Chapter 25: Aria

Chapter 25: Aria

All too quickly, the forest ambience was saturated with pounding feet and growls beneath hard breaths. I wasn’t alone.

Part of me always expected that I would run into trouble on my way to Hale Stone, so, I managed to stay calm long enough to gather my bearings and figure out how far I was relative to safety. The Silent Shadows Pack territory was closer. If I kept running, maybe I could arc around and outrun my pursuers. So, I veered to the east, watching the trees in my periphery.

The bodies running alongside me had no problem keeping up. No matter the contingency plan, it seemed I was always destined to confront my fate.

As soon as I saw the flash of their eyes reflecting moonlight, my calm wilted, and the gravity of my mistake hit me. There were so many of them, and I began to recognize their scents. If they were rogues, I would be dead without any chance to escape. But somehow, this was worse. Before I could even open my mouth to reason with them, six bodies simultaneously swarmed me, closing in and herding me toward a clearing in the forest. Their teeth razed my shoulders and legs, pulling me in every direction as they ran. I snarled, snapping back at them, but the soldiers of the Grey Creek Pack were trained to be fearless.

A hard bite on the back of my neck coaxed me to the ground. With a yelp, I was thrown to the grass, landing hard on my side. My paws scrambled underneath me as I regained composure, mustering ferocity in peeled lips, anger roaring in my eyes. The bristling reds of my fur looked like an inferno igniting the moonlit forest. I circled around, lashing at anyone who got too close. My former packmates regarded me as one would a feral cornered animal, some of them wary, some taunting, but all of them knowing how capable I was of causing damage if they should get too close.

The churning crowd of wolves parted to reveal a larger body skulking toward me. I tensed, recognizing him by his mere shape before the scent smacked me, and then the colour of his pelt, the shape of his face, the gleam in his frigid eyes. All aspects of a man I only knew from memories materializing into the stranger I never wanted to see again. Oswald dragged his paws forward, only to stop a few feet away and stare down his nose at me, the girl he rejected, with emotion that couldn’t be read. I wasn’t sure if he could even recognize emotion himself anymore.

“Now, what are you doing so far from home, Aria?” he drawled in wolf tongue, slivers of his threatening teeth visible between words.

I raised my head high. “My duties for the Silent Shadows Pack are none of your concern.” Although I had a feeling he was already aware of what happened with the Crescent Moon Pack.

“I’m not talking about the Silent Shadows Pack.”

My mind stuttered in disbelief. He didn’t actually think the Grey Creek Pack was still my home, did he?

“We miss you, Aria.” Oswald stepped closer.

My heart leaped into my throat. I took a step back, desperate to maintain the distance between us. “It’s too late. I thought I made that clear.”

In an instant, Oswald’s eyes ignited with madness, his dark fur standing on end and making him look twice as big as himself. “You betrayed me!”

“How?!” I willed myself to look larger, too, raising my head and tail in defiance. “You rejected me for Mara! You took everything from me when all I wanted was to serve you! I didn’t betray you, Oswald! You betrayed me!”

“There you go, spilling filth and lies again!” Oswald’s voice gurgled into an unrecognizable thunder. The soldiers around him bayed in agreement like they were all twisted into psychotic caricatures of themselves. The Grey Creek Alpha shook his head, the whites of his eyes flashing. “Aria, you have always belonged to me! Your desertion of your family is an insult! An embarrassment! You disgraced the very name of the Grey Creek Pack by stepping away from us. If you cannot handle hardship, as I exposed you to with the consequences of your actions, then you cannot call your bonds to anyone loyalty!”

Each punch of his criticism brought me back to the terrible days when I was part of his pack, enduring abuse from him and my family. Even in the short time, I’d been with Lucas and the Silent Shadows Pack I’d come to learn what it felt like to be loved and appreciated. To be treated like a person, not an object. The tone of Oswald’s voice struck me with such visceral memory that it froze me to the spot, and for a moment, I was too wrapped up in despair and misery to respond.

But the empty space beside Oswald, where Mara usually stood, judging me, reminded me that I was no longer outnumbered. Maybe here and now, I was, but where it mattered—back at home, with Lucas—I had an entire pack behind me.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re grasping at straws, Oswald, and I don’t have time for it,” I told him firmly. “I have business to tend to.”

As my heel turned, Oswald erupted in fury. “Don’t you dare turn your back on me, Aria! I’ll make you mine again, even if I have to drag you back home by the neck!”

Oswald launched at me, gaping jaws aimed to snap a hold of my hip. I heard him coming fast enough to strafe to the side, but he still managed to grab my ankle, sinking his teeth into the tendon with painful force. A yelp left my lips as I scrambled to counter him. Oswald and I quickly descended into a flurry of teeth to the chorus of the Grey Creek soldiers howling around us. They cheered for their brutal Alpha to take me down and reclaim me as if none of them had any shred of empathy or understanding for my situation. I couldn’t fathom how they all thought the same way. Without reason, without even thought, almost like they were as mindless as the Rogues.

