002: My Worst Nightmare

My Worst Nightmare

Talia’s POV

“AWOOO!!!”

Another long howl cut through the night. The sound kept on increasing.

Nobody in the hall moved. The hall that had been full of laughter and clapping just seconds ago went completely still, like someone had drained the life out of it all at once. I felt the coldness of the room like a cold air passing under a door… slow, quiet, and impossible to stop.

I knew that sound. Every human in the room knew how horrible it is. It didn’t matter how many years had gone by. It didn’t matter how many nights we spent trying to forget it. The moment it reached our ears, our bodies remembered before our mind could catch up.

A child near the back began to cry, muffled against her mother’s side. I could hear the woman trying to shush her, but her own hands were shaking.

“Not again,” The elderly woman in the front row pressed her palms together, her voice barely holding. “Lord… not tonight. Haven’t they taken enough from us already? Can’t they just leave us alone?”

I turned to face them. Valik’s hand was still holding mine, warm and steady, and I pulled gently from his grip and stepped forward.

“Everyone, listen to me,” I said, keeping my voice as low as I could manage. “Stay calm. They could be passing through the forest. We don’t know yet that they’re coming here, so let’s not…”

“We can’t take the chances of guessing,” Mateo cut in.

“Listen to me,” I said, loud enough that they could hear me. “We need to get into hiding, please quietly to avoid attracting them” I pointed toward the back door. “Women and children should go through the back door, into the storage room in the kitchen. The men should follow Mateo into the other rooms, that’s safe for now.”

They started moving. Slowly at first, then faster as the instinct to survive kicked in and overrode the fear.

“Talia.” Mateo grabbed my arm as he passed. “Come with us.”

“I will, just get the others safe.”

I moved through the hall, guiding people, keeping my voice steady even though my heart was beating violently inside my chest. After the massacre ten years ago, I had learned one thing above everything else… panic kills faster than wolves do. If I fell apart, everyone around me would fall apart with me.

“Please stay low… don’t make a sound… keep moving, you’re doing well…”

I felt a hand at my elbow, I turned and it was Valik.

“Go with the others,” I said without looking at him.

He didn’t move.

“Valik.” I turned to face him. “You need to go with the others, please.”

He was looking at me, but not quite at me. His eyes had a distant feature to them, like he was listening to something I couldn’t hear. He had been doing that since the howls started… standing slightly apart, his expression somewhere else.

“I’m staying with you,” he said simply.

There was no time to argue. The howls were getting closer.

I grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward the narrow gap behind the altar, a space between the wall and the heavy wooden panel that I had noticed earlier in the evening when I was too nervous to stand still and had walked every inch of the hall to calm myself down. It was barely wide enough for two people.

We pressed into it together, our shoulders touching, and I pulled the panel as close as I could manage from the inside.

Outside, the wolves swept through, rough and fast, kicking benches aside, barking at each other in short clipped words I couldn’t fully understand.

I held my breath.

Beside me, Valik was very quiet. But that distant look hadn’t left his face. He kept turning something over in his mind, I could see it, whatever it was pulling his attention away from the danger right in front of us.

The voices outside moved toward the back of the hall.

I let out a slow, careful breath.

Then Valik turned to look at me, and something about the way he did it made me go still. It wasn’t the usual way he looked at me. His eyes were more serious now. He touched my hair gently.

“The vow you made tonight,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Does it still stand?”

I stared at him. Of all the things he could have said hiding in the dark while wolves searched the building for us, that was not what I expected.

“What?” I whispered back.

“What you said at the altar,” he said. “No matter sickness or death… no matter who I am… you would stay.” His eyes stayed on mine. “Does it still stand?”

It was such a strange thing to ask. Strange timing, but it sounded like the answer genuinely mattered to him in a way that went beyond words.

I didn’t understand it. But there was something in his face that made me answer honestly instead of asking questions.

“We’re married,” I whispered. “Of course it still stands.”

He smiled. Just… a quiet settling, like a knot that had been pulled tight finally loosened slightly. He looked at me for a moment longer, then turned back toward the gap in the panel.

I didn’t have time to think about what any of it meant, because their footsteps were getting closer, and it sounded like we have been found.

The panel was pulled open.

Light flooded in and I stepped forward without thinking, putting myself slightly in front of Valik, my fists closed at my sides. My legs were shaking but I kept them straight. If this was how I will die, I was not going to spend the last moment of my life crouching in a corner.

The soldiers had spread through the whole hall now, covering every exit.

The four standing in front of me, I looked them in the eye and waited for whatever thing they came with.

And then the soldiers stopped.

All of them at once. Like something had pulled their invisible cord.

One by one, starting with the soldier at the front… the broad-shouldered one with a scar running along his jaw… they lowered themselves. Their weapons still in their hand. Before I could understand what was going on, every single one of them went down on one knee.

The hall went so quiet I could hear the remaining candle flames.

The scarred soldier kept his eyes on the floor and spoke in a voice that was steady and carried the weight of someone who had been looking for something for a very long time.

“Cassain Grey reporting, Alpha Valik...” He paused briefly. “We finally found you.“​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​