“Did you hear that?” asked Roman.
I focused and my sense of hearing honed in on the sound.
A girl.
A girl screaming for help.
Before I could even realize what I was doing, I had transformed into my wolf form. Instinctively, I howled up at the moon before shooting forward like a bullet train. I could tell that Roman was right behind me by the sound of his footfall.
He caught up and even went ahead.
I was close on his heels.
The girl had stopped screaming and I knew that probably meant one thing: she was already dead.
No, I told myself. I will not let that happen again.
I tried to keep the memory of that horrible day at bay but it taunted me with its pain. As always, its’ cut was deep.
***
Roman and I had gone hunting for the day. Together, there was nothing that we couldn’t catch. So, whenever the pack was desperate for meat, we were always the ones sent to replenish the storehouses and because of us the pups and expecting mothers always had something to eat, even in the dead of winter.
We had considered ourselves heroes and many pack members had agreed.
They were ready to make me the pack Alpha, when it happened.
The attack was already over by the time we had returned. We had heard the screams — the cries for help — from miles away. They had echoed through our eardrums, as we made a desperate attempt to get back to our turf. We had abandoned everything we had caught that day because had we carried it back, it would have slowed us down.
Even so, we didn’t make it.
Everyone was already dead.
We searched every last inch, trying to find a survivor but not even one single pup had made it out of the bloody massacre to tell the tale. The monsters that had decimated my people, had even killed my mother, a woman who was expecting a child by the next moon cycle. That brother or sister she had carried, was someone I would never have the pleasure of knowing and, for that, they were going pay and payment wasn’t cheap.
***
“Help!”
Relief washed over me as I heard her shout. If she was still capable of screaming, then that meant that she was still alive.
Determined to get to her in time, I pushed myself even harder. My long nails worked like cleats that destroyed the earth with every step I took. Woodland creatures ran into their burrows because they knew that we were not the sort of predator that they wanted to mess with.
“Do you feel that too?” Roman’s voice echoed inside my head.
I knew exactly what he meant. There was some sort of electricity in the air, like there was a thunderstorm in the forecast. It was the same sort of feeling that had surrounded the pack. It was the aura of our people, like an invisible force that brought us together and told us, ‘this is where you belong.’
“She might be one of ours,” I responded. “A survivor.”
“No, this is different, somehow.”
But I didn’t really care. If there was any possibility that she might be a lost member of our pack, then I was going to find her and I was going to save her. With my father and mother dead, it was my duty as the newest pack Alpha.
Roman skidded to a halt and nearly fell off the edge of a cliff. If I hadn’t been there to grab him by the tail, it would have been an inevitable tumble to the jagged rocks below.
“Careful,” I snapped. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? I’d rather not assume the title of ‘lone wolf,’ if I can help it.”
“Wow, and here I was thinking you were a heartless bastard,” he responded, with his usual sarcasm.