Oswald didn’t hold back from hurting me. He clamped down, ripping my flesh and tearing out tufts of fur, trying to incapacitate me. I kicked him in the jaw, but he was unaffected. Although the fight felt like it lasted an eternity, in reality, Oswald and I only clashed for thirty seconds before I was pinned to the ground, his teeth squeezing my throat. I gasped, but I could barely breathe in with how tightly he held me. My eyes widened in fear—Oswald had me right where he wanted me, and if he wanted to just kill me, there was nothing stopping him now.

He knew that. I saw that recognition in his eyes. He growled, his body heaving quick, deep breaths through the nose, gradually squeezing tighter. He was at war with himself over whether or not to taste my blood.

“Oswald,” I rasped. Part of me wanted to beg for my life. Part of me wanted to appeal to Oswald, reaching out to the last vestige of sanity I prayed existed in him. And part of me couldn’t stomach reducing myself to begging. The last part of me was what won out in the end. I clenched my teeth and swallowed.

As his teeth dug into my windpipe, I prepared myself for one last deluge of pain. I closed my eyes and hated Oswald more than anything. My heart reached out for help, but I didn’t realize that desperation could be felt by someone else.

My consciousness flickered.

Then a body crashed into Oswald, knocking him off of me. At first, I thought it was a dream whisking me away from the pain. But as the weight was alleviated from my body, my airway opened back up, and I sucked in a loud lungful, eyes bulging in the realization that I was still alive. The crowd around me screamed in rage, jarred from the trance of Oswald’s victory by another round of combat. Rolling onto my feet, I watched the handsome figure of my savior thrash against Oswald, fending him off and punishing him for hurting me. Lucas was here. And he brought our pack with him to rescue me once more from the malice of the Grey Creek Pack.

The soldiers tried to attack me, but my packmates intercepted each set of teeth. The two packs merged in a hurricane of violence, protecting me, pushing each other away, and expressing with tooth and nail what words couldn’t do justice to. I wanted to join the fray, to prove to my new pack that I didn’t expect them to fight my battles for me, but as soon as I swallowed my pain and picked a target, Lucas broke away from his entanglement with Oswald to return to my side.

He pressed his nose against my neck, worry gleaming in his eyes. “Are you okay?”

I caught my breath and nodded, looking at the fight still surging around us. “They won’t stop until Oswald has what he wants.”

“I’m not letting him get anywhere close to you,” Lucas assured me.

Mere mention of Oswald had him reappearing before us, his body now haggard and bleeding. “Step aside, Lucas!” he snarled. “I’m taking back what’s mine.”

“It’s your mind you’ve lost, Oswald,” growled Lucas. “Your pack has no business here. Leave!”

“I refuse to obey a thief of an Alpha like you!” Oswald leaped at us, aiming for Lucas. All semblance of thought was gone. The Oswald I used to know would have never said something like that to Lucas.

As much as I wanted to defend my Alpha, the fight was over within seconds. Lucas was bigger, stronger, and faster than Oswald, a better warrior by leagues; he quickly grabbed Oswald’s muzzle and threw him to the grass, biting hard enough to rip a gaping wound across his nose. The Grey Creek Alpha persisted, and his onslaught was met with Lucas finally grabbing his leg and breaking the bone, causing Oswald to reel back.

“Forfeit, or my pack will be forced to defend themselves to the death!” said Lucas.

“No!” Oswald frothed in rage.

But in a startling demonstration of independence, the Grey Creek soldiers retreated as if something had snapped them out of their craze. They were getting tired, and all of them were injured. Maybe it was seeing Oswald with his broken leg. Maybe it was realizing that they were outnumbered. Whatever it was, I was relieved that my former pack wasn’t going to drive themselves to their own death following Oswald’s insane commands.

“Let’s go, Aria.” Lucas brushed against my shoulder, urging me to follow him. I turned but stole one last glance at Oswald.

He met my eyes, and I regretted even sparing him a glance.

“Don’t walk away from me!” Oswald tried to lunge, but his broken leg caused him to falter, stumbling instead. He snarled at his soldiers. “Get them!”

But they just hung back, watching, murmuring among themselves.

“Traitors! Cowards, all of you!” Oswald screamed.

I set my eyes ahead of me, trying to block out the sound of Oswald’s outlandish cries. Lucas offered his shoulder in support, and the rest of the Silent Shadows Pack formed a protective barrier while we walked, but Oswald’s fury and desperation clawed into my brain and haunted me. Something was terribly wrong with him. I feared that he wouldn’t stop until he was dead, and all I could think of was how deeply it reminded me of the Rogues.

What had done this to him?

It wasn’t until we’d been walking for five minutes that the forest finally fell silent. I could hear the strain in some of my packmates walking, the air soaked with their blood. Guilt gnawed at me, but most of all, I could sense something in myself that didn’t entirely belong to me. Worry, fear... of losing me.

Peering at Lucas, I tipped my ears back in shame as I realized the feeling was coming from him. Somehow, I could feel it too.

I didn’t expect to be confronted with the consequences of disobeying him so soon. As we walked in silence, I dreaded what he was going to say to me next.