Christian’s POV
There is death everywhere. Everywhere. If it’s not the bodies, it’s the stench of blood, and if not that, the smell of the lingering fear and panic.
They must have been partying as usual when the rogues broke through the clearing. Usually, they would sense them approaching, but they didn’t.
I can’t think of why they were caught off guard. Were they all so drunk that their senses were totally compromised?
Whatever happened, it’s my fault.
I killed so many rogues yesterday. This must be their payback. They must have attacked in a very big group. That’s why they were able to overwhelm the students so quickly that nobody managed to make a distress call.
I run fast to track the retreating rogues and students who could still be running for their lives. If there’s anyone who’s still out there, I have to get to them.
Some of the guards round up the survivors, most of them too injured to walk. Others, like me, try to track the rogues.
Their scents are all over the place. I could look for tracks, but that would slow me down considerably. So I follow the general direction of the scents. At some point, I’ll be able to narrow down to one target.
About an hour later of futile searching, I receive a telepathic message that all students have been accounted for. Feeling relieved that there’s no one else out here who needs help, I begin the run back to the school.
I take a quicker route back, and that’s why I come across a familiar scent I didn’t catch earlier. At first, I think I must be imagining it. But when I inhale deeply, I know it’s her.
I follow the scent as fast as I can. What is she doing here? She left hours ago. Was she around when the rogues attacked?
No. I must be wrong, and it’s some other werewolf who has a scent similar to hers. There is no reason she should have been in the forest.
Her scent gets stronger and then my eyes land on a flash of red on the ground. She was wearing a red top. No!
But my denial cannot change the fact that when I get to the girl lying on the ground gasping for air, it’s Cat.
I shift and drop down beside her. “What are you doing here?”
She watches me through barely open eyes. “Chris”
“I’ll take you to a healer right away. Stay with me, okay?”
I don’t wait for her answer as I reach for her. “Can you get on my back? We’ll get there faster if I shift and carry you on my back.”
“Go,” she whispers.
Is she crazy? I would never leave her behind. “If you can’t, it’s fine. I’ll carry you in my arms.”
I move so I can position my arms below her knees and shoulders. That’s when I see it. Her stomach. It’s torn open, her intestines exposed.
“Cat.” Oh my God. What do I do?
“I’m okay,” she whispers again, her voice weaker. “It’s okay.”
“No it’s not.” My eyes are suddenly blurry. I wipe them quickly. I need to act. “I’ll be gentle,” I promise, hooking my arms below her thighs and shoulders.
I get to my feet with her in my arms and start the walk back to campus. Her eyes keep slipping shut, and I keep talking to her, asking her to stay awake. I try to reach out to any of the guards through my mind, but it’s quiet. I must have ran much farther into the forest than the others, and they must all be back to the campus by now.
By the time I emerge from the forest, my thighs and arms are burning. She has not opened her eyes for a while now, but I don’t stop talking to her.
“We are almost there, stay with me.”
The head guard is waiting near the edge of the forest, and when I appear, he rushes towards me. “You are here. I thought we had lost you.” He frowns as he notices Cat. “Who is that? I thought we already got everyone accounted for.”
“She is not a student. She was a guest here earlier.”
“Can I help?”
“I’ve got her.”
I’ll not leave her side until she is okay.
Word gets to the infirmary ahead of us, and I’m still a ways off when the healer and his assistant approach with a gurney.
I lay her carefully on the stretcher, then help them roll it back to the infirmary. When we get inside, the healer gets busy checking her vitals and giving instructions to his assistant.
And then he goes silent abruptly.
“What is it?” I demand when he frowns and feels for her pulse again.
He switches to using his stethoscope. His face doesn’t relax, and when he next feels for her breath, I feel like there’s a dark cloud suddenly closing in on me.
“She was talking,” I tell him. “She spoke to me, and she opened her eyes. She is okay. Do something.”
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. It looks like she has been gone for a few minutes now.”
What kind of bullshit is that? I had her in my arms just a few minutes ago. What does he mean?
By the time I realise I’m shouting those words in his face, I’ve got my hands around his collar and him against the wall.
“Treat her, now!”
A pair of hands grab my shoulders. I shrug them off.
“Do something!”
Those hands come again with more force. I release the healer and turn around. I don’t check who it is, I just punch them to get them off me. When I’m free, I look around the room. There must be something I can do. I apprenticed with the best werewolf healer for three years. If he is not going to do something, I will.
I throw drawers open, check cabinets, turn over medicine bottles, but there’s nothing I can use.
I hurry back to the gurney and lower my head to listen to her heartbeat. It’s quiet. Too quiet.
Telling myself it isn’t too late, I link my hands together and pump her chest. I alternate it with breathing into her mouth. But she keeps getting colder and colder as the minutes go.
She can’t be gone.
She can’t.
