by Wilde, Rhea
“You… are not. Did you think I didn’t know you were here? Your very stench makes me gag, human. And the thought of a wolf so powerful like Shadow wasting his time with someone like you makes me ill. If he were not so strong, I would request Cyrus kill him and leave his body to the wilderness.
“But he bested my Alpha. What an insult to my honor that is. Now I sympathize for him. To be relegated to such an ordinary girl and to never again know what it is like to feel the touch of his own kind…
“Go! I have to sleep with my mate after I have satisfied him. Something you know nothing about. Go back to the lone wolf you do not deserve and lay next to him.”
I had so many emotions inside of me but there was nothing I could do about them. I wanted to attack Shiva and take her down right on the spot. But she was right. I was an ordinary human. I didn’t have the strength to act on my fury. A jealous rage would only end up bad for me.
Forced to bite my tongue and hold back, I walked past her and headed back to camp. When I got back, Vaughn still remained sleeping. I could still see the way she looked at me in my head. Everything she said to me was resonating. My thoughts were no longer my own. I had this desire inside of me that could only be satisfied if Vaughn were to give me what I wanted… what he wanted…
I laid down next to Vaughn, staring at him as he slept peacefully. He treated me so well. He was so handsome. He was perfect. And here I was wanting more from him.
If Shiva’s icy conversation with me did anything good, it managed to force me to use the rest of my energy. I let out a deep sigh as the fatigue finally hit me. I was upset but no longer able to fight the inevitable slumber. With my eyes resting upon Vaughn, I slowly closed my eyes and fell to sleep.
Chapter 13
The cold night finally ended. I woke up the next morning thanks to the sound of the birds chirping peacefully among the trees. The sunlight shined down upon my face and forced my eyes open. The clearing was just as beautiful as it was at night. Despite the presence of a makeshift cabin, the rest of the camp looked like it was untouched and unseen by humans. I didn’t have much time to think about what happened last night when I woke up. We had a long day ahead of us.
Vaughn, Irvine and Cyrus met together and discussed the strategy for the next clan. Shiva was also there but she remained silent, running her fingers along her mate in a playful manner. I sat across from them and silently listened to our plans.
“Who’s next?” Cyrus asked.
“The Capes,” Irvine said. “What do you know about them?”
“The Doras and Capes don’t run into one another very often,” Cyrus explained. “They spend their time in a different part of the city.
“The Bronx.”
“Yeah, that’s right. We don’t ever have need to go there. We mind our own business. But…”
“But what?”
Cyrus hesitated. He seemed reluctant to tell us whatever it is he knew. But Irvine and Vaughn were going to get it out of him eventually. Cyrus sighed and then finally continued.
“I hear things from the smaller clans that pass by,” he started. “We’ve never had a run in with the Capes but I have heard the stories. Their Alpha… He’s not like most wolves.”
“What do you mean?” Irvine asked.
“I don’t know,” Cyrus shrugged. “But he’s applying his authority to the rest of his clan in a way that’s never been seen before.”
“So, he’s different?” Irvine said.
“That’s only what I’ve heard. I’ve never actually seen him for myself.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Vaughn interjected. “All that matters is that we have his compliance and he agrees to our union. He’ll listen, right?”
“He’ll listen,” Irvine said. “And if he doesn’t, we’ll make him.”
“You’ve earned my ear by showing your strength,” Cyrus said to us. “But with the Capes, strength will not be the issue. If the rumors are true, you’ll see…”
Vaughn and Irvine looked at each other after listening to Cyrus’s cryptic remarks. He seemed like he was hiding something. But it didn’t matter. Irvine had already planned on speaking to the next clan. With the Nakas already breathing down our necks, putting ourselves in further danger didn’t seem possible. The plan hadn’t changed. We were to move on to the next clan and gain their support against the Nakas. This time Cyrus would be with us to lend us his support. I could only hope that having another Alpha would convince the leader of the next clan to join our side.
Shiva was standing next to Cyrus, her hands upon his shoulders now as she comforted him. When I did, she turned to me and gave me the same scornful look she always did.
“What do you want?” she asked me. “This discussion doesn’t concern you.”
“I’m going to this meeting, so it does concern me.”
“Is something wrong, Ariel?” Vaughn asked me.
“We don’t know anything about this clan. I…”
I thought about what Vaughn had to go through just to earn Cyrus’s respect. I had confidence in his abilities. But watching him fight and knowing that death was so close… It was something I wanted to do everything to avoid. Every moment was like hanging on the edge of a cliff.
“Is it safe for just us to be going?” I said. “Cyrus saw reason. But what if—”
“What are you suggesting, Ariel?” Vaughn asked me.
“Cyrus will not bring the Doras into the territory of another clan because you fear for your safety,” Shiva glared at me.
“I don’t fear for my own safety,” I explained. “I fear for the safety of the Capes. Two Alphas from other clans who have no business in their territory will surely be seen as a threat.”
“And who are you to say that? You are not one of us. You don’t know our ways. You have no—”
“She’s right,” Cyrus interrupted his mate. “If the rumors are true, the leader of the Capes is strange enough. We must show him that we come in good faith.”
