Royalty In Rag: Return Of The Wolfless Queen

The woods shook as a heart-wrenching howl rippled through the silvery-white wolf.

“Something bad has happened.” The words snaked through the young heart as the wolf changed to a girl.

Athena Reed did not need the words to know her world would never be the same again.

“Ma!” the gangly eighteen-year-old screamed as she stumbled over the porch with muddied feet.

Light spilt through the open door onto the porch and bathed Athena’s naked body.

Her changing clothes lay forgotten in the shed.

She dashed inside as she dodged the discarded furniture in her path.

The family portrait hung drunkenly on one hinge, angry slashes destroying the happy family within. 

“Pa!” Athena screamed once again as she stumbled over a broken glass table. Broken shards of glass dug into her upper body, but she didn’t feel it.

Her eyes had fixated on something just below the staircase.

A crumpled body that looked more like a rag doll.

“Ky…Kyle!”

The child who would never know the thrills of getting his wolf stared through jade green eyes that mirrored hers.

No, this cannot be happening. He was just bugging her hours ago!

“Kyle!” She gripped his cold body as she rose from the floor.

“Mmm… Maurice!” Her breath trembled out as she saw her brother on the staircase, a few paces from where his wife and child lay.

Her wolf howled in her chest again, with the crippling pain sipping into her bones as she staggered up the stairs with her nephew in her arms.

Maurice and Sarah were far beyond help, just like their son.

There was an eeriness to her once-warm home that made Athena’s limbs quake as she climbed the stairs. 

She didn’t realise she was crying until she saw the tears plop on Kyle’s face.

“I am so sorry, Kyle,” trembled through her lips just before she tripped on the landing.

She rolled and protected Kyle’s head from hitting the floor, taking the brunt of the fall on her back.

The pain stunned her for a moment, and she felt wetness against her cheek.

Wet. Red. Blond hair and a gash in the face.

It took Athena a second to realise that she was staring at what used to be the face of her dad, the beloved Alpha of Moonvale.

“Pa…papa!” She scrambled up, still holding on to her nephew. “Mama!” Her tears came in torrents as she saw her parents entwined in death, just as they had been most of the time in life.

“Pa, please wake up! Ma, look what they did to Kyle!” she screamed deliriously as she crawled towards her parents.

Shards on the floor dug into her knees, leaving a bloody trail. 

Her frenzied mind kicked in, and she quickly hid the boy behind her. “No, you shouldn’t see him like this!”

Her father’s face was bashed in with a silver dagger buried in his chest.

Her mother did not fare better as blood trickled sluggishly out of the punctured holes in her neck. 

The blood gave the red hair Athena inherited a grotesque sheen. 

Fangs! 

A hint of warmth still clung to the two of them, fading fast as she reached for them.

“Who did this?!” Athena shrieked with rage as she buried her face between her parents, shaking them in her overwhelming grief.

“Tell me who did this to you?!”

“Moon goddess, why?!” 

“Athena”, the thready whisper penetrated her mind-link, and she jerked upward in shock.

******

Outside the three-storey Georgian-style house, a lone figure ran towards the wrapped porch.

Great grief sluiced through him, and he could feel his heart breaking just as that of the one linked to him.

As his feet hit the porch, a threadbare, familiar voice came through the mind-link.

“Stay away from my Athena”,