WATER GODDESS

AURORA

I held the map higher, hoping it would catch some sunlight. The thick dense forest was bent on obstructing all sunshine and that didn’t help my situation.

My eyesight in the darkness isn’t so great if compared to wolf standards. It would’ve been fine if I were a human but I’m not and I cannot see incredibly well in pitch-blackness as other wolves can. It’s the price I had to pay for my elemental powers but I’m not the only one who paid it.

Dash doesn’t have super hearing and Hilda doesn’t have super strength. But I don’t regret it. What’s super-sight compared to waterpowers? I can solidify, jellify, dry up, heat up, and control water movement. I’m a water goddess!

Evolet scoffed.

Evening was drawing near but the sun was still shining. I found a patch where light was seeping through and placed the map under it. I would have preferred my phone’s GPS but wolf territories aren’t even on the world map.

Serena meowed loudly and I hushed her up. “You’re the one who wanted to come. You can’t complain.”

Serena realized that I was trying to escape and wanted to alert the whole packhouse. I tried to stop her but when she left me with no choice, I stationed her into my bag and zipped it up. It was only for a short time because once I was a safe distance from home, I let her go and shooed her off—hoping she’d find her way back home.

She refused to leave my side and if I tried to send her away, she would hiss. What could I do?

Serena stayed close to me, her eyes darting everywhere and her ears twitching at the slightest sounds. She was helpful when it came to alerting me. Because of her, we escaped a pack of rogues by climbing up a tree and spraying some wolfguise.

I didn’t want to meet more.

I had supplies that could last me for a day. Water, energy bars, torchlights, weapons, some wolfsbang for effect… anything else you can think of. They were all safe in my black duffel bag.

I continued moving and calculating how long it’d take for me to reach the portal. Though it’s been years since I’ve been out of the forest, I remembered it quite well. The tall unending trees, the dry leaves that enveloped the ground like blankets, the unceasing sounds of life, and the cool forest wind.

But now the grass was greener and the sky was brighter. Part of the things that make it more beautiful.

‘Hmm… should take us six hours to get there. If I continue moving down this path, I can swerve away into the bushes to avoid the river then…’

‘I’m sure mom and dad would have realized we were missing! There’ll be troops everywhere!’

Ugh, not again Evolet.

‘That’s why I’m staying close to Dorcha Azonos. They wouldn’t think I’d take this path.’

‘Yeah, and that’s because they don’t know you’re stupid. Stop this, Arie! Let’s turn back and head home… I have a bad feeling about this.’

‘You have a bad feeling about everything.’

‘But Arie!’

‘Stop being so…’

Serena was the first to freeze. She hissed loudly, looking specifically to the left of us and I heard it. Hundreds of speeding paws heading this way. If you listened close enough, you could perceive their gnashing teeth and biting jaws.

That was the problem with rogues. They always give out their locations with their beastly movements.

“Come on, Serena.”

I picked her up and shot my claws out, quickly climbing the nearest and sturdiest tree to me. Wolves don’t normally climb but dad taught me how to. Once I was seated on a branch, I pulled my weapons out and sprayed wolfsguise. Serena knew to keep shut but Evolet was muttering to herself, wishing she could reprimand me again.

We were silent but my heart began to race when the monstrous wolves appeared. They had patches in their fur. Their eyes were bulgingly gruesome and they were looking here and there, expecting something to jump out and attack.

Most of them were huger than normal wolves and it's common knowledge that rogues can’t shift… except on a full moon.

Because of this, they kidnap wolves and steal their spirit animals. I hear it’s painful and leaves a wolf torn apart… with an everlasting hole in their heart.

It happened to my aunt, Kendra. She seems all right and healthy but I can only imagine her emptiness. Some say it’s as bad as losing a mate… or worse, being rejected.

Their large putrid claws were always out and these were more than the last ones. There were about fifty of them. I held my breath and made sure Serena made no noise. Serena’s so big now. Can barely remember her as a little kitten.

The rogues growled among themselves and I didn’t know why they weren’t moving along. One in the front line shifted into human form. A tall untidy woman with matted brown hair. She took a few steps away from the group who watched her impatiently and picked something up from the ground.

It was a chew toy and Serena’s favorite which… fuck… she never let anyone touch. Knowing what she was about to do when she was about to do it, I quickly grabbed Serena before she jumped down to get her toy back.

The strange she-wolf squeezed the toy and Serena hissed loudly.

