MEETING YOU

The butt of a rifle slammed hard into my lower back, sending me sprawling face-first into the mud.

“Run! Why aren’t you running now?”

A tall werewolf stomped on my back. His name was Butcher, the overseer of this mining camp.

He had once been a Gamma of Embermoon Pack, but after secretly selling the pack’s core intelligence, he had been exiled by my Alpha father. He had hated my father ever since, and now that I had fallen into his hands, the consequences were obvious.

My carefully planned escape had failed, and he dragged me back through a torn hole in the barbed-wire fence with his own hands.

“Bring the others over here!” Butcher roared.

Two other werewolves who had tried to escape were shoved forward by armed werewolf guards and forced to kneel beside me. They were shaking uncontrollably, gun barrels trained on their heads.

Butcher reached for his waist and pulled out a rusted machete. He weighed it in his hand, the metal dull and stained. Then, he walked up to one of the kneeling werewolves, a twisted look of pleasure spreading across his face.

“I hate your kind the most,” he sneered. “High-ranking werewolves think a bit of status means you can do whatever you want.”

His eyes were fixed on the kneeling man, but his words were clearly meant for me.

“This is my territory. And here, you learn to obey, or this is what happens.”

Before he finished his sentence, the blade flashed.

“Ah!”

A scream ripped through the silence of the mining camp as the werewolf’s right arm was severed cleanly at the shoulder. Blood sprayed everywhere, splattering across my face. My stomach churned, but there was nothing left inside me to throw up.

Butcher didn’t stop. He brought the blade down again and again. In moments, all four of the werewolf’s limbs were gone. He collapsed into a twitching, blood-soaked mass on the ground.

The other werewolf broke down, wetting himself as he crumpled to the dirt. Butcher rested the bloodied blade against the man’s neck and then slowly turned his gaze toward me.

“You,” he said. “Come here.”

I forced myself to crawl upright, every step feeling like I was walking on knife edges.

“Lick it clean,” Butcher ordered, pointing at his mud-caked boots.

I stared at him, my eyes bloodshot. In my mind, my brother’s face surfaced again.

My brother was a half-werewolf—the son of my Alpha father and his former mate. When my brother was very young, my father had dissolved the bond with his human mother. From then on, he was raised under my mother’s care. Although we were only half-siblings, he doted on me endlessly, always protecting me and staying by my side.

Half a year ago, he had taken me on a trip for a break. Before boarding the plane, I drank the water he handed me, and not long after takeoff, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I was here in this mining camp. Somehow, they had suppressed the wolf inside me. I didn’t know how they did it, only that it had fallen into a deep slumber. I was left powerless, weak, and completely defenseless.

I had always believed my brother would come for me. However, so much time had passed, and there had been no word from him at all. I could no longer ignore the possibility that he might have met with danger himself. If so, I couldn’t die here. I had to live. I had to escape and look for him.

Slowly, I knelt down and extended my tongue, licking the mud from Butcher’s boots bit by bit. Laughter erupted from the surrounding werewolf guards.

Satisfied, Butcher kicked me away with one swift motion.

“I’ll spare you today,” he said coldly. “But if there’s a next time, you’ll end up just like him.”

He pointed at the body still twitching faintly on the ground.

I lay there, face down in the dirt, pretending to be obedient, while hatred grew wild in me.