by H. D. Gordon
My nose told me he was a Wolf, and the way he held himself revealed that he was an alpha. He kept a respectful distance, but his hazel eyes were intense as they took me in. White teeth flashed as he ran a hand through his sandy blond hair and grinned.
“You know how to dance, don’t you?” he asked.
I bared my teeth at him in a way that could not be mistaken for a smile. Despite his pretty face and admittedly attractive physique, I was in no mood for the prodding of males at the moment. Or ever, maybe. I believe every female of any race knows the feeling I’m referring to.
“Kick rocks,” I said, and returned my attention to the dancing crowd, where the merry music continued drifting into the bright blue sky.
The stranger stalked around to the other side of me. I didn’t remove my gaze from the gathered, but I was hyperaware of his every move.
He let out a low chuckle. “I’m not going to attack you,” he said, “so you can relax. My name is Cavan. It’s nice to meet you.”
“What do you want, Cavan?”
“To dance.”
I could hear the smile in his tone without having to look at him. When his tanned hand appeared in front of me, palm side up in invitation, I suppressed a sigh and met his gaze. Looking at him full on, I had to admit he was ruggedly handsome, with a mischievous air that was annoyingly alluring.
And the Wolf’s grin he was flashing revealed that he knew this, too.
“Come on,” he said, wiggling his fingers a bit. “A little fun won’t kill you, will it?”
For whatever reason, instead of throat-punching him, I heaved a breath and placed my hand in his, letting him pull me toward the crowd and the fountain.
I didn’t tell him that I was afraid that a little fun just might kill me, that believe it or not, in the past, it almost had.
7
Someone handed me a goblet filled with sweet red liquid, and I downed it without question.
The drink warmed my belly and loosened my limbs, making my head feel pleasantly lighter. Cavan took my hand again after another person had wandered by with a pitcher and refilled my cup, pulling me gently to the center of the crowd.
We danced. I closed my eyes and let the music take me. This was different than the overt grinding some of us used to do at the Blood Moon back in Dogshead when the drink was strong enough to knock our senses off balance. That kind of dance was done when hormones ran high and certain hungers needed to be satiated.
With this dancing, it was impossible not to feel the carefree, joyful nature of the music and people, though it didn’t penetrate any deeper than the surface for me.
But the drink was so sweet, unlike any I’d ever tried before. Before I knew it, I’d had three servings, and Cavan’s handsome face had become gradually less annoying. His hands were strong and warm as he spun me around the square, the masculine smell of him more appealing with every sip.
So when he leaned in and asked me if I’d like to go somewhere else, I thought that I just might want to. I thought that maybe it’d be nice to feel something other than this numb guilt weighing on my soul. It might be nice to wash away the lingering feel of Ryker’s touch by replacing it with another.
I told Cavan I would, and the grin he gave me was downright Wolfish, but I didn’t care. I was not the prey in this situation, and I never would be again.
I began leading him away from the crowd, and certainly would have done something I might not have been happy about later had the winged male not crashed down into the square.
One of the children saw him coming, and her screech of fear and surprise rang so loud and so shrill that it drowned the music right out of the sky.
I saw what happened next in flashes of moments, taking in the rapidity of it in slow motion. The child who screamed had beautiful brown skin and a wild mane of black hair that stood out in every direction atop her head like a magnificent thundercloud. I noticed off-handedly that there were black, feathery wings on her back as well, identical to those of the male currently tumbling from the sky.
The winged man fell in a way that predicted a crash landing, and the people in the square scattered to make room for him. The speed of his trajectory was such that I was positive that he was going to splatter on the cobblestone. Just before he made impact, I cringed inside at the idea of watching another being die so violently before my eyes.
But I did not shut them. All I could do was stand rooted to my spot and await the crash, like everyone else around me.
Just before he hit the stones, however, he was halted in midair, his body coming to an abrupt stop only inches from the unforgiving ground. It happened so fast that it took my mind a moment to catch up to reality, for my eyes to even notice the way the air around the winged male’s body was shimmering with scarlet magic.
It was then I noticed that Adriel had arrived. When, I didn’t know. He’d no doubt just poofed into placed when I hadn’t been looking. His pale hand was upraised, his fingers flexed in a way that I knew meant he was manipulating magic, and a lot of it. It took my mind another few moments to make the connection between Adriel and the hovering body of the winged male.
Adriel lowered his hand, and the winged male’s body lowered to the cobblestones simultaneously, his battered limbs coming to rest with careful movements.
The beautiful child with the puffy black hair and matching wings was by the male’s side in a moment, and her words cleared up any confusion about their relationship.
“Papa!” the child cried, throwing herself atop the male’s heaving chest while he tried not to wince beneath her weight, and failed. Her pleading eyes turned toward the crowd. “Somebody help my Papa, please! He’s hurt! He’s dying!”
One did not need to be a medic to see that the child was right. The male was hurt badly—badly enough that it was almost painful just looking at him. There were burns covering his chest that had charred away the skin, and silver blood trickled from various wounds on his extremities. A wooden arrow stuck out of his midsection, having gone all the way through so that the arrowhead protruded out of his back.