This is a bad dream. It has to be.
I can’t lose her too.
***
The first time I became responsible for the death of someone I loved, I was thirteen.
Our neighbouring pack to the north, Crimson River, had been encroaching on our territory over and over again.
As kids, we loved calling them the River’s End wannabes.
They were a newer pack, formed by an exiled River’s End Beta a few decades ago. They occupied the unclaimed territory upstream from our pack, and since then began trying to position themselves as the better of the river packs.
Our pack was far much stronger than them, but that didn’t keep them from looking for trouble now and then. Their transgressions were nothing major, and the two packs never went to war.
Six years ago, they became too aggressive in their attempts to trespass our territory. They had grown in number and perhaps felt confident they could take us on.
Our pack’s council decided it was time to silence them once and for all. They were getting stronger every year, and if our pack didn’t take the threat seriously, it could be too late to deal with them in the future.
Back then, my father was the kind of Alpha to avoid the bloodshed of his warriors unless absolutely necessary.
Many council members felt his diplomatic approach to conflicts was a weakness. As the issue with Crimson River intensified, they got more vocal about their dissatisfaction with his leadership style.
So my father sent a warning to the Crimson River Alpha, asking him to stop any activity in our territory or they could prepare for battle.
The other Alpha responded by challenging him to an Alphas’ duel.
The date and venue were set. My elder brother, Max, was lucky enough to be included in my father’s entourage. Max was sixteen and his wolf had already awakened. In two years, he was going to become Alpha.
I was not as lucky. I did not want to miss such a big fight. But I was only thirteen and was still years away from shifting for the first time. There was no way my father was going to allow me to go along.
Levi wanted to see the fight too, and was just as gutted that he wasn’t allowed to go. So we hatched a plan.
That day, I told my parents I was going over to Silver Creek. Max told his he was coming to my pack. We were used to visiting each other’s packs, and the folks never bothered to check in with each other.
Levi and I met and went into the jungle. It took us hours to get to the venue. We singled out a tall heavily foliaged-tree and climbed it. Up there, we were well-hidden and had a perfect view of the soon-to-be fight arena.
A couple of hours later, groups from both packs arrived. Each of the Alphas had three companions. None of them was allowed to interrupt the fight at any time.
I was very confident that my father would win.
And he did. He beat up the other Alpha to within an inch of his life. And then, when he could have dealt the fatal blow, he gave him a chance to give his word that he would stop encroaching on our territory.
The other Alpha spat in his face and dared him to go ahead and kill him because he would never surrender. He must have underestimated my father’s resolve given his reputation as a peacemaker.
Seconds later, with a clawed hand, my father slashed his throat open. He tore right through his jugular veins, and blood shot from his neck like water from a high-pressure hose.
That’s when they attacked.
A whole lot of them.
They were not supposed to be there, and that’s when my father and the others realised they had been tricked into a trap. Traditionally, when Alphas challenged each other to a duel, they adhered to the rules. Never had there been an incident where an Alpha sullied their honour by planning an ambush.
Clearly, that was a foreign concept to Crimson River. They were not a pack, they were thugs. Later, people would say we should have foreseen it. Half of Crimson River consisted of outlaws from other packs. It was absurd to expect them to play by the rules.
On my father’s side, there were only four of them. One of them a sixteen-year-old whose first shift had only been two months before.
They were severely outnumbered, and my heart stopped in my chest as the attackers fell on them. My father managed to send a distress call only once before he got caught in the thick of the fight.
He ordered the others to retreat and protect Max, but they never got an opening to fall back. The others quickly separated the two warriors, and I watched wide-eyed as a huge grey wolf pounced onto Max’s much smaller wolf.
I screamed.
Levi clamped his hand on my mouth a second too late. But I’d also moved, and when I lost my balance and went toppling to the ground, he came with me.
There was a short lull in the fighting as the fighters took stock of what had happened. And then from all directions, wolves were coming at us, ready to attack.
For a second, I was certain we were going to die. And I would have if Max hadn’t thrown himself between me and a swipe from one of the attackers.
The blow was so strong that it threw him into the air. His back crashed into a tree with a sickening crunch. When he fell to the ground, he didn’t get up.
For a split second, my father was torn between protecting Levi and me and protecting my brother. If we hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have had to make that decision. He wouldn’t have had to shield Levi and me while another enemy delivered another blow to Max’s passed-out wolf.
Help arrived then. If they had come even a minute later, I don’t think any of us would have left that clearing alive.
Levi and I were carried back home by two warriors. Max was taken straight to the healer.
He was so badly injured that he wasn’t able to shift back into his human form. He passed away like that.
The next day, my father wiped out the entire Crimson River pack and razed their property down.
But it didn’t change the fact that Max was gone. Because of me.
And now, the one person who has been the closest to me since then is gone too. Because of me.