Chapter One: Not Welcome

My hands gripped the countertop so hard my knuckles turned white, while the rest of my body trembled so violently allowing the tears of the past to roll down my cheeks faster than I could stop them. The scenes which had played through my head over and over again displaying in my mind so vividly, it was as though I was still there, trapped.

“Can somebody help me?! I want my mummy and daddy!” The desperate cries from the little girl alone and lost in the forest ring out through my mind, her tiny hands trembling with fear and the forming frostbite on the tips of her fingers stinging.

“Somebody, help me!” The even louder voice seemed to ring in my ears and echo throughout my head, my breaths leaving my lips in shaky pants as I reminded myself that I was safe now, but still, her cries wouldn’t stop and grew louder and louder pulling me deeper and deeper into panic.

“Eli!” The voice of my brother Henry, calling from somewhere in the house snapped me from the nightmare flashback I was having, my eyes snapping open with a large breath of air pulling me out of the forest and back into the safety of my bathroom.

There are times I can forget about my past and continue as though nothing was amiss and normal but those other times, it’s as though my mind switches to the younger me and grips so hard onto each emotion, I’m trapped in that fear and desperation and can’t seem to snap myself out.

“Eli! We have to leave now if we want enough daylight to hunt! Fathers counting on us to bring enough meat home for the month!” My brothers even louder voice sounded from outside the door he pounded on, even though I knew my body needed time to fully recover from the flashback, I knew better than to disappoint my father after he has given me an order.

“I’m coming!” I called back towards the door using my hand to wipe away the stray tears that fell from my eyes, this situation was years ago, why can’t I simply let it go?!

Throwing my hair into a bun and walking out of the door, I find my brother Henry, leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed, a look of annoyance on his face as he waited for me to exit the bathroom. But the moment he looked into my eyes, I knew he could see I wasn’t simply powdering my nose in there. But talking about the past was something I refused to do so, I walked past him without uttering a word.

“What took you so long?” He asks now walking behind me as I headed towards our half broken front door, the bottom had been kicked through when our father and Henry were having a bust up a while back.

“Nothing Henry, I’m fine.” Was all I muttered reaching for the door handle about to pull it open, but my arm is taken and I’m pulled back to now face Henry as he watched me not believing a word I was saying.

“You don’t look too fine to me, was it another flashback?” He asked having known me long enough to know when I was lying but shaking my head slowly beginning to hear the distant sounds of that little girl's voice in my ears, I shut him down.

“I’m fine Henry honestly, let’s just start hunting, the sun will start to set soon as you said, and I don’t need another beating from father if we don’t catch enough.” I responded harshly, even though all Henry wanted to do was help, I didn’t know how to openly think about my past let alone talk about it.

With that, I grab ahold of the large bags we take to hold our equipment, and I open up the broken wooden door to our even more broken house, the cold blast of the winter wind hitting my face as I leave the front door and Henry inside, my wolf seeming to be on edge the moment the air filled my lungs.

“What’s with you?” I asked her as I walked the clearing I’ve been forced to call home since I was young and wait for Henry to join me, she didn’t seem agitated in some frustrated way but almost giddy in a sense, as though she could sense something was about to happen.

“I can sense some peculiar smell in the air… someone or something is out there.” She responded in a tone of suspense, leading me to start looking around the area in case I caught a sight of this peculiar creature causing my wolf to awaken.

“Hopefully it’s some kind of animal we can catch to appease father.” Was all I sighed before I shifted into my snow white wolf and headed deep into the same everlasting forest that little girl found herself in all of those years ago, Henry’s tan wolf racing behind me, he was never as quick as I was even though I was seven years younger than him, something I enjoyed teasing him for.

But what my wolf had said and sensed was right, there was a peculiar smell in the air and its owner, a man who would change my life forever.

After hours of hunting the same areas, Henry and I managed to catch around seven different animals, each pulled apart by our wolves before getting lined up in a ditch like system we dug to keep them safe. Due to Henry and I not having the correct bond for us to be able to mind-link, we had to go off signals we had made through the years to understand what the other was planning.

Just as the sun began to set behind the highest trees, I had shifted out of my wolf and stood sorting through the animal carcasses that we’d sourced, while Henry prowled the area in hopes any other lost animal would stumble into his paws. Due to the flashback and my eagerness to leave the house before Henry could ask me questions, I had neglected to pick up my bag with spare clothes and was forced to stand in one of Henry’s old jumpers, the worn out fabric and my bare legs sent a shiver to run through my body.

At least this will get father off our backs for a couple of months, nothing is worse than our father beginning to rage, it can start with something small and soon, he is beating your face repeatedly for reasons you don’t even understand.

But as I stood back up to check Henry, I discover he was nowhere to be seen, looking around the woods frantically, I couldn’t catch sight of him for a second, it was as though he had vanished.

“Henry, where’d you go?!” I called out through the now dark woodland which surrounded me, but when my shouting was met with even more deafening silence, I couldn’t help but panic a little leaving the meat in the ditch and walking towards where I seen Henry last.

“Mind your step, I can sense the presence of authority in this section, you’ll soon be stepping into an Alpha’s territory.” My wolf chimes in my head with a word of warning as I continued searching for Henry, but her warning only worried me further.

Henry never liked to take the borders of the packs we were surrounded by seriously and on many occasions, has nearly gotten himself killed by different sets of border guards. Had he accidentally, gone in too far or tried his luck too much this time?

“Can you sense Henry or his wolf?” I asked her as I arrived at the very edge of the clearing, we had stored the meat in, due to the time of day, all the trees seemed to look the same wherever I would turn.

“I can’t sense him… but that same peculiar smell seems to be growing more potent, follow it.” My wolf answered swiftly but as like at home, she seemed to grow giddy about this smell I couldn’t sense myself.

“No, I need to find Henry.” I demanded turning down her idea which I sensed she didn’t appreciate, but before she could voice this, my eyes rested upon something lying motionless in the centre of two trees.

“HENRY!” I screamed at the top of my lungs bolting through the sea of trees to arrive right beside a naked Henry laying face down in the mud, the thought that I may have walked into an area I would not be welcome sat right at the back of my mind.

“Can you hear me?” I began to sob turning him around, so he now lay facing upwards, two deep lacerations sat on his face and chest as though he and another wolf had fought.

The moment I went to check his pulse just to know if he was still alive, two other much larger presences seemed to linger right in front of me. Slowly lifting my head up, I was shocked and beyond terrified to find two huge muscular men with deep scowls on their faces looking down at me and Henry sat on the woods floor.

“What do we have here?” One of the men asks with a sick smile on his lips but evil in his eyes.

I’d been caught in another Alpha’s territory.