“So you will listen to this human?” Shiva complained.
“Not entirely. I will allow a small contingent of the Doras to come with us. The rest of the clan will remain behind. If something does happen, we can protect ourselves. We need to show them that we are serious.”
“Hmph…”
Shiva looked at me disgusted after Cyrus agreed to my suggestion. But she was the only one. Vaughn smiled at me and Irvine nodded his head. Cyrus turned his back and looked to the rest of his clan to decide which members would make the journey with us.
We made our way out of the forest and quickly headed to the next. The home of the Capes was located in the Bronx. I wondered if it was a good idea to look for them during the day but didn’t question it. It felt odd to be looking for wolves when the sun was still out.
“Are you sure they’ll be here?” I asked. “How do you know they’re not in the city right now, in their human forms?”
“It’s possible,” Irvine explained to me. “But the Nakas have full control of the city. Most of the clans are relegated to their own territory because there are simply too many of them.”
“So they’re just like us then,” I said. “Unable to go into the city because of the Nakas.”
“I suppose you have a point, Ms. Everhart. I’ll be sure to mention that when they complain about two humans being in their territory.”
I followed Vaughn and Irvine through the forest in the Bronx. Cyrus was just behind us with a small group of his own wolves. We walked deeper into the forest for what seemed like miles. We were far away from the city and civilization we first came upon when we drove here. I was beginning to wonder if there were any wolves out here.
Just when I was about to question our decision of being out here, a loud howl pierced the sky. I grabbed Vaughn’s arm and held onto him immediately. The sound of something shuffling in the overgrowth around us started to grow louder. I gripped Vaughn tight as I gulped with fear.
“What is it?” I whispered.
Vaughn
held his nose to the air. He turned to Cyrus, who was doing the same. I watched all of the wolves with us beginning to inhale the air.
“That scent…” Vaughn’s words trailed off. “It’s familiar…”
He looked down at the wound on his shoulder and his eyes lit-up.
“Their blood,” he said, his eyes wide. “Quickly!”
Vaughn shifted and immediately began running through the trees. The Doras with us quickly did the same and chased after him. I struggled to keep up with them, Irvine the only one that I managed to keep in my sights. I didn’t know what was going on. But the speed at which Vaughn moved told me that something had gone wrong.
I ran between the trees and listened to the sound of more howling. It echoed through the forest and grew louder. We were getting close to the sound. Vaughn and the Doras were moving so fast that I could no longer see them in front of us. I couldn’t stop. I had to keep going.
It had gotten to the point that the wailing was right near us. It wasn’t any ordinary howl though. It was the kind of cry that would send a chill through your spine. We were heading right into the mouth of danger. Just as I wished we could avoid any fight with what was waiting for us in the forest, it appeared we were heading right into it.
I eventually came upon a small clearing in the woods. I slowly exited the forest and found that Vaughn and the others had already shifted. They were all looking down at the ground. Instead of a fight, we had found something much worse.
There were bodies of wolves spread across the ground. They were all resting in pools of their own blood. Some of them were lifeless while others were only breathing their last breaths.
“Is this… the Capes?”
I looked around in search of an answer to my question. Vaughn inspected the ground closer and saw a trail of blood that led deeper into the forest. I followed him through the trees and just a few feet away was another opening in the woods.
We found a man lying upon the ground at the edge of a small lake. He was dark-skinned, his entire body shivering as he rested half his head in the water. When we moved closer to him, he turned around and I could see the blood pouring out of his arm.
“Stay back!”
Another voice shouted from within in the trees. We all turned to see where it had come from when a gray wolf suddenly emerged. It eyeballed all of us, slowly moving toward the man that was resting at the water.
“It’s okay,” Vaughn said as he put his hands up to try and calm the wolf down. “We are here to help. We are not the ones responsible for this.”
The wolf growled and stared hard at Vaughn shortly before shifting into a man. He was tan-skinned with a firm physique. His gray hair matched his gray eyes. Despite the circumstances, it almost seemed like there was a smile on his face.
“He’s hurt,” he muttered. “I need to get him some help.”
“We can help him,” Vaughn said. “And the others—”
“The others are already gone. The rest have gone into hiding. Help him. He is the only one left.”
Vaughn nodded to him then turned to Irvine.
“They were attacked,” Vaughn said to him. “By the same person who fired upon me.”
“What?” Irvine exclaimed. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I can smell it. Don’t you see it? The blood of the others and this one in front of us. It is boiling just the same as mine was and now it is dripping out of him. His life is being drained from him. Irvine, you must save him. You must do what you did to me.”
“But I can’t. I don’t have the right equipment. Phoenix’s—”
“You must do something! Quickly!”
Irvine turned to the tan-skinned man who was standing over the fallen man. There was a look of desperation on his face. I didn’t know how Irvine and Phoenix had managed to save Vaughn but now another man needed to be saved.
