Mated To The Alpha Brothers

“No, please!” I screamed on top of my lungs, but nothing seemed to be getting through to the huge wolf who was lunging at me with full speed that I couldn’t escape from even if I wanted to. I tried everything I could to get out of its way, but my feet stayed glued to the ground. My breaths came out in labored pants as tears flooded my eyes and I knew then and there that I was going to die. I looked up one more time to find the wolf with red, glowing eyes. The wolf took one leap at me, causing an even louder scream to tear out of my throat. In the last possible second, the wolf was thrown off its direct course toward me as another wolf attacked it mid jump. “Oh my goodness!” I cried out as I fell to the ground and scrambled backwards, finally able to move as I watched the wolf which had just saved me tearing my attacker apart while two other men walked toward me and offered me each of their hands. “Are you okay?” one of them asked just as the other informed, “You don’t have to be afraid. Our brother is taking care of him.” “No,” I chanted, shaking my head. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. “No, no, no, no—” “No!” I yelled in a guttural manner as my eyes tore open and I sat up on my bed, which was now soaked in my own sweat. Frustration hit me as I planted my face in my palms and started to cry. The same nightmare, over and over. It happened every single time I closed my eyes; I would be attacked by a wolf—sometimes even a pack of them—with glowing eyes, and I would be saved by three brothers, none of whose faces could stick with me as soon as I was awake. “Ridiculous,” I muttered as I packed my small, leather bag with some leftover bread and a bottle of apple juice and walked out of my small, dry cabin in the middle of the rather busy village which bustled with people here and there. People who had something or someone to believe in. After the death of my parents, I didn’t have much to fall back on. I barely had any friends—not because everyone avoided me, but because I avoided everyone. The last time I decided it would be a good idea to make a friend, I told her about one of my recurring nightmares. She had responded with something about werewolves, and she suggested that I had a connection to them or that I was one. I decided after that conversation that it was better to have no friends. “Hey, Elara! You coming for the blue moon festival tonight?” I was pulled out of my thoughts when Eric, one of my very few neighbors, asked me. “No.” I shook my head with a faint smile. The blue moon festival was something I had never experienced because it rarely happened. My parents had told me about it. The people in my small village of Woodcreak believed so much in the existence of mythical creatures that they thought it would be good enough to partake in the festivals that were held by so-called werewolves and vampires. “I need to get out of here,” I reminded myself as I walked further into the woods and away from the village. I needed to see more of the world and what it had to offer, but I didn’t have much. There had to be more to life than people who believed in the existence of humans who could turn into animals. I didn’t belong in Woodcreak. I would be turning 21 right at midnight, and I didn’t have an elaborate plan for leaving. One thing I did know for certain was that I would not die in Woodcreak. Nobody cared for anything over there. That village was for people who had given up on life. And I was not one of them. When I was far enough that the only things I could hear were the sounds of late evening bugs, I sat on the ground with my back against a tree. I had set up some markings for myself to find my way back home in the dark, giving me enough security. “Mom, dad,” I said with a sigh as I looked up at the darkening sky. “I hope you’re out there and listening. I hope you’re watching. I don’t…” I cleared my throat of the lump that was growing in it, shaking my head. I wouldn’t cry. Not anymore today. “I want to get out of here,” I said. I was greeted by silence and the pitiful creaks of bugs. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. The people here have talked so much about wolves that I’ve started dreaming about them. I keep seeing them whenever I sleep, even in the afternoons. I’m losing my mind.” “I’m turning 21 at midnight. They’re going to be having a blue moon festival. I know you both believed in that thing, but it’s not real! None of it is real! Why did you choose to have me here!?” My frustration was soon morphing into anger, and it was being directed at the two people who didn’t deserve it. Two people who gave me the best life they could. And of course, I was crying again. Just as I wiped my tears, I heard the snap of a twig. I gasped, looking in the direction where it had come from. It wasn’t something I could have easily brushed aside. The snap was loud, intentional. My heart dropped to my stomach; a feeling that was intensely familiar yet strange. “Is someone there?” I asked as I got off the ground and looked around. If there was a villager out there somewhere, I had to alert them of my presence so we would both know to not be scared. Then, an animalistic growl made every single organ inside me stop whatever function they had. It was a quiet growl, but it felt as if I could feel the breath that had introduced the growl. The hairs on my body stood on high alert. That was a sound so similar to what had been haunting my sleep for months now. If there was anything I had expert knowledge on in that moment, it was the fact that this wasn’t a dream. “No,” I whispered to myself in terror as I started to make my way back to the village in a hurry. But before I could break into a run for my life, I saw a pair. Then two. Three. Red, glowing eyes.