Ashborn Luna's Revenge

Chapter4

I managed to find some yarrow leaves, though searching for them in the dark was hard. When I got back, his breathing was even weaker. I quickly crushed the leaves in my palms and pressed the mash onto his wounds. Then I tore the bottom of my shirt and secured the mash with it on his body.

As I was dressing his injuries, I felt a ball of heat rush through me. It was like fire spreading under my skin, burning every cell of my body. My vision blurred, and I saw the flashes of wolves and fire.

My mind screamed at me to get away from here. Stumbling, I moved to a dark corner and tore off the last bits of fabric. I was completely naked in the dark forest, but the heat only grew worse. I wanted to rip my skin off my body. Everything around me turned a strange shade of red. I leaned against a wall, panting. “What’s happening to me?” I whispered.

Heat and pressure swelled in my hands. It felt as if air was being forced into my bones to stretch them. I watched my fingers grow. My ring split and fell to the ground. My fingers fused together and turned into four clawed toes. I was born to werewolves. I knew this was my first shift. My wolf form was breaking through.

The pain was like nothing I had ever felt. I remembered my aunt’s words for this moment: Don’t fight the pain; let it take you where you need to go.

I dropped onto all fours, shaking, drenched in sweat, eyes full of tears, gasping for breath. My hands and feet no longer looked human. I could feel the tiny hair sprouting out of my back. I heard my own bones cracking and shifting.

A scream ripped out of me, which shifted into a long, raw howl. Minutes felt like hours as my body convulsed and reshaped. Then at last the pain faded. I was on my fours, howling like a beast. I had finally changed. My wolf had come at last. The one I had been waiting for so I could take revenge for my parents.

I looked down at my paws and stared. My fur was red. Not brown or grey it was bright red. I had never seen a wolf with fur like this.

I could feel that my surrounding changed. My eyesight sharpened. I could see far into the dark forest as if it were daylight. Everything I’d been holding inside for years burst out, shaping itself into the wild wolf I’d been waiting for. I was experiencing my heightened senses when my nose twitched as it caught the smell of something. The anger inside me slowly calmed, and my paws started to move toward the smell on their own.

Then, out of nowhere, a thread of unnatural light appeared. One end was wrapped around my paw, the other stretched ahead into the forest. It pulled me forward through the dark. I stopped when I saw where the light ended. My breath caught. My chest went up and down and I almost forgot to blink. The glowing thread was tied to the big alpha wolf I just had saved. He was awake now. His wounds almost gone. And oh my dear lord, he was my mate!!!

What truly froze my blood and made the hair on my body stand were his eyes. It felt as if someone yanked the ground from beneath me and dumped a bucket of ice water over my soul to extinguish the fire burning inside me for many years. They were the color I hated more than anything. The icy grey eyes. The same color that had haunted my dreams. The color that kept me alive for the day I’d see them begging for mercy.

I was still far enough that he couldn’t spot me. I turned and bolted out of the forest. I ran nearly forty kilometers an hour. I didn’t stop until I was behind the tree across from my house. I couldn’t just walk in like that. My chest heaved as I forced my breathing to slow, trying to calm the rush of adrenaline. I shut my eyes and pictured my human face.

A few seconds later, I was lying face down on the cold ground. When I pushed myself up, it felt like every particle of air was colliding against my skin as if there was no layer to block it. I looked down and saw that I was naked. My clothes were still somewhere back in the forest.

“What do I do now?” I whispered. I couldn’t wait any longer; I needed to tell Aunt. I grabbed a few big leaves from a tree and covered the parts of me that needed to stay hidden. Glancing both ways, I sprinted toward the house.

Luckily, the front door wasn’t locked. I ran straight to my room, not even checking where Aunt was, but she was already there, busy with something on my desk.

She turned at the noise, and a shocked expression was vivid on her face.

“Scarlett, what happened?” she asked. Her nostrils flared as she smelled something and she abruptly got up from the chair. “I can smell it, Scarlett. You’ve found your wolf, haven’t you?”

I nodded, still trying to catch my breath.

“Put something on and come out. We’ll talk,” she said before leaving the room.

When I sat down, she started at once, her voice tight.

“Tell me what happened! I told you to come home early, and yet you arrive even later than usual.” She bombarded me with questions, worry clear in her tone. She was all I had, so her scolding felt fair.

“First of all, relax,” I said, trying to calm her. “Emmy needed me to do something. I went, but there was a trap meant for her. I barely survived thanks to my fighting skills. When I finally got out, I heard painful cries and wolves howling.”

At the word “wolf,” Aunt leaned forward. Her full focus on me. Nodding for me to go on.

“I followed the sound. It was one wolf against four. I helped the injured one, dressed his wounds… and then I started feeling strange. That’s when I changed for the first time.”

“I warned you to be careful, but you never listen! Why did you interfere? What if something happened to you? What about our revenge, huh?” She was clearly upset with me for meddling in someone else’s fight.

“But there’s something I need you to know,” I said quietly. Her scolding stopped at once.

“The one I saved…” I took a deep breath. “He had icy grey eyes.”