My Three Mates

It started with red, painful and vibrant.

Blood.

One big, fat drop, traveled through the air toward my face. Everything, everyone had slowed to nearly a stop. Beyond that drop was chaos: horrified faces, screaming, but all of it was a blurry haze.

The blot was propelled by the dagger slicing the throat of someone I loved. A shadow blocked out their face, but I knew in my heart that it was my family. My mother.

The drop hit the corner of my eye. I blinked and it turned my vision completely red.

A hot spray drenched my white nightdress. I stared down at it in pain and heart-wrenching horror, choked by grief as the screams faded.

Then it was all a jumble of bodies and chaotic motion until I managed to reach the door. Stepping around a body, I fled into the first rays of sunlight.

I looked back to a single, beautiful cottage cut into the trees. It was the only structure out this far, built in isolation for safety.

My home.

But it wasn’t that anymore. I had to run. Run some place the killers couldn’t find me.

There was snorting and thudding as they stumbled out of the cottage and sprinted after me.

I darted barefoot through trees still dripping in blood. Drops fell on every twig and leaf and painted a path directly to me.

I knew the blood wasn’t mine. It didn’t smell like me.

My wolf was howling, whining, and writhing in anguish at the suffering she had endured with me.

I was surrounded by familiar trees and dirt, but all I could smell was the coppery tang of blood.

I did the only thing I could.

I ran.

I was fast, but I couldn’t outrun what happened to me.

I ran through the chilly morning air and all day as the sun moved above the Free Woods. The blood smattered over me dried into a sticky goo, marring my light hair and making my face tight. My clothes were nearly a solid and tangled mass, like I wore bark.

I was freezing, but I couldn’t stop.

My feet hammered the ground, pushing me in a direction I thought I knew.

I could feel them behind me. I was a woman, if perhaps a young one, but in that moment, I felt all the terror a little girl might at being alone in the woods.

But these monsters would never give up.

They’re out here, hunting me like a rogue wolf.

***

Evening was ruthless.

I could see in the dark, but my vision was blurry. I’d been running so headlong I had no idea the rock was there until my toes caught it and I went hurling forward. My head slammed against the rock, my chin jolting down into my neck. I was instantly cast into blackness.

I woke to yellow light warming my soaked clothes and heating my skin. I blinked hard and sat up. My head throbbed, and my world was spinning.

I put a hand to my head, and it came away wet and red. I dragged my wrist over my eyelids, trying to clear the fuzzy film coating my gaze.

I could no longer remember why I was running. All I had was the sense of impending doom and the fear screaming that I needed to get up.

My wolf.

She’s screaming that I can’t stay in the same place for long. I shouldn’t have stopped overnight.

I didn’t have a choice, a tiny voice in my head objected.

The surrounding trees and scents were foreign and sharp. I was deep in the heart of war territory, a place I was never supposed to be.

My heart hammered against my chest and my lungs burned. My feet stumbled over more rocks, toppled branches, and brambles. I squeezed through trees so tightly packed that the shoulder of my nightdress tore. I refused to stop.

Don’t stop moving! They’re coming. Those words were a terrifying chant in my head.

***

I was barely keeping track of the days as I stumbled through the woods onto an unfamiliar path. I’d had a destination in mind. Somewhere I’d been told to go long ago.

But where, or what, is it?

The answers were there in my head, just beyond my reach. It was like stretching my fingers to catch them, but no matter how much I tried, they floated just out of my grasp.

I was starving. My stomach was cramping and turning in on itself from hunger.

I frantically glanced at the trail behind me. Afraid that any minute, monsters would step into view.

Then something flashed, moving through the trees parallel to me.

Something fast.

I threw myself sideways, hoping to get off the path. But the sudden collision with a tree had me clinging to consciousness.

Whatever it was circled me and stepped out onto the path.

As my vision focused, I could see it was a man.

I sniffed. No. A wolf. Like me.

He was covered in mud and ash. My heart sank as the gunk was likely to disguise his scent.

That’s why I didn’t smell him coming.

He stared at me with vibrant-blue eyes. But he was the same kind of creature I’d been fleeing from.

Wolves. A male.

Panic soared through me.

Is he the one I’ve been running from?

I trembled as the memory of a slashing dagger and red took over my thoughts. A primal memory that even smashing my head couldn’t stop.

A scream tore out of me, even as he dropped something heavy around my shoulders.

Rearing back from his touch, I nearly flung it off as I stumbled away. But it was fabric, a cloak.

When I looked up, he was gone. Scared off by me screaming, no doubt.

So, he’s not the one chasing me. But then, who is he?

Shame burned my cheeks, knowing he had been kind to me, but I was so terrified and matted with blood that I’d probably scared him away.

Even more than he’d scared me.

Another flash through the trees and he was gone. Running faster than anyone I’d ever seen.

Or at least, that I could currently recall.

“Thank you,” I whispered. My head was still spinning, and his features were dull and blank in my mind.

They slipped away as soon as he left.

I looked at my feet and admitted that I didn’t know where I was anymore.

***

That night, I’d managed to fumble my way up a tree, tearing my dress even more on a sharp branch. I crawled high enough that my scent might be harder to catch on the forest floor.

I hugged the tree and pulled the cloak tight around me. Feeling much warmer, I pressed my cheek to the rough bark and allowed my eyes to close for a little while.

The next thing I knew, I was waking to a morning fog, still clutching the tree.

The sun had not quite risen yet, and there were filmy clouds shadowing between the trunks below. There was something irresistible in the air.

It was the smell of a dead squirrel.

Food.

I scrambled down the tree, scratching my leg in the process, but was too hungry to care.

I picked up the squirrel lying on the moss at the base of the tree. I greedily sank my teeth into it, desperate to get as many bites as I could.

The wolf inside me was ravenous, but I was too weak from shock, wounds, and gnawing hunger to change shape right now.

It might kill me if I tried.

I shrank down and crouched with my back to the tree. I scanned the woods, and a truth bubbled up in my mind.

Wolves give nothing for free.

I bit my lip as my stomach twisted into knots.

So, what does he want in return?

I dropped the remains of my meal, frantically trying to recall how to hunt, how to hurt. My wolf bristled, frustrated under my skin.

For the life of me, I couldn’t think of how to defend myself. My muscles couldn’t remember how to keep me safe.

Staying low to the ground, I willed my dirty feet to move.

There was a swish of leaves and a rush of wind. My head shot up just as something nearby darted through the trees. It could be that same muddy man that had given me the cloak.

“Who are you?” I called softly toward where I’d last seen movement.

But from my right, something shot through the trees in a different direction.

I froze. There are more.

I knew of only one that was kind.

A flash of movement to my left caught my eye, and I yelped. They’re everywhere.

Panic set in, and I ran. Mindlessly ran.

Something cut across my path, forcing me left and straight that way. Sticks crunched and rocks skittered behind me.

The pressure in my head was increasing. My world was closing in.

They’re right behind me.

I ran as fast as I could manage, which didn’t feel fast enough.

Gasping for air, I pumped my legs as hard as I could. Then the trees peeled open to reveal a looming wall.

I pushed in my heels, throwing up dirt in a pile as I skidded to a stop. I found myself staring up at a huge wood, stone, and mortar construction.

A scan revealed only one door carved in the wall. It was a huge, solid slab of wood cut into the wall like a gaping mouth.

Turning around, I confronted the trees behind me. Studying the tree line, I flatten my back against the wall. I saw no movement, heard nothing.

Where are they?