Page 6 of The Wolf Moon

When he didn’t approach further, their heads turned to me and back again. I watched as the wolves stepped away, many leaning forward to bare the back of their necks towards me. It was as if they were offering themselves for me to hunt rather than the reverse.

The King Alpha snarled angrily, pushing against my demand furiously. His fur was a blend of dark brown and red, flashing under the moonlight and trading colors easily with every breath. Even as a wolf, I could see signs of battle and scars through his coat. He was terrifying.

He took a step forward, breaking through just momentarily.

“Don’t come closer,” I ordered, my voice trembling from weakness. I pushed against him with that demand, the power flaring within me again. The wolves surrounding me sniffed the air, some whimpering and huffing in a way I couldn’t quite understand.

The King Alpha sniffed the air as well, tilting his head. And then he began to shift. His bones reformed, his skin evolving around his form, and he lifted himself until he was on two human feet. I felt my will falter, unsure of how to connect to a creature that looked too human to be wildlife.

He took another step towards me.

“Stop,” I demanded weakly and the connection was there enough to make him hesitate. There was something crossing his features as he took me in, fighting against my order simultaneously.

“You smell like wolf,” The King Alpha declared, his voice low and angry.

“I killed one,” I both explained the smell and threatened at the same time.

“And you think you can kill me? You think you can take my pack?”

I glanced around at all the lycans still in their wolf forms, bowing obediently towards me. Could I take all of them on? I doubted it. I didn’t even think I’d get this far. I didn’t even know what was going on.

When I turned back to the King Alpha, he was significantly closer.

“Stay back!” I cried out in fear. The power flared within me once more, lifting whimpers from around me. The King Alpha hesitated again, his eyes skating over me with confusion. He took a deep breath, sniffing the air around me as he hadn’t yet gotten any closer.

“You smell like… my mate.”

The utter confusion in this statement could do nothing to equal my own. My breath was extremely labored at this point and the pain in my stomach was unimaginable. He took another step forward and when I tried to order him back, I found my vision blurred.

I breathed the beginning of a curse and fell into a doomed darkness. The only thing that followed was the whisper of that word.

Mate.

Four

Chapter 3

Iwoke slowly with confusion. I wasn’t sure what had happened to me, if I had a nightmare or if I had actually died. I could feel the fabric of sheets around me as my eyes tried to adjust to the bright light of the day. Beside me, a hand drew a warm, wet cloth over my forearm carefully.

The events of the Wolf Moon flooded back to me and I gasped, sitting up quickly in panic. I expected immense pain around my abdomen, but instead was greeted with a small ache.

“Don’t worry. Calm down,” A voice appealed to me pleadingly. I looked to my left, finding a woman sitting by my bedside with the wet cloth still in her hand. She looked surprised to see me awake.

I looked from her to my body, taking in my appearance. Someone had changed my clothes. I now wore loose pants and a plain white shirt. When I pulled my shirt up, my stomach was wrapped with bandages. My leg was bare of my knife, but then I recalled the weapon had been left in the skull of a she-wolf.

I leapt from the bed quickly, inhaling sharply at the cold of the floor against my bare feet. The woman beside my bed stood as well, lifting her hands as if this would prove her to be safe. I knew those hands could shift into deadly claws.

“Where am I?” I asked her accusingly, looking around wildly. The room was mostly bare besides a lot of bandages and medicine. It looked too clean. It looked too strange. Like maybe I was going to be split apart by curious werewolves with their dissective knives.

“You’re in our clinic,” The woman said carefully. I peered at her suspiciously. She was frail looking for a werewolf. She was petite. I would have considered her malnourished if it wasn’t for the fact that she looked rather healthy. Her hair was brown and to her shoulders in curls. Her eyes were a darker brown, but soft. The look in them reminded me of my mother. The thought struck me momentarily. This was a vicious lycan.

“Why am I here? I was… I was…” I recalled being in my own village. I recalled my brother running for me and my mother crying out in hysterics. I could still feel the floor of the forest under me as I ran into the night, the moon high in the sky and the howls deafening.

“The hunt was called off. You were brought here,” The woman explained softly, moving to the end of the bed slowly. I held my hand out and she stopped, backing away uncertainly. “You were hurt pretty badly. You’ve been recovering here for a few days now.”

“I don’t feel hurt,” I responded with distrust. I touched my stomach again, feeling only the ache of superficial cuts. I remembered the shocking pain that had come with the impact of those claws against my flesh and the blood that had leaked over my legs.

“You’ve been healing quickly. Maybe not as much as an adult lycan, but a child pre-shift…” The insinuation the woman was making was enough to make me stare at her in disbelief.

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