Quite frankly, he looked beyond repair.
I was about to turn away, thinking that watching the male crash to the ground would not have been worse than the look on the child’s face as she pleaded for someone to help her father.
Adriel was at her side in an instant. He placed a hand on the child’s shoulder and said something too low for me to hear. The child grew visibly calmer under the command of that red gaze, and when the crowd of gathered parted a moment later, the girl didn’t argue as she moved away from her father, giving Adriel some space.
The short, puckered-skinned female with the bells around her ankles and wrists opened her arms to the child, and the girl buried her face in the older female’s chest. The two were almost exactly the same height, but the dynamic of child and adult was unmistakable.
Clearly the two were not related, as the girl was likely Divine-blooded, if the wings and silver blood were any indication, while the woman was some sort of forest Gnome by my best estimation… Despite this, they behaved like family.
My attention was pulled away from this curiosity as the crowd parted to allow the Fae female I’d seen earlier with the summer-sunset shaded skin and long white hair to pass through. She came to a stop above the dying male sprawled out on the stones, and she and Adriel exchanged a look that seemed to relay an entire silent conversation between the two.
Adriel gave the male an apologetic look before yanking the arrow free of his body in one smooth motion, pulling it all the way through to accommodate the barbed tip. The winged male roared up at the sky in agony. Adriel tossed the arrow to the cobblestone, where it gleamed with that silver blood from end to end.
The Fae female knelt, her long, silky gown pooling around her like water. The crowd held utterly silent as Adriel lifted a pale hand, and the Fae slipped her sharply clawed fingers into his.
I was barely aware of my feet shuffling forward, of the way my neck was craning
so that I could get a better look at what they were doing. It didn’t even occur to me not to gawk. The sight transfixed me as if with magic.
And that’s what it was. Magic. Adriel and the Fae both placed their free hands on the chest of the dying male, and then their eyes slipped shut, and the very air around their beings shimmered as it was infused with enchantment.
Not a sound could be heard in the next moments, not the intake of air or the beat of a heart. The crowd watched in reverent silence, hands clutched tightly together, creating a link that every person took part in. When a Wolf child took my right hand and Cavan took my left, I instinctively clutched them back.
My eyes followed the chain of people until they fell once again upon Adriel and the lovely Fae woman where they remained kneeling with their hands on the winged male. The two people nearest them placed their free hands on their shoulders, and before I could question what was going on, I felt the magic ripple through me.
My body stiffened, but I maintained my grip on Cavan and the Wolf child. Seeing my slight alarm, Cavan leaned over and whispered, “It’s okay. They’re just pulling a little from all of us, so that we can heal Bakari.”
I wanted to ask just what they were taking a little of, but I couldn’t seem to find any words. Instead, I examined the slight tug that seemed to be happening inside of me. Though it was not painful, it was so foreign a feeling that I swayed a little on my feet, leaning into Cavan a bit to steady myself.
I bared my teeth at the male when he looked at me with that handsome, lust-filled face, but my attention was drawn away when the winged child called out with glee.
“Papa!” she said. “Papa, you’re okay!”
My gaze darted down to the winged male, whose eyes were now open, the wounds that had been covering his chest and body miraculously healed. The crowd heaved a collective sigh of relief, of which I took part. The chain of people holding hands erupted into cheers.
But the celebration died out quickly when the newly healed winged male spoke.
His voice was deep and dark, like the color of his skin and wings. I couldn’t tell if it was intentional, but Barkari’s black eyes met mine across the crowd as he said, “He burned them alive… One thousand of them... One thousand slaves… They’re all dead… Ashes… So many ashes it looked like snow.”
Everyone who was gathered seemed to turn toward Adriel, whose handsome face was set in a grim expression. He was still kneeling beside Bakari, and he placed a steady hand on the male’s large shoulder.
“Slow down, my friend,” Adriel told him. “What happened?”
Someone passed forward a goblet of that sweet liquid, and Bakari downed it in long gulps as all the gathered waited with bated breath for him to speak. When the goblet was empty, he ran a hand over his mouth and let out a low sigh. The haunted look behind his eyes spoke plenty before he even said a word.
“One thousand slaves on the Western Coast were burned alive as they slept in their huts this morning,” Bakari said, slowly, as if the words were hard to even speak. He cleared his throat twice before he could continue, and the square was so quiet that I heard each swallow.
I could feel Adriel’s red gaze flash over to me, but I could not seem to pull my eyes from the cobblestone around my feet. I didn’t want to see the expressions of those around me. Actually, I wanted to run, to run away from the words and the people and the blame that felt suddenly enough to crush me.
But my feet wouldn’t move, either, as if my own body were intent on punishing me.
“There was nothing we could do,” Bakari continued. “The Hounds were swift and merciless. The screams…” Another swallow. “If I live for eternity, I will never forget their screams.”
“Whose order?” Adriel asked, and his voice was so smooth and even that goosebumps broke out on my arms. “Who’s the new West Coast Pack Master? Who gave the command?”
