Chapter 7

The last thing I remember was falling.

Falling continuously, endlessly screaming my guts out, until finally, I remember breaking the surface of the water. That's all I know. There's a bright light that I'm currently starting at, quietly contemplating if I made it to the end of my life. Reaching the other side. Should I attempt to touch it, get up and walk towards it? Should I hear a voice coming from it? Those thoughts fill my head while I lay there- wherever I am, floating, lying in wait in limbo.

Words echo around me, fading in and out until I'm able to hear distinctions between them. Male and female. Wolves always talk about Selene their goddess, didn't realize she was a hermaphrodite.

Go figures. She has to be twisted like that to bless the children who murdered and made miserable others.

"That's the last one?"

"Yeah, almost didn't make it. "

A sharp sting pulls me from everything, the light fading, tossing me back into reality. I roll to my side, in a hurry to sit up, glancing about me.

Shit, I didn't escape.

Men were around, some standing, others sitting, those same damn dogs laying further out, sleeping the time away.

"Glad you could join us," Someone says from behind and I crane my neck to see them.

His hair is blonde, with a square face, donning what would have been our army's uniform sometime ago, matched with soiled combat boots. He's built large and muscular. I immediately picture him wrapping those steroid arms around my person, squeezing the life from my body if I ever ran away. But alas, that was no way to cross over to the dead.

"We almost lost ya there. The way you hit the water. Went unconscious immediately I gather"

"Yeah, from her drop that wouldn't be far-fetched, " another adds.

Oh, so I wasn't alive all that time.

"So darling, tell me, " A skinner one stoops before me, his hair cropped and skin tanned so dark, he might have been toasted by the sun. "Where have you been?"

He pokes at clothes, then lifts my chin, inspecting me as if I'm some possession to be bartered.

I glare at him, without answering his question, tugging at my hand, now realizing that they've bound them.

"Let me go. "

"Why? Just to have you run away" The older bulkier man asks, shaking his head. "No. Now answer the man, it's clear wherever you've been, you weren't starving or nearly enough. "

I glance around the small area finding others like me, men and women, children, adolescents, bound, defeated. Their clothes are much shabbier than mine which was saying much since those wolves barely gave us anything new and new is used loosely. More like repair and use.

"Oh don't worry about them. We're just taking back what's ours. "

"They are people, " I snapped at him.

"They're resources, " The man corrects. "And where you're going it's best you do not have an opinion. Now come on, I haven't got all day. "

I rolled my eyes taking a deep breath.

Lose the fight to win the war, Leila.

"I ran away from a werewolf colony. "

Then men around me stopped talking, everyone glancing at each other before turning back to me. Some laughed, others shook their heads, dismissing my statement. But not the soldier. Instead, his face contorted into a scowl.

"That ain't funny," He says

"I'm not laughing. "

"No one survives a werewolf attack or at least manages to escape. "

"Yet here I am, though it won't be long if I stay here" I held up my bound hand and gestured to my feet. "So if you please?"

"Yeah, no. Everyone is going back to the Capital, " He answers walking away from me disreagrding my existence.

The Captial? I was this close to it?! I didn't have many fond memories of being there and it was just the same as being in the wild, only with buildings instead of trees. Still, the fittest of the fit survive.

There's a man that have been blandly staring at me the entire time. It's unnerving and I want to tell him to f**k off, but I remain quiet, tucking me feet beneath my chin, but watch him from the corner of my eye. Eventually, he comes over, shooing the lankier soldier away from guarding me, over to the others. He rakes his hand through my hair, picking at my clothes likewise before taking a seat on the boulder adjacent to me.

"You're a pretty face, " He starts.

Yes, he's definitely working for me to tell him go f**k himself.

I don't answer, but turn away my gaze pretending to ignore him.

"The King would be quite happy to have you. "

"I won't be a servant to anyone. "

He laughs. "That thought irks you doesn't it little one. Well if he's keeping you safe behind those tall walls of his, it's only fair don't you think?"

"I never asked for his protection, " What was the point either way? Darn man didn't care about anything. We were the ones who were protecting him. So many lives lost to prevent invasions. I cock my head in the direction of the other captives. "If it's so dandy behind those walls, why did they leave?"

He spits at my feet and I immeidately want to vomit.

"Ungrateful bastards. But you, you know how appreciative the king would be for you? Pretty girl, pretty face. You could serve him, entertain him. Make him very happy. "

I'd sooner die out here than do any of that. I'd gladly walk back to camp than serve an egotistical pompous freak.

We don't continue the conversation, but he leaves finishing it with his commerades. A child starts crying and I pity her. To be so young and dependent. It was a curse.

When nightfall comes, so does the chills, I'm grateful for the small fire they make and even more so for the roasted fished offered. Mine finishes before I know it, my stomach still growling. Owls hoot in the distance while crickets sings around us. The only indication of safety. There are no stars in the sky tonight, grey clouds shifting across the royal blue sufrace, as if time as slowed. Slowly the forest lights up witht the luminary light of the moon and I watch it, humming softly to myself. I shouldn't make myself comfortable here, but at the very least being inside of the walls would keep me from being eaten.

My limbs become lethargic and eventually my eyes slide shut, the glades of the moon in my closing vision. Darkness shifts behind my eyelids until trees take form, swaying in the chilling wind. Something sits in the dark, hid by the shadows, but I can feel the overwhelming presence charging the air between us.

"Hello," I hear my own voice calls into the shifting night.

"Who's out there?"

There's no response, but there's no denying the shock that flows through me when the snowy white paws step from the darkness revealing my greatest fear:

The Husky white wolf.

It bolts towards me, fierce and determined, trampling everything beneath it's paws. Jaws wide and ready to devour, I jerk back, falling into reality. I'm soaked through and through, skin burning hot from my terror. People scramble around me like ants under the falling rain and for a second I question if I'm still dreaming.

"Don't just sit there, get ya ass up, and get moving!" The bulky soldier barks at me. "You think you're some lil' Princess?"

He raises his machete in the air, swinging it at me, my bound arms rising on reflex to protect my person, eyes squeezed tight. Something falls against my lap- the now dismantled rope and he walks away hissing his teeth.

"Get moving Princess we haven't got all night and time's a wasting. "

Everyone around is smearing mud against their skin and I cringe against the thought.

Why were we doing this again?!

I grab a glob, making a face and the icky muck sticks against my skin, the same Connel, that's what I've found out his name was, screams at another beside me and I hasten my actions.

"Why are we doing this?" I whispher to a man that's being a little overzealous with dropping the icky substance in his hair.

"Werewolves are hunting in the area. Haven't you realized it's a full moon? "

I sigh inwardly yes, but I've forgotten how problematic that could be. Truly being in the camp have rust some of my instincts.

"Alright everyone, grab a partner and choose a tree, stay out of sight and shut ya traps. "

Great so now we"re f**king monkeys.