Chapter 1-zara

There were bodies falling around me with sickening thuds that made me want to lurch and throw up the contents of my stomach. I could hear battle cries from every corner, squelching sounds of blood, and growls that pitied nobody.

I held on to the silver knife that had been laced with wolfsbane.

One of the people I knew fell to the ground a few feet away from me, her eyes open wide even in death as she made eye contact with me, which I was quick to break by looking away.

My heart thudded loudly beneath my chest as tears welled up in my eyes and doubt started to envelope me.

How was I going to use the knife for the most important mission of the night?  Why had I been too confident in this from the start?

My mind took me back to the day when I had agreed to be the martyr for this battle.

~

“Which one of you can be a killer and live with it for the rest of your lives?”

We all looked at Gray, most people with fear on their faces and the others with bravery.

“So, nobody?” Gray questioned, his hands up in the air in exasperation as he waited for one of us to volunteer to hold the knife that would kill the Alpha of Crimson Moon Pack. Nobody raised their hands or made any attempt.

Gray grabbed a dagger from the table and carelessly threw it into the wall behind us, so hard that it stabbed the hardwood. “I would have been the one to take over that responsibility, but you all know I can’t.”

Aera, Gray’s mate, grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze as if silently telling him that she would take over from there, seeing that he was losing his temper.

“What Gray means to say is that he has a lot on his hands. We’re all rogues—whether you were rejected, banished, or you ran away—and we’re all the same in the eyes of those people who still have their packs. This is not just any attack, as you all know that we don’t attack for nothing. We’re attacking Crimson Moon because of what they did to our loved ones. Who here has lost a loved one because of the attack they brought upon us a fortnight ago?”

“They killed my mother,” a girl said, her voice trembling.

“My sister was taken away,” someone else added, his back slumped as if an invisible shadow was pressing down on him.

“My best friend was captured, and my brother was killed,” I spoke up, looking down at the ground beneath me.

“Exactly!” Aera said. “Each and every one of you lost something or someone because of that pack and their alpha. What we need is a volunteer to kill their alpha.”

There had been countless whispers about how strong their Alpha was. Even when his pack attacked us at our hideout a while ago, the witnesses who survived claimed that he could kill five people in the snap of a finger.

I was not there when they attacked. What I met was nothing but the body of my brother on the ground and the news that Anna had been taken away.

“You all want vengeance, and we see it in your eyes. But that’s not enough.” Aera shook her head. “We need someone who can sneak up on that man and stick a knife into his heart before he even notices their shadow. We want stealth. We want to go there with the assurance that we can win this.”

It seemed as though the more she spoke, the more people retreated into themselves. Nobody was willing to do it. The thought of sneaking up on an alpha was an absurd thought.

“And what about our warriors in training?” someone spoke up, making my heart rate spike at the mention of it. I was one of the warriors in training. “By now, they should all have their strengths and weaknesses. Surely, one of them should have stealth as their strength.”

The idea made Gray get up from where he was sitting to standing in front of us with his hands akimbo.

“Every warrior in training present, please stand up.”

It felt as if the hall grew a few degrees hotter. I stood up with the others, breathing slowly and quietly as if that would take away the fact that I was there and make him ignore me.

“What are your stealth ranks?” Gray questioned, looking around as each and every one mentioned their ranks one by one.

No, no, no…

“Zara!” Gray called out to me, pulling me out of my thoughts and making me know that they had all been waiting for me to give an answer. “What is your stealth rank from all your previous fights?”

“One,” I said.

Then came the murmurs and the whispers. I immediately knew what was coming. My rank meant I was the sneakiest of them all when it came to a fight. But it didn’t mean I wanted to take my chances with an alpha of a pack.

I watched Gray walk toward me, his lips tugged in an assuring smile.

“I understand why you would be scared of something like this, Zara.” He took my hand, trying to soften the blow of the situation, but it only made it worse.  “But given this chance means that you’ll be more protected on the battlefield than anyone else in this hall.”

I watched everyone’s heads bop up and down in agreement as he continued, “And when you succeed in doing this for all the lives lost, you will get all the glory. We will all sing your name in praises for years to come!”

I didn’t want them to sing my name.

“It was that alpha. He’s the one who killed your brother, Zara,” he cut my thoughts off.

“Some saw it. Your brother was fighting for our right to stay when he snapped his neck without the slightest hint of pity. As if that was not enough, he took your brother’s body and slammed him against a tree, over and over. You saw just how mangled—”

“Stop!” I snapped, shaking my head and refusing to hear any more.

The image of my brother’s bloodied body in my arms pushed me to the table in front of the crowd. I reached forward for the knife which had a silver tip. The knife which had been crafted with silver mixed with wolfsbane. One stab could send a wolf to the depths of hell.

“If he’s the one who killed my brother as you said, then so be it,” I said. “I will kill the Alpha of Crimson Moon, and I will bring his head to you all.”

~

The anger had taken over me, and I had made a foolish decision, one I couldn’t back out of now.

Before I could stand up and name an attempt to renew my confidence, I was thrown to the ground as a wolf from the pack growled at me and clawed at my chest.

My warm blood was soaking my shirt, fast.