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PENELOPE’S POV

The eleven of us froze as we heard the snapping of twigs and branches. The sound was coming from all around us. Then suddenly, a scream tears through the silent night.

“Seize them!”

My heart jumps the moment someone yelled those words in my direction. My eyes dart behind me, scanning the facade for the source of the voice but the night is as black as charcoal, I can’t see beyond my nose. The voice was rough and commanding, and dangerous.

“Surround them, don’t let any of them escape” the husky voice rolled off another command, making me shudder in fear. That’s when wolves start howling around us and it dawns on me that we had been surrounded by Lycans, our greatest enemies.

I have always dreaded this moment, wishing that I would never find myself in a situation like this especially now that I was not prepared.

We begin to hear the paws of wolves thudding the ground, approaching us from every side. My legs go jelly and I can’t think straight as I am overpowered by a strong and overwhelming confusion. A growl behind me makes me turn quickly. A very large, ash wolf jumps towards me from the darkness and I manage to duck before he crashes into me and overpowers me. The wolf crashes into one of my guards and tears his throat open.

“Run!” Uther, one of my guards screamed before grabbing my hand, horror etched into his face. Another spine-chilling scream erupts behind us, another guard was already being devoured by the wolves.

There was no full moon tonight, so I couldn’t shift. All we had to do was run, praying and hoping that the moon goddess got us out of this sh*tty situation. As we ran down the rocky pass that led to my Pack, I prayed that this was all a dream, that this was among the numerous nightmares I was having lately. But the painful screams of my guards as they were being torn apart and ripped open by fangs and claws told me it was real.

Today was the day I turned eighteen and my father had announced, out of the blues, that I had been betrothed to Alpha Logan, a man who I despised so much. He was so heartless and cold. A man who killed his father and wiped out half of his Pack for some undisclosed reason. Soon I would be forced to put up with the boring and life-draining experience of being a Luna- being locked up constantly, attending Pack gatherings, churning out pups for my mate amongst many others.

Walking out on my parents after the announcement, I decided to take a stroll, praying that it blew the cobwebs away.I had requested to stray from the boundary and a little bit into the neutral territory that seperated us from our arch-enemies, the Lycans.

For centuries, werewolves and Lycans didn’t coexist. It all started after the great uprising that happened 2 centuries ago. A truce was broken and war was the only outlet, considering the fact that werewolves and Lycans never lived in peace since the beginning of time, so war gave each party the chance to redress their unhappy lot. Unfortunately, half of the population was wiped out due to the war, most of the dead being werewolves. The rest ran for dear life and vowed never to return again.

A wolf snapped its jaws right behind me but one of the guards was quick to send him crashing to the floor with a cruel blow, slowing himself down and sacrificing his life for my sake. The guards warned me but I wouldn’t listen, now they were going to die because of me.

“We can’t afford to get caught by these savages, you have to run!” Uther cried out, glancing behind us while huffing and puffing. The chances we would survive this was slim as the Pack was around 500 meters away.

“Call for backup” I yelled, pushing through the crammed vegetation, my lungs were burning and I was running out of breath despite the loads of adrenaline that coursed through me.

“I have tried, my Luna, but nobody has replied. I don’t know what’s wrong.” He replied, completely freaked out. That’s when it dawned on me that we can’t communicate through the mindlink while being outside our Pack unlike Lycans who could despite their distance from one other.

The air is knocked out of my lungs the moment something trips me. The force makes me flip and I crash on the stem of a large tree. I tried to yell but no sound came out my throat, the impact it had on my abdomen was the most painful thing I ever experienced. I try to get up quickly but I fall back, limp and lifeless.

“You can’t stop, we must keep running.” Uther shouted before he grabs me by the waist, lifts me and throws me across his shoulder and continues to run.

“I can’t… I can’t” That was all I could croak, wincing every time his shoulders connected with my stomach. My whole senses were numbed, and my sights was getting dimmer with each passing second. Uther dodges another attack. The wolf jumped over us and crashed a few meters away but it soon recovered, licked its bloody snout and continued to chase.

The moon was slowly rising.

“You have been surrounded, surrender and yeild or we’ll kill you!” A husky voice commanded, which made Uther stop dead on his tracks. He tried to turn another way and run but there were wolves everywhere. He simply dropped on his knees, letting me fall from his shoulders, before raising his hands in submission.

“Uther! What are you doing?!” One of my guards yelled in disbelief and grabbed Uther by the shoulder. “We should run! Not surrender, we have the future Luna and we must protect!-” That’s before his head was severed from his body. I gasped in horror as I watched the rest of his body fall while his head remained. The man who had asked us to stop appeared from the darkness.

He had a smile on his face as he walked towards us, unbothered by the fact that he was utterly naked. I turned my head around and was stunned by the number of wolves around us, they were no less than twenty. Some of them were huge, with claws of black steel and saber-like fangs. Six wolves were no match for me if I was in my werewolf form, being in my human form deprived me of the special abilties I had as a werewolf.

“Please don’t hurt her” Uther begged on my behalf. “I will do anything to make sure she returns safely even if it means giving up my life for her sake.”

“You won’t tell us what to do.” The leader of the Lycans barked, slashing Uther across the face with his claws. Five long, deep gashes appeared immediately and blood began to ooze out of the wound immediately. He fell to the floor and cradled his bleeding face while screaming in pain.

The man began to walk towards me, chuckling menacingly as he licked his lips and scanned my body in a violating scrutiny. “Who do I have here?” there was no bit of remorse in his voice, instead he was filled with the urge to do more evil. “A luna?”

I straigtened up and instinctively crawled backwards on my ass, shuddering in fear as he continued to approach, a mischievious smirk on his face.

“Don’t worry beautiful, I won’t hurt you” he said, stalking me like a predator. I continued to move backwards until I hit my back on a tree which halted my movement instantly. He grabbed my jaw and let his gaze flounder over my body in a violating scrutiny before he turned around to the others.

“Kill the man! The girl will be of some use before we kill her” he chuckled menacingly before he began to meddle with my clothes.

“No!” I scream but it is too late. Uther screams from behind as the wolves jump on him and begin to rip him to pieces. I try to run towards them and save him but the man blocks my path and shoves me to the ground. I smack him in the chest with all my strength but it has no more effect than a stone thrown at a wall. He was laughing instead, the b*stard was enjoying my fear. He lifted the hem of my dress, exposing my bare skin to the brutal cold weather, before he grabbed my neck, choking me.

I flail my arms about, gasping for breath while I feel his hands on my underwear. I tried to kick him but I was trapped under the weight of his giant legs. My vision soon started to get blurry and my mind gradually growing numb.

That’s when a scream tore through the forest. “Stop!!”