Grey's Wolf

CHAPTER TWO

“You know better than to wander too far off from the pack, it’s not safe, especially for an inexperienced wolf like yourself”, Vincent told Rhaila. “You know how dangerous it can be”, he continued.

She didn't say a word but her silence spoke. The two stood in the middle of the forest, the sound of the wind blowing through the grasses allowing the birds to dance freely under the moonlight. Rhaila looked at Vincent, her brown eyes staring intensely at him almost as if she was trying to see through his soul.

“How much further?”, she asked him, ignoring what he had just told her.

“Not too far now, just a couple more hours”, he responded. “Go, join the other wolves, we leave by dawn”

“Shouldn’t we move now? We have more advantage at night than when the sun rises”, she objected, this time pulling a loose strand of her black hair off her face. Vincent moved closer to her, he placed his left arm on her cheek.

“Even if we can travel, some of the others are too weak to and we cannot think about just ourselves child”, he told her, his hand still on her cheek.

Rhaila didn’t say anything but gave a nod to tell Vincent that she understood. Just like Grey, her parents were killed when she was just two years of age by hunters, and Vincent, being her uncle, took her as his. He watched her grow and taught her the way of the wolf. Even when she reached twenty-seven, and old enough to fend for herself, he still kept her by his side, a member of his pack.

Rhaila pulled away from his hands, smiled at him leaving him satisfied, and joined up with the others, Vincent followed her.

“Our destination is a couple of hours from here,” Vincent told his pack, “We leave at dawn”, he continued.

They planned to meet up with some other wolves far south, at the border of the country. It was a stronghold for werewolves against the hunters. Vincent was a smart man, in his days as a beta, he fought and killed many hunters who attempted to come for his pack, it was no surprise that he rose to an Alpha after his brother was killed. The hunters hated Vincent because they could never kill him, they thwarted their plans every single time. Rike and the hunter caught wind of his movement that day and planned to put an end to him the next.

Just as Thomas and Grey stared at the moon from the base, Rhaila stared at the moon from the branch of a tall tree not too far from where Vincent set camp, her gaze was interrupted by Vincent when he asked her not to wander off too far. She didn’t know what would come next but the next day would bring forth a life-changing experience, for humans and wolves alike.

Grey woke up that morning ready for a fight, he managed to get some sleep after the visit from Robert late that night. Emotions aside, he was ready to do what was required of him -kill all wolves.

He could hear men shouting outside his window preparing for their attack, cars moved everywhere inside the base carrying weapons and werewolf killing kits. Grey looks at himself from the mirror in the bathroom examining the scars on his waist before putting on a black shirt to cover them up.

The sky was grey, rain clouds filled the sky as if they knew of the fight to come. Leon knocks on Grey’s door and opens it.

“I have something for you”, he said, stretching his hand to Grey and opening his palm to reveal a pencil-like metal.

“What’s this?”, Grey asked.

“A werewolf disruptor, all you need to do is click that button when you’re near a transformed werewolf”, Leon replied showing Grey where to click.

“What does it do?”, Grey curiously asked.

“Let’s just say it gives them the world’s most painful headache”, he replied, “you might want to use it when there’s an actual werewolf nearby”, Leon continued watching as Grey tried to click it.

Leah called them at the end of the hall informing them about the movement.

“We’re all set, just remaining you too”, she told them.

Leon moved immediately leaving Grey in the room. Grey looked down at the metal in his hand, he turned to pick up the kit he laid down on his bed before Leon interrupted his thinking. He prepares himself physically for the battle to come. He stepped out of the building to see the rest of the team in their cars ready to go, he got into the back seat of one of the vehicles, and seated in front was Leah. It starts to drizzle when they leave camp and starts to rain heavily halfway through their journey.

“How many do you think we’d get today?”, Leah asked him, feeling very excited. He said nothing, not even a smile can be seen on his face.

It is a long silent journey but they reach Vincent’s pack in time to stop them in their tracks. Vincent can smell them coming from a mile away, he hurries the weak ones to hide at the top of trees.

“Get ready, it’s either them or us, do not hold back, we are wolves, we survive”, he yelled to them, preparing them for battle.

He doesn’t let Rhaila speak because he knows how stubborn she can be, instead, he forces her to hide with the others.

“I made a promise to your mother and I intend on keeping that promise, you do not fight today”, he shouted at her. They are interrupted by the scream of a wolf, they turn around to find the wolf on the ground with an arrow to the heart.

“Go!! Go now!!”, he shouted once more.

Some of the wolves start to transform, bones break and fingers sharpen, their faces and bodies covered with grey hair all around. They stand ready to fight. Vincent’s transformation is different from the rest, his eyes turn pitch black, and the hair on his body is thicker than the others to show his dominance. He stands with his two feet and lets out a mighty roar to which the other werewolves howl.

Bullets and arrows fly against fangs and claws. Some werewolves use the trees to their advantage, attacking from above. The storm intensified the battle, lightning filled the sky, only the sound of thunder could be heard.

Rike immediately goes for Vincent, Grey follows not too far behind. He held a blade in his right arm and thrust it toward Vincent’s neck but he blocked it with his claws and managed to land a blow on Rike’s chest, throwing him to the ground. Grey defended Rike by slicing the left knee bringing the Alpha to his knees. Just as he was about to deliver the final blow, Rhaila appeared and struck Grey in the back with her claws. She helped Vincent up, carrying him away from the battlefield but Grey followed them.

