Page 69 of Never Tamed
Mathis
The fires. The Steel Claw building, gone. Our village in the woods, the neat cabins that have been under my family’s protection for generations—
Obliterated.
Icy winter cold bites deep into my skin. I barely notice. My breath comes out in ragged clouds as I sprint through the snow-laden forest away from the camp. The deepness of it doesn’t slow me; the wolf inside surges forward, pushing my body faster, faster.
It’s an escape as much as a liberation.
Farther, faster.
The camp is nothing but a memory now and my body, my spirit, knows exactly where we’re headed. It’s not an easy trek.
I don’t want it to be.
I’m breathless and panting, my lungs five sizes too small, by the time I crest the other side of Grey Mountain. Ice and snow obliterate landmarks but everything is familiar to me. How can it not be?
I’ve lived here my entire life.
This forest is in my blood.
It surges through me, but the heat isn’t enough to thaw the hard shell around my heart.
Gone.For good.
A small lick of flame flickers in the woods ahead, and my heart twists tight. I knew it… I knew deep in my gut Andras had come for us. Torin wasn’t the only one.
How could he be? Andras targeted my pack first.
Whining, I push myself faster, my limbs burning from the straining effort. My muscles protest but the wolf body moves sleekly through the snowy underbrush.
The smoke thickens overhead and the acrid sting of burned wood scalds my lungs. It’s no longer a small fire, like the radio broadcast claimed. It’s spread into a full-on inferno.
My territory—everything I grew up with—is devoured by flames.
I stop just past the treeline, breath ragged and chest heaving. The destruction is endless. Andras left no part of the property untouched.
The main house is gone, reduced to a pile of smoldering twigs. The tree trunks around it are black and cracked. Every house surrounding the main cabin is still burning.
A tremble starts at the base of my skull and runs all the way to the tip of my tail. The fine hairs lift along my spine.
This was my family’s land and the place where I learned to run with my pack under the moon. Where I would hunt, where we believed that family didn’t always mean shared blood.
A memory lifts from the ache in my head, something I’ll never forget. I was a boy at the cusp of puberty and sat on the porch steps with my father. Humid summer heat made the air heavy and his smile, his steady, unwavering smile, brought with it a sense of safety.
His smile was his signature.
He reached down to ruffle my hair that he thought was getting too shaggy and said, “Mathis, one day, you’re going to be alpha. A good alpha. Strong, wise, and fierce when your family needs you.”
It didn’t matter how many times he said those things. I always believed that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance I could fill his gigantic shoes and be the alpha the pack needed me to be. If I tried hard enough. There was no one I looked up to more. He was a man of the people and a true leader.
I wanted nothing more than to make him proud.
“You’ll protect us all. Your pack. Your family,” he told me.
I kept those words close to my heart. They became even more important when cancer stole him from us, his death sudden, leaving behind a hole in everyone’s lives.
Now, there’s no comfort in the memory. Instead, it slams into me like a physical blow. My father’s gone. Not just dead but his legacy; his dreams for me feel so distant and out of reach.
