Chapter 2- The Werewolves
1284 Words
The impact hit her from the side, a crushing weight of fur and muscle that sent her slamming into the snow. The rifle flew from her hands, skidding across ice-slick earth. Teeth snapped inches from her face. Hot breath washed over her cheek.
She rolled instinctively, years of training overriding panic. Her knife was in her palm before the wolf’s jaws could close around her throat. She drove the blade upward.
It sank into flesh. The wolf howled, rearing back, blood spraying across her coat.
Another shape lunged from the darkness. She barely twisted in time. Claws tore through her sleeve, raking skin. Pain flared white-hot down her arm, but she didn’t slow. She never slowed.
Lilith kicked the wounded wolf away and scrambled for her rifle. Snow burned against her palms as she dragged herself forward.
A third wolf cut her off. It was bigger and smarter.
It didn’t leap immediately. Instead, it circled around her.
Golden eyes gleaming in the moonlight, assessing, waiting for the right moment to strike. The others fanned out behind her. A perfect crescent. A hunting formation of these mutant wolves.
They weren’t rushing her. They were cornering her. Like she was worth keeping alive. The realization hit colder than the air.
These mutant wolves weren’t mindless beasts. They were strategists, completely opposite to natural wolves in the forest, who functioned on instinct and isolated themselves from everyone.
The first wolf lunged again. Lilith spun, firing blindly toward where she remembered her rifle landing. The gunshot shattered the night. A body dropped somewhere to her left with a heavy, sickening thud.
But it wasn’t enough.
They were closing in.
She backed toward a tree, forcing them to approach from the front. Her breath fogged in the air. Blood trickled warm beneath her torn sleeve.
One wolf feinted left. Another sprang from the right.
She attacked again…
But then the forest shifted.
The wolves froze.
Every single one.
Their ears flattened. Their bodies lowered instinctively, as if they were getting ready to submit.
A new shape stepped from between the trees. It was larger and darker than the rest.
His fur wasn’t the dull gray of winter wolves. It was near black, thick and sleek, swallowing the moonlight rather than reflecting it. A jagged line of blood streaked along his flank from her bullet.
He moved with terrifying control.
No frantic lunging. No wild snapping. Each step was deliberate. It was more commanding and scarier than any wolf she had ever seen.
The air thickened. Lilith felt it in her bones before she understood it.
Power.
The other wolves retreated a fraction, forming space around him.
He didn’t look at them. He looked at her.
And when those gold eyes locked onto hers… the world narrowed. Something ancient and instinctive rose in her chest, sharp and violent.
Not fear. Not quite, it was recognition.
Her grip tightened around her knife. The massive wolf inhaled. His nostrils flared.
And after a couple of seconds, she saw something else that she hadn’t seen before behind those golden monstrous eyes.
Hesitation.
—
Blood.
Gunpowder.
Silver.
Hunter.
And beneath it… something else.
The scent hit him like a blow.
Not just blood.
Not just any human.
His.
The bond snapped into place with brutal clarity, a thread tightening around his ribs, pulling him toward her like gravity. But layered beneath her scent was death… the sharp tang of silver and the memory of fallen wolves.
Hunter.
The Moon Goddess sure had a cruel sense of humor. And she just played her most cruel joke on him.
—
The moment was shattered when one of the wolves from before snarled and lunged toward Lilith again. The black wolf moved faster than she could track.
He collided with the attacker mid-air, jaws clamping around its throat. He threw the body aside like it weighed nothing. The wolf whimpered and didn’t dare to attack again. He wasn’t exactly injured; the big wolf seemed to have warned him of sorts.
Another wolf snapped in confusion.
A low, thunderous growl tore from the black wolf’s chest, aimed... at them. It looked like a command. Because after that growl, the remaining wolves backed away instantly, heads lowered, tails tucked.
Lilith stared.
The monster was protecting her. The thought was absurd.
Impossible.
Her father’s voice echoed in her memory.
Monster. They are all monsters.
The black wolf stepped closer. She raised her rifle with shaking hands, aiming straight between his eyes. He didn’t flinch.
He could close the distance in a heartbeat. Tear her throat open before she could blink. Instead, he stood there.
Watching.
The wound in his side bled steadily, staining his dark fur.
Her bullet.
Her pulse stuttered.
He took another step forward. Close enough that she could see the flecks of amber in his irises in between the golden. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. Close enough to kill her.
“Do it,” she whispered hoarsely, though she didn’t know if she meant it.
The wind shifted.
Carried her scent fully to him.
For a moment, something flickered in his gaze.
Then…
He turned his head slightly, issuing a low, guttural sound toward the remaining wolves. They scattered instantly into the forest. He held her gaze one heartbeat longer.
And then he stepped back, turned, and vanished into the trees.
Just like that.
Lilith stood there, rifle raised, breath ragged.
Alive.
The monster had spared her. And that terrified her more than death ever could.
“Lilith!” Elias’s voice cracked through the trees.
Footsteps thundered toward her. Flashlights cut through the darkness. Her team burst into the clearing, weapons drawn.
“You okay?” Elias demanded, scanning the tree line.
She didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes were still fixed on the place where the black wolf had disappeared.
“I’m fine,” she said finally, though her voice sounded distant even to herself. One of the hunters cursed softly.
“There’s a body.” They moved toward it.
Finally.
For years on end, they have been hunting these mutant wolves blindly. The wolves always manage to escape. But not today.
Lilith followed slowly. She looked around to search for the wolf she had shot. She frowned at Elias, but before she could speak, her eyes followed his frantic eyes.
There was a body… but it wasn’t a wolf anymore.
Fur receded before her eyes. Bones shifted with a grotesque cracking sound. The massive animal form shrank inward, contorting, reforming. Until a man lay naked and lifeless against the white snow.
His chest was riddled with the gunshot she had fired. His skin was pale, humanlike. His hair was dark with blood.
Human.
Lilith’s stomach twisted violently.
“No…” Elias whispered.
Her ears rang. Her father’s words echoed through her skull.
They’re not just animals.
Nobody believed her father, but for the first time in 16 years, there was proof. But how is this even possible?
She looked down at her bloodied hands.
At the man who had been a wolf seconds ago. And then she looked toward the forest again.
Toward the place where the black wolf had disappeared.
Her pulse pounded in her throat. They weren’t just some mutant wolves. And one of them had just chosen to let her live. The wind carried a distant howl through the trees. Lilith lifted her chin, staring into the darkness.
Why did the monster let her live? Was it a warning? Was it mercy?
“How is this even possible? What are they? I thought these were mutants.” Elias finally found his voice.
“These aren’t mutants.” A deep voice rang behind them, “These are werewolves.”
- Writer