He lost them for a brief moment but found them easily. He watched from a thick bush as some of the wolves tended to Vincent’s wounds, applying a liquid from a bottle he couldn’t seem to make. There were children present there too. He watched them care for Vincent and watched some of the older wolves hold the children tight. His father had always taught him that werewolves were nothing more than savage beasts and that their only purpose was to be hunted and killed.

Grey had never questioned this belief before, but something about this particular pack had caught his attention. They were different somehow, not like the mindless beasts his father had described. There was an intelligence in their eyes, a spark of something that Grey couldn't quite put his finger on.

His thoughts were interrupted once again by Rhaila, she pushed him downhill far away from the wolves nursing Vincent’s wounds. He got back to his feet, Grey's heart raced as he crept through the dense forest, his senses heightened by the presence of his prey. As he moved through the forest, he caught a whiff of something familiar in the air. It was the scent of a Rhaila, but there was something different about it. He couldn't quite place it, but he felt drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. Suddenly, a rustling in the bushes caught his attention, and he readied his crossbow. He peered through the foliage, his heart pounding in his chest. And then he saw her, Rhaila. She was beautiful, with long, dark hair and piercing brown eyes that seemed to glow even under the rain. She was smaller than the other werewolves he had seen, and there was a grace in her movements that he had never witnessed in a werewolf before.

It was a mixture of fear and attraction, a feeling that he couldn't quite put into words. He knew that he should shoot her, that it was his duty as a hunter to eliminate the threat, but something held him back. Rhaila sensed his presence and turned to face him, her eyes locking onto his. For a moment, they simply stared at each other, two beings from opposite worlds brought together by fate. Grey raised his crossbow, aiming it directly at her heart. But before he could pull the trigger, something strange happened. The arrow in his hand began to shake as if something inside of him was resisting the urge to kill. Rhaila sensed his hesitation and pounced on him, knocking him to the ground.

Even without Rhaila’s transformation, she was strong, she held him to the ground while she tried to cut him with her claws. She suddenly retracts the claws after staring into his eyes.

“You don’t even know what you are”, she said struggling to keep his back on the ground.

Her hesitation gives him the opportunity to knock her off him and pick up his crossbow and aim it at her once more.

“What do you mean by that?”, a very confused Grey asked, still pointing his bow at her.

“You seriously don’t know, you’re a werewolf hunting other werewolves”, she told him.

His finger tightens on the trigger, water drips from his head, she would say anything at this point just to get away from him. His head fills with different thoughts, could this be a lie to escape an arrow to the heart? Was she telling the truth? Why did he have the urge not to shoot her before?

She didn’t move or say a word, she just watched as he battled with his thoughts. The rain was still pouring heavily as the battle continued between wolves and hunters on the other side of the field.

“Why do you fight for them, the same people who hunt my kind, your kind?”, she finally spoke, staring into his eyes. Just before he could say anything, they heard a branch break from the bushes behind Grey, he turned away from Rhaila for a brief moment but by the time he turned back to her, she was gone.

“Why didn’t you shoot her?”,Thomas asked him, revealing himself from the bushes.

“The trigger wasn’t working”, he responded. Thomas collected the weapon and fired an arrow at the ground.

“It’s working just fine”, Thomas said. Both men stayed silent for a while before Thomas spoke.

“We need to head back to base, Rike is seriously injured, he needs medical attention”, Thomas told Grey.

They head back to the hunters who have loaded the dead and injured onto their vehicles. They head back to base unsatisfied with the outcome of the fight. If Rike was conscious, they would have found Vincent at any cost.

Rhaila tended to Vincent’s injuries. Some members of the pack laid lifeless on the battlefield.

“We have survived their attack”, an injured Vincent said. “We bury our dead tomorrow and move on, it shouldn’t be like this but it is. We do not have time, they could be back at any moment, mourn the dead and bury the dead now, we move at nightfall”, he told the pack, or at least what was left of them.

He looked at Rhaila and smirked, a sign of appreciation for saving his life. She carries his hand and puts his palm on her cheek.

Back at the base, Rike was rushed to the med bay. His injuries were not life-threatening but the blow from Vincent caused him to hit his head on a rock rendering him unconscious. Grey and the others returned to their rooms waiting for the leader to tell them what a bad job they did.

“What was that back there?”, Thomas asked Grey from the entrance of his room.

“What was what?”, Grey responded.

“You know exactly what I mean”, Thomas said.

“I already told you, the trigger jammed, water must’ve gotten into it”, Grey tried to defend himself.

“Don’t be coy with me, you and I know that’s a lie”, Thomas said in a confronting tone.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, that’s what happened”, Grey responded, facing the mirror in the bathroom.

Thomas said nothing more, he left Grey alone disappearing into the dark hall just as he appeared. Grey sat on his bed, he could not get himself to forget what that girl told him. He would simply have asked Rike if there was any truth to what he was told but Rike was unconscious. Rike would probably tell him the same thing -she would’ve said anything at that moment to get out of the situation alive.

Only one other person could give him the answer he so desperately needed, Robert. Grey simply dismissed the thought from his mind, if he were a werewolf, he would know. He took a hot bath and waited to be summoned to the meeting hall for the mission but the call never came.

Sitting on the roof he and Thomas used to stay on would only make things worse because he would do more thinking, going to bed was the only logical option.

Grey couldn’t sleep, her words haunted his dreams. He woke up and decided to see Robert in hopes of putting the madness to an end. He left his room and avoided the hunters on patrol, their meeting should not be known by others. If he was a werewolf, he was going to find out that morning.