Caras pov
“What!… What do you say!!” I shouted over the chaos happening in the room
But Debby had already disappeared down the hallway into the emergency room, I stood there rooted and transfixed, loss of words at what I was seeing. It was a lot. People being brought in and lots of wounded people, I nodded to be sure.
Suddenly, the door flew open with a loud bang. A cold wind rushed in, carrying the smell of blood with it. My heart skipped a beat as more pack warriors stumbled inside, groaning, clutching their wounds. I saw one of the nurses I knew.
“What happened?” I whispered to her
She didn’t answer right away. Her face was pale, but she moved quickly, already directing the nurses to get more cots and supplies. “The pack’s under attack,” she muttered as she bent down to help one of the injured wolves.
“By who?”
“Rogues, the Feral ones.”
“Feral rogues?” My chest tightened. Familiar memory of my last encounter in Silverware pack with wild rogues filled my head. Emma and her sister Emily had told me that there were two categories of rogues that people don’t know, the ones that became rogues due to they where banished from their previouse pack as punishment for a crime they commited. years of wandering the great woods alone turns them into a rogue. then they are the other type of rogues, they are called the,
“Feral ones, or the forsakened”. these are mindless werewolf that have surrenderd totally to its animalistica instincts. most times like the sisters told me, it results from death of a mate, or rejection. but the forsakened in trade for their humanity are very strong and powerful than regular rogues, sometimes going against the “natural rule” to fight alphas.
Like the rogues we fought in the forest, the rogue leader was a forsakened. They have lost all their humanity and are just a killing machine. they are only known tonmove in twos or threes. but are completely taken over by their animal instincts. If not for my abilities that came out by itself at the last moment, I would have been a dead person by now. That was the danger of meeting one, talking off a group of them.
More warriors were carried in, each one worse than the last. I felt frozen for a moment, staring as they laid a man down with deep claw marks across his chest, his breathing shallow and weak. The clinic was filling up fast, blood pooling on the floor as more wounded came in. Very soon, at this rate, there won’t be any more space.
“Snap out of it” I chided myself, not believing that I had entered. I had blacked out in the middle of a catastrophe.
I snapped out of my shock and rushed over to one of the warriors, pressing a cloth against a wound on his side. “Stay with me,” I whispered, even though he probably couldn’t hear me over the groans and shouting in the room.
“There is just too many,” I called out to Debby, nervously as hell. I have not seen too many people injured at once. It chills the blood.
“Come over here, Cara, get me some gauze and bandages” she shouted, trying to save some who had claw marks in his neck region.
Checking the bags of medical supplies to my horror, it was empty. “We don’t have enough supplies, Debby, the supplies have finished.
“This is bad” Debby cursed , still applying pressure to the dying young man.
“Cara came and helped me, we will do this the old fashion way,” she said, with calmness, even though in her hands was someones elses life, she was not panicked or frightened.
I immediately rushed and did as she instructed me. with one fluid movement she tore the base of her dress, wrapping some herbs on it, with practiced skills she wound it round the man’s neck, while I watched in awe, impressed by her compartment, and self control.
“This time around, the rate of injury is three times the previous ones that have been happening.” she said after stopping the bleeding.
“Where did they come from, the wild rogues?”.
Debby glanced at me, her eyes serious. “They’re from the wild packs in the Great Woods,” she explained, her voice tense. “Even among rogues, these wolves are different. They’ve lost their minds. With no hope for them.”
I swallowed hard, bile rising in my chest. The injured were piling up, more bodies being brought in, more blood.
” Don’t worry. There’s nothing we can’t handle. They are werewolves, and they will eventually heal. Debby assured me, rushing over to the newly admitted.
But I know that at this rate, the few nurses that are still sane will be overwhelmed
My hands were trembling as I moved from one patient to the next, trying to do what I could. But I knew… I could save them. If I used my Cupbearer powers, I could heal them and won’t let anyone find out. I will have to do it discreetly.
Debby seemed to sense what I was thinking. “Cara, don’t,” she said sternly, giving me a hard look. “If you use your powers, you’ll run out of energy, and worse, you’ll expose yourself. And risk exposing the whole of us. You can’t risk it.”
I hesitated, my hands frozen over a wounded wolf’s chest. She was right. If I used my powers here, everyone would know what I was. But what if they died because I didn’t? What if I could’ve saved them. Without risking exposing us?
“Wait, us?” I glanced back at debby
But a loud commotion broke out at the door. Several warriors rushed in, carrying someone between them, who from their faces seemed like someone important. He was barely conscious, his body covered in deep gashes and burns. Blood soaked his clothes, and I could see that he was slipping away fast.
“He’s one of Brian’s generals,” someone whispered nearby, and my heart sank. The general’s condition was worse than any I had seen so far.
Debby hurried over and examined his wounds. I came over, but the wound didn’t seem to close. Everything we did only made the bleeding worse.
“Why is it becoming worse” I asked panicky,
I could see her eyes widen slightly in realisation before she turned to me. “Cara, these wounds… they were made by a Cupbearer.”
“What?” I gasped. “A Cupbearer? But that’s impossible. There are no cup…”
“That was the rumors cara” Debby interjected, looking at me with an unknown expression.
I took in a heavy breath, my eyes widening in realisation at what Debby was trying to tell me with her eyes. If at all it was true, what does it mean for us.
A big mysterious wild rogue that can’t come together came together to attack us, as if that wasn’t strange enough, in their midst where the supposed annihilated werewolf tribe.
The cupbearers.