

"She's trying to tell me something," I realized.

"Focus on stabilizing her first," Connor advised, handing me the prepared syringe. "Communication can wait."

I administered the serum directly into Elena's vein, watching anxiously for any reaction. For several tense minutes, nothing seemed to change. Then, gradually, the silver lines began to fade from her extremities, receding toward her core.

"It's working," Lydia whispered.

But something wasn't right. Though the silver was receding, Elena's breathing became more labored. Her body convulsed suddenly, a spasm that arched her spine at an unnatural angle.

"She's rejecting it," I said, reaching for my medical bag. "The antibodies aren't binding correctly."

"What can we do?" Connor asked, his voice tight with concern.

I made a split-second decision, reaching for a clean syringe. "Direct transfusion. Like we did for you."

"Alison, no," Connor protested. "You've barely recovered from the last one."

"We don't have a choice." I rolled up my sleeve, quickly locating a vein. "The serum isn't concentrated enough. She needs the full spectrum of antibodies."

Before Connor could object further, I drew my blood and immediately injected it into Elena's primary vein. The effect was almost instantaneous—her body relaxed, her breathing steadied, and the silver lines rapidly faded.

Within minutes, the transformation began—fur receding, limbs reshaping, until Elena lay before us in human form, unconscious but stable. Lydia quickly covered her with a blanket.

"She needs rest now," I said, pressing a cotton ball to the inside of my elbow where I'd drawn blood. "And fluids when she wakes."

Connor's expression was a mixture of admiration and exasperation. "You took an unnecessary risk."

"I took a calculated one," I corrected. "And it worked."

"This time," he muttered, but didn't press the issue.

As we settled in to monitor Elena, I found myself staring at the place where the silver lines had been most concentrated—over her heart. Something about the pattern nagged at me, a familiarity I couldn't place.

"Connor," I said slowly, "the silver pattern in Elena's blood—it wasn't random."

"What do you mean?"

"It formed a specific shape. Like a symbol." I sketched it quickly on a notepad—an intricate design resembling a snowflake with sharp, angular points. "Have you seen this before?"

Connor took the paper, his expression darkening. "Yes. It's an ancient mark used in blood rituals. Specifically, rituals involving..."

"Involving what?" I pressed when he hesitated.

"Involving human sacrifice to gain wolf power," he finished grimly. "It hasn't been used in centuries. It's forbidden knowledge."

The implications sent a chill down my spine. "Someone is deliberately causing the silver blood condition. It's not a natural disease."

"And if Elena was targeted..." Connor began.

"Then they're going after pack leaders," I finished his thought. "But why?"

Elena stirred on the makeshift bed, her eyes fluttering open. She tried to speak, but her voice was too weak to hear.

I leaned closer. "Don't try to talk yet. You're safe."

She gripped my wrist with surprising strength, pulling me down until her lips were near my ear. The words she whispered made my blood run cold.

"Silver eyes," she managed. "Your father. He's alive. He's coming for you."