Shot.

Claire’s POV:

It only took me an hour to conduct my plan.

I had no choice but to make do. I didn’t even bother to pack anything. I simply didn’t want to let anyone know that I was on the move.

I bit my lips, beginning to put my legs over the windowsill. I needed to make a swift drop, and though the height was slightly dizzying, I knew that I had no choice. I needed to leave before anyone would come.

With a quick push from where I was seated on the window, I dropped down on the floor with a huff. I kept my knees bent, waiting until I felt stable enough to straighten up. I looked back at the window from which I had jumped.

I was successful.

Joy filled my heart and I sniped. The sun had risen fully and I was free. I turned towards the direction of the forelegs, on my way towards my new life when I heard a titter.

“So you want to escape?” It was the voice of my dreadful stepmother. I froze, horror filling my being.

No. No, no please not this.

Before I could even stop her from doing anything, I heard her call my father's name loudly. Hell broke loose. My father came storming out, furious. And then I knew it was over.

I barely managed to escape being hit with my father’s walking stick - a choice of weapon for all the punishments he meted out to me when I was young. But after dodging a few times, I felt a sharp pain in my side and my knees couldn’t hold me up anymore. I fell on the floor, taking all the hits until I had the strength to reach up and grab into my father’s trouser leg. He didn’t stop though; he only sneered at me.

“Father, please,” tears were running down my face now. I hated myself for being such a baby at crying but what else could I do? “I don’t want to go! Please!” I begged the man who was meant to care for me, meant to make sure that I was okay.

I grasped his trouser leg, trying to withstand the hits from his favorite punishing tool. The walking stick was hard to deal with, and I had nothing to do but hold on. I heard a stream of curses and insults from my father’s lips.

Useless, he called me.

Idiot, he said.

Fool, he barked out as he aimed a shot with the bottom of his walking stick at my leg.

I screamed out loud as some of the blows felt more than torture to me.

“Father, please spare me!” I kept on saying, not caring how I looked. I didn’t care; I just wanted to be free. “You can set me free. I will not come back to this place! I promise! I just want to be free!” I pleaded with him.

Yet, all I got were blows. Then at once, I felt a hand grab the back of my shirt and toss me away.

The solid ground felt like a bed of nails. I hit my head on the ground, sobbing, and my body shook and trembled. I shivered. My clothes had somehow torn and a breeze was cooling my sweaty skin.

“Father,” I croaked out, coughing.

“You will be quiet!” He hissed at me, stomping his walking stick threateningly on the front porch wood. “You are nothing but a burden to me, you hear? You have been in this house, doing nothing but being a nuisance!”

My jaw dropped. Who had told him that? Over his shoulder, I noticed how my stepmother’s gleaming eyes looked even happier than I had ever seen her in. My father continued, pointing the end of the walking stick at me.

“And now, you will be of benefit to me for once in your life! You will be with Mr. Ralph! And you will serve him well!”

I was about to explain when I heard a growl, and I felt fur brush a side of me.

What the..?

I turned and was shocked to find the wolf there. It was limping forward, snarling at the man.

I was surprised with joy but then my heart was frozen. I knew my Wolf was badly hurt, and my father was an experienced hunter. How could he beat him? If my life has been doomed to no hope, I just ask at least the Wolf can replace me free to run in the forest.

My father, who had already noticed how the wolf came forward to protect me, chuckled,“Oh, what a good day!”

Unease pooled in my belly.

“If only I knew beating you up would attract such an easy game, I would have done it weeks ago. Now everything is too late, but what the hell! At least it will buy me some drinks with beautiful skin.” The greedy taunting in his voice made me flinch.

What was my father going to do to the wolf? The worry for the wolf overpowered the physical torture. I tried to stand up and make myself a shield before the Wolf. But the pain was so much that I fell down. All I could do was yell, "Run!"

The wolf turned around to see me with his beautiful and comforting eyes, he let out a deep growl that echoed through the forest and then turned back to face my dad.

Under my witness, I saw the wolf shift. I have heard the tales of werewolves but never in my life could I imagine meeting one.

The shift, however, was not as smooth and easy as the tale goes, the wolf’s injured leg trembled and blood burst out from the wound during the shift. It tried very hard to finish the shift and when it was done, the wolf was covered all over with blood.

No, instead of the wolf I got familiar with in the previous days, there was a man standing before me. His silver hair glistened in the darkness, giving all the difference in the night look. My eyes roamed through his face and I noticed his neatly carved eyebrows, his high cheekbones that belonged only to the royals, his rosy lips that were a little too red for a man.

Finally, I lifted my head and looked into his eyes, only to meet a pair of ocean blue eyes staring right back at me. I got lost in them for some moments and couldn't look away no matter how hard I tried.

It was only luck that my father was as astonished and he didn’t take the time to attack.

The luck didn't last for so long as he seemed to remember himself. He whistled long and hard -the signal for uniting the hunters- and my brain jolted out of the temporary hold the wolf, i mean the man, had on me.

I couldn't let my father call the hunters. If they all arrived, there would be no way for either myself or the man to escape. The hunters would stop at nothing until the man was dead. I had to prevent that from happening. I grabbed the man and ran away with him.

The man refused to leave and just stared at both my father and stepmother like he would love nothing else but to kill them both.

"We have to leave! Now!" I didn't know if it was the urgency in my voice or the way I was already sobbing, but the wolf, I mean man, heeded me and we began to run away. The injury he spotted made it hard for him to run faster.

Before we could move more than a few metres away, the sloshing of an arrow sounded in my ears. Before I could react, I saw the arrow fly between me and the man, missing my head by only a few centimetres.

Was my father willing to let them kill me now?

Another arrow flew and this time, it embedded itself in my stomach. I stopped running and clutched the place, my hand grazing the tip of the arrow. Blood covered my hands and continued to flow very fast, soaking my dress in crimson red.

"Fa-father!" I sobbed in agony.

The last thing I saw was the way the man with me let out a feral wolf-like growl and his blue eyes seemed to be breathing fire. And then, I slumped.