“There is someone around here.” She had the rogue accent. The she-wolf sniffed, probably hoping to sense a scent, and was just meters away from our tree. “Find them!”

The rogues scattered in all directions, sniffing, searching, and sneaking in hope to find someone. Ten were still with her and Serena was struggling to get loose. The she-wolf squeezed the chew toy harder.

Serena’s claws scratched my hand during the struggle and she jumped right on the she-wolf, clawing her face and leaping around her to get the chew toy back. I cuddled myself, hoping I was well concealed in the trees.

“Foolish pest,” she muttered, unshaken, throwing Serena off her along with the chew toy.

Like she knew I was there the moment she stepped in, she looked up at me and howled deafeningly as the rogues she had sent away trooped back in, focusing their attention on me.

She pointed at the tree and they gathered around me, beginning to cut through the parts they could reach, tearing it apart.

Her wicked black eyes were locked on mine and I cursed under my breath, looking for a way out of this. The rogues wouldn’t stop till they had me.

I couldn’t find Serena anywhere and the rogues continued cutting through the tree. As bad luck would have it, they were succeeding.

“Come down and save yourself from death, daughter of Moonstone!”

Fuck, she knew. “Never! You’d have to kill me first!”

No emotion could be read from her white ghostly face. “So be it!”

I could feel slight movement coming from the tree and though I was afraid to look down, I knew that if I didn’t do something soon, the tree was going to drop… along with me.

Quickly, I gathered water into a ball and poured it down around the tree, freezing the place the rogues could reach and were so desperate to break into a hard ice block.

I hardened the ice and the rogues tried to break it with their paws. I started to attack the rogues around me with balls of ice, sending them off their feet as they attempted to get nearer.

The woman ground her teeth, saying something in a language I didn’t understand—I wish I had mom’s omnilingualism. But even, I knew what she was doing. The rogues stepped aside.

Dad said that the rogues could speak to animals since they were more animals than human, but one that had stolen a spirit animal and could shift into human form, had the power to command them.

I balanced my standing self on the branch as hundreds of snakes appeared. Snakes of different sizes, colors, species, and deadly venom-killing speeds were moving up the tree, getting closer and closer. I aimed ice balls all at them, I even froze the whole bole of the tree but they were still moving.

If I stayed here any longer, the snakes would attack so I did the only thing that sounded right. I shifted and jumped out of the tree. Evolet’s purple fur danced in the cool wind as she landed on her feet. Her cerulean eyes were sharp and saw everything.

Rogues didn’t hesitate to attack us. One came straight up for her, opening his jaw to kill but Evolet stroked his face with her paw and detached his head from his body. Another attacked from behind but we jumped and landed right on the quick-moving wolf’s back, digging our claws into his neck and snapping it.

Two jumped up to me but I rolled away from the dead body and sped to the other side. I was running right into another two that were coming this way and with great timing, I swerved out of the way and the rogues slammed into each other.

With a gash of my claw and the twist of my paws, I finished the job.

The attack groups were increasing as five now rushed up to me. I growled and shifted back to human form, forming great ice balls and directing them at them. Some hit their faces, some their legs but nothing could survive their impact.

But there were more and more coming. They would increase to seven, to ten, to fifteen and the total was looking a lot more than fifty. When seventeen ran up to me, I tried as fast as I could to take them down with bigger ice balls. I splashed steamy water on their eyes and faces. I built a great ice wall to protect myself but it wasn’t enough.

A rogue jumped on my chest and I shifted back into wolf form, trying to bite him away. But there were more to take on the challenge. They were slashing their claws at me, biting me with their teeth, blowing me with their paws and Evolet couldn’t avoid all strikes.

I felt my vision blurring and my body weakening but I didn’t give up. I was able to slash the head of the wolf on me but that was really all I could do.

Dozens of them gathered around me and I closed my eyes, waiting for the worst to happen. But the worst didn’t come.

In this moment of defeat, I opened my eyes to hope when I sensed an aura. A dark dangerous aura that made the sky blacken and the air choke on itself. The energy of the forest sank into the ground and a cinnamon-ginger scent hit me.

The rogues felt it too—there wasn’t a person in this world that couldn’t—because they had all stopped what they were doing.

Through the chaos over and around me, I saw the silhouette of a man. A treacherous man. One I recognized too well. He had the head of the rogue she-wolf who had shifted in his bloody hands… and it was the first time I saw it. The first time I saw his alarming tiger-orange eyes…