Irvine fell down to the ground and dragged the man away from the water. He turned him onto his back and located the spot where all of the blood was coming out. Blood was pouring from the side of his arm. Irvine reached into his jacket and pulled a small dagger out. He then held it to the man’s arm and dug it into his skin. I turned my head away at the sound of steel ripping through flesh. The man howled to indicate that there were still signs of life. I slowly looked back at what Irvine was doing and watched as he dug the knife deeper into the skin. He then pulled it out and reached into the man’s arm with his gloved fingers. His fingers rested inside of him for a few moments before eventually pulling out a small object.
“His blood,” Irvine started. “You need to drain it from the wound quickly before it spreads.”
“But how?” the gray-haired man asked.
“There’s nothing else we can do. You have to suck it out manually. I can’t do it because I’m not a wolf and the blood will burn me.”
“Is this a joke?”
We all looked at the gray-haired man, who looked incredulously at all of us.
“You really expect me to fall for that?” he asked. “How do I know that his infection won’t spread to me?”
“It won’t,” Irvine said to him. “You have to spit it out before it begins to linger.”
“He’s been poisoned. How do I know that this will work?”
“You don’t know. But you don’t have any other choice.”
“Enough of this!”
Vaughn shouted and pushed Irvine out of the way. He lowered himself down and began sucking the blood out of the man’s arm. It was beginning to pour out of the wound. At the same time, Vaughn’s mouth was quickly covered in red. He spit out more and more of the man’s blood in an attempt to keep the life within him. I was worried that what the other man said was true. Vaughn had been poisoned before and the thought of him being hurt again wasn’t something I wanted to witness. But Vaughn didn’t relent. He continued to suck and spit out the tainted blood of the man until there was a small puddle of crimson right next to the two of them.
After what seemed like an eternity, Irvine placed his hand upon Vaughn’s shoulder and told him to stop. The black man’s eyes closed and his head drooped to the side.
“I-is he…”
The gray-haired man looked on in anxiety, his hand rubbing against his chin. Vaughn placed his head upon the unconscious man’s chest .
“No,” Vaughn whispered. “He’s just unconscious. He lost a lot of blood. But we will need to seal this wound.”
Irvine knelt down next to Vaughn and grabbed the man’s arm. Blood was slowly beginning to trickle out of it. Irvine then started to look around.
“Fire,” he said. “Build a fire.”
“But they’ll find us!” the other man panicked.
“I only need enough fire to cauterize the wound. Hurry.”
Cyrus and the rest of the Doras began gathering twigs and sticks that were laid around the forest. They worked together to build a small fire next to the lake. Irvine then grabbed the same blade he had used on the man and stuck it into the flames. It started to glow red hot from the heat. He brought it back to the man’s arm. The melting of flesh was loud and the smell of it forced me to cover my nose. But the man’s injury was sealed and the blood stopped.
Vaughn and Irvine stood back up and looked at the gray-haired man.
“Do you know who did this?” Irvine asked.
“No,” he shook his head. “I don’t know who it was.”
“Why did this happen?”
“I don’t know. We were minding our own business on the edge of the forest when someone suddenly started firing upon us.”
“Did you see where it was coming from?”
“I only caught a glimpse of him. It was a man. We tried to retreat but he continued to fire upon us. But he stopped. I don’t know why, but he did. You arrived only a few minutes later.”
Vaughn and Irvine looked at each other, confused.
“Did you hear any shots being fired?” Irvine asked him.
“No,” Vaughn shook his head. “And I didn’t hear shots
being fired when I was attacked. Could it be…”
“But why? Why would he attack you then attack this clan? What reason is there for that?”
It was apparent to us that Vaughn’s assassin had made the trip here to New York. His motives were still unclear. After being attacked by the Nakas, we were in danger from every direction. But we did what we had to do. We finally found what we were looking for in the Bronx.
“We need to get out of here,” the gray-haired man said. “We need to get him into safety.”
He picked the man up from the ground and started to wander into the forest. We began to follow him before he stopped and turned around.
“You are this man’s savior,” he said. “But if this is an attempt at deception, you won’t leave this forest alive. We have lost wolves but there are many more of us that live.”
His threat was loud but not unwarranted. I sighed and finally started to breathe easier after everything that had just happened. I was worried that we would be caught in the middle of more violence but the worst was over for now.
Chapter 14
We followed the man through the forest eventually expecting to come upon the rest of his brethren. But instead of a forest clearing like I was expecting, he stopped in front of a wall that was covered with thick, hanging branches.
“Here.”
He motioned with his head to Irvine and Vaughn. They slowly walked forward and grabbed the branches, revealing the entrance to a cave. I got between Vaughn and Irvine as we made our way through the darkness of the cave. Slowly, light started to emanate from deep within. The small cave opening led to a larger pit deep under the earth that even I wasn’t expecting.
We stood up above on a ledge and looked down upon what looked like hundreds of wolves within their den. They were all bunched together in the center and facing us. The torches lit upon the wall allowed me to see the looks of anger on their faces.
“Brothers and sisters,” the man cried out to all of them. “It is okay. The worst is over. We have guests. Take your human forms to make them feel more comfortable.”