I knew the answer before he said it. I knew in my gut whose name would be spoken.
“Ramsey’s former right hand,” Bakari answered. “That son of a bitch Hound, Ryker.”
8
I had to get out of there. Away from these people. Away from that name.
Ryker.
I forced my lead-filled feet to move, slipping away from the crowd like a snake through the grass. I couldn’t seem to draw a full breath of air until I was several paces away, nearing the edge of the forest and the privacy it offered.
I stripped away the clothes I’d been given and shifted into my Wolf in an instant.
Then I was running, leaping over felled trees and through the brush, pumping my strong legs as hard as they could manage. Only looking forward.
The sounds of Mina faded behind me, and I wondered if I just kept on going, would I eventually fall off the edge of the realm, running right into the arms of an abyss. The ridiculous thought somehow comforted me. The forest turned into a blur around me, a blend of browns and greens.
One thousand slaves.
One thousand slaves were dead. Burned alive as they slept in their huts on that beach by the sea. Screaming in agony as the Hounds trapped them inside and let them burn. All the faces of the Wolves I’d known flashed before my eyes in a gruesome slideshow.
Somehow, I knew with absolute certainty that my friends had been among them. Kalene, Oren, Ares… They were dead. All dead.
And at the hands of my former lover. At the hands of that bastard, that son of a bitch, Ryker. After he’d made all those false apologies and declarations of his love. What was worse was the feeling that I should have known, that I should have seen it coming, and it should not hurt as bad as it did.
I ran. And ran and ran. Veering this way and that in accommodation of the terrain, but paying zero mind to where I was actually going. It was as though I thought that if I ran fast and far enough I could escape the images terrorizing my mind. Which, of course, was ridiculous.
By the time my lungs burned bad enough to force me to slow my pace, I realized I had no idea where I was. What’s more, the environment had changed drastically. It was a testament to my mental state that I had only just now noticed.
I slowed, my head lowering between my haunches and my eyes searching the woods around me. Whereas the trees I’d been running through before were vibrant and full of life, those surrounding me now were dead and barren. Their leafless branches stretched toward the darkening sky like enormous deformed fingers, and no underbrush or green bramble grew at their bases. Only black, dead vines snaked here and there, creating a dangerous maze that grabbed at the paws of travelers, intent on pulling them to the ground.
A thought occurred to me, and even despite my troubled state of mind, it sent a chill down my spine, making the fur on the back of my neck stand on end.
If I were to trip and fall, I thought those dead vines just might come to life and strangle me, crawling over my body and encasing me like a coffin.
I came to a stop, glancing all around me and trying to decipher the direction from which I’d come. Everything here looked the same. Every way I turned was only another view of those leafless, black trees and snaking vines. The sky seemed to be growing darker by the minute. I hadn’t even realized I’d been running that long.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly terribly dry, my tongue lolling out and chest heaving. A slight fog had rolled over the ground, and it crawled up my legs, covering my paws in a smoky haze.
One might think, after all that I’d faced in my relatively short lifetime, that I was immune to most fear. One would be wrong. As I stood in this foreign forest, so absent of life and movement that I could hear my own heart beating in my chest, the feeling washed over me in a wave.
There may be no life in this cursed place… but I was not alone.
Someone was watching me.
Or maybe it was something.
A growl started low in my chest and worked its way up my throat. My lips pulled back to reveal my sharp teeth, my ears pressed flat against my head. There was no movement to be seen and no sound to
be heard, but a Wolf always trusts instinct.
The night continued to creep in, the shadows of the dead trees deepening and lengthening. Silence held. There was nothing to do but flash my teeth and wait.
One moment there was nothing there, and the next, they appeared. How they could move with such stealth was beyond my comprehension, especially when I got an actual look at the beasts.
There were three of them. Two female and one male, though it was more instinct that told me this rather than any distinct physical feature.
They’d surrounded me in a way I recognized as pack behavior, but these creatures were nothing like Wolves. To admit it at the moment would be as good as suicide, but just looking at them was a feat for how hideous they were.
The male was easily the largest, and he’d taken the position directly in front of me. He stood upright on two legs that were the width of tree trunks. His head was bald and spotted, colored a sickly greenish gray, with tube-like ears that stuck up like reeds out of a mossy pond. His arms hung long and low at his sides, corded with muscle indicative of massive, bone-crushing strength. His face was dreadful. His maw was a mess of brown, crooked teeth and his three green eyes bulged out of the sockets like glassy orbs.
The look behind those eyes was pure beast, no cognition beyond the basic modes of survival. These creatures—whatever they were—lived and killed on instinct, out of necessity and biology.
And I knew enough about predator and prey to know that I was the next meal on the table. In my haste to escape the horrors awaiting me in Mina, I’d run right into the hunter’s arms.
The three began to tighten the circle around me, and I let out another growl that would have terrified most others, but had no visible effect on them.
One of the females grunted, and the other two returned the noise, engaging in some kind of communication that I also recognized as pack behavior. They were confident of their impending kill.