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Have you finished all of the Wolf Rampant trilogy<\/a> and want to\u00a0keep reading? Here is an excerpt from\u00a0<\/em>Bloodling Wolf, the first of five episodes in The Complete Bloodling Serial<\/a>, a prequel serial about Wolfie Young.<\/em><\/p>\n Bloodling Wolf: Episode 1 Scene 1<\/strong><\/p>\n Fifteen years ago…<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cA bloodling!\u201d My father\u2019s voice is filled with disgust and his large hands are quick to drop me back into the midwife\u2019s arms. \u201cWhy did you even bring it out for me to see?\u201d<\/p>\n The room, which was full of jovial laughter and the scent of cigars only moments earlier, is now silent. My eyes are still closed, but I can scent the dominant male werewolf in front of me, along with several other alpha-leaning shifters. Anger from my father nearly drowns out the other aromas, but I pick up sorrow and repulsion in equal measure. The former seems to emanate most strongly from a male who I later learn is my mother\u2019s younger brother Oscar, but my uncle soon slips out the door, taking his tear-laden scent along with him.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a boy, and healthy,\u201d the midwife speaks up after a moment, her voice quavering with fear. Even with my eyes glued shut, I\u2019m able to understand that no one stands up to my father, so I\u2019m impressed by the woman\u2019s spine. \u201cThe heir and a spare….\u201d the midwife continues, but my father has turned away, dismissing the woman from his thoughts.<\/p>\n As a pup, I\u2019m less interested in adult voices than in the smell of blood wafting from the room I was recently carried out of. Childbirth…and death. No wonder my father seems less than pleased by my presence. I changed to wolf in the womb\u2014fourteen years earlier than most werewolves\u2014and tore my mother apart during my unwitting struggles to escape the wet dark. Later, I\u2019ll learn that it wasn\u2019t my murderous act that turned my surviving parent against me. Bloodlings are forced to spend their entire childhood as wolf pups, unlike most werewolves who enjoy human form until their first change. Those of us who start off four-footed are never quite the same even after shifting, our brains having ossified into wolf form. To me, that\u2019s a good thing. Dear old Dad sees it differently.<\/p>\n On the day of my birth, though, these deep thoughts all lie in the future. Cradled in the midwife\u2019s arms, I mewl a complaint at the cold, at my hunger, and at the confused emotions swirling around me. The sound is enough to turn my father\u2019s eye back onto his unwanted child. \u201cToss it out to freeze,\u201d he orders.<\/p>\n I\u2019m plucked from the midwife\u2019s embrace by one of the male wolves, who now smells of annoyance and distaste. The unknown shifter dangles me by the scruff of my neck, opens the door to the even colder outdoors, and I tumble head over heels as I fly through the air and then land in a pile of soft, yet frigid, snow. I struggle at first, but my minuscule weight just drags me down deeper into the frozen powder, and soon my nose is all that remains above the snow\u2019s surface. At last, I succumb to the chill and settle down to die.<\/p>\n To my young brain, I seem to lie there forever, but my exile must last mere moments. The sorrowful uncle who fled my father\u2019s house had set a simple yet effective plan in motion, cracking open the neighboring residence\u2019s door and counting on a toddler\u2019s curiosity to draw that young werewolf outside into the snow. When Chase finds me, an interesting ball of fluff nearly on his doorstep, he isn\u2019t gentle, but the toddler\u2019s warmth awakens the spark of life that has nearly fled from my damp form. My playmate-to-be drags me into his home by one paw, my sodden body thumping up the stairs behind him, and my lack of struggles attest to our newfound understanding\u2014I\u2019ll be Chase\u2019s pet, and he\u2019ll be my lifeline.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is that<\/em>?\u201d Chase\u2019s mother exclaims as her intrepid son wrestles a nearly dead wolf pup into her kitchen. I can sense the adult\u2019s distress when she realizes who and what I am, but Chase\u2019s mother possesses the softest heart in our village. When her son jabbers his baby-talk request, she can\u2019t resist\u2014Tia braves my sharp teeth and takes me into her arms to nurse.<\/p>\n Soft-hearted mother or no, I would have been tossed back out into the snow if I\u2019d found my way into any other household. But Chase\u2019s father died not long before, and his mother now answers to no dominant male. So she takes me in, and by the time my father realizes what was happening, there\u2019s no going back. Chase and I are milk brothers, and Tia is willing to protect us both with her life.<\/p>\n