The World Of Wolves

Chapter Four: Entering The Den

After what felt like hours, Lyra could make out a small camp in the distance. The wolf stopped running and shook Lyra off of it, letting her hit the ground with a thud. After she had been taken by the wolf, it carried her in its mouth until she stopped panicking and crying. She accepted whatever her fate was and that was when the wolf threw her on its back, letting her figure out how to hold on. The ride on its back was much more preferred over its mouth so she didn't complain about the bumpy ride.

Lyra went to pick herself up off the ground but was frozen in place at a growl just above her head. She glanced up to see a large black wolf snarling at her. Before she could even scream the wolf backed off and just stared at her with cold eyes. The black wolf's eyes never left her as the injured silver wolf ran off toward the camp and when she tried to follow the black wolf was quick to growl and snap at her to keep her in place.

She took a shaky breath, bringing her knees to her chest and holding herself to make herself as small as possible. The position killed her ribs, but it was the only comfort she had at the moment. Every part of her body ached, any energy she received from her nap was gone by now, and she regretted not eating all of the food Tristan brought her. She bit her lip, guilt eating at her at the thought of Tristan injured under that tree and it was all her fault. She should have just made her way toward his home like he told her to and asked him if he could get more water. The tears fell down her cheeks as she cursed herself for being useless. She couldn't even get water without getting her only friend killed. It would have been better if she had just been killed before Tristan ever knew she was gone.

"Get up." A man's cold voice said.

Lyra looked up to see a man towering over her. He had shaggy brown hair, overdue for a haircut, that he pushed back, a short beard lining his jaw nicely, and from what she could see in the dark, he had hazel eyes. She glanced around her and the wolf was gone, but the man before her was only wearing shorts. He must have been the black wolf.

The man reached down, grasping Lyra's arm tightly, and roughly pulled her to her feet. "Are you deaf?! You need to listen to me, we don't have much time." The man scoffed in disgust as he began lightly jogging toward the camp ahead of them.

Lyra struggled to keep up, her legs fumbling into each other and her lungs felt like they would collapse at any moment. Just when she thought her feet would give out under her, she was lifted up and roughly thrown over the man's shoulder as he mumbled. "Humans are so useless."

She bit her lip, letting the man's shoulder dig into her aching stomach and chest. She didn't dare move to shift her weight and just closed her eyes and counted the steps she felt him take.

Lyra counted 127 before she was tossed to the floor landing on her tailbone. She winced in pain and looked at her surroundings to find herself in a tent. There was a cot to her left and a desk to right with a small map on it. Deciding not to look too closely at the map with the man's eyes staring through her, she curled into a corner by the cot.

The tent was fairly warm as it blocked almost all of the outside wind and she started to enjoy staring at the electric lamp hanging from the ceiling. She couldn't remember the last time she saw anything that used electricity actually work, that was a luxury human had before her time and now only reserved for wolves.

Humans used to be the dominating race, cities filled with millions of them, and wolves were just mythical creatures to them. Then the Lycan king Drake Cadell began by taking down the human world governments and militia. Lyra was thankful she hadn't been born yet when Drake began his war, the stories she heard sank her stomach. He was brutal and his hatred for humans was strong so he showed absolutely no mercy when it came to exterminating them. Drake’s takedown was quick and ruthless and when any remaining humans went into hiding he relentlessly hunted them down. Eventually, Drake had a son and it was said Drake passed all of that down to him, but not much was known about Drake’s son. He was called the silent killer by any human that was surviving. One day we would have known about another human group close to ours and the next time Tristan went by it was as if it never existed. The only way to escape him was to make sure Drake’s son never found you.

“Ethan, leave us.” Another man entered the tent, dismissing the man that carried her in. She glanced up to watch the black-haired man leave, which she presumed was Ethan, but her breath hitched when she saw the new man.

The same man she saw in her vision stood at the entrance of the tent, fixing his cuff. His dirty blonde hair was long, hanging just passed his shoulders which he was quickly pulling back into a bun. The stubble on his face was longer than she saw in her vision and similar hazel eyes to Ethan, yet she couldn’t stop staring at them. The man glanced at her causing her to jump and look down, fidgeting with her ankles. She heard him walk and take a seat at the desk, she felt his eyes burning into her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look up.

“How old are you?” He asked.

“Eighteen,” Lyra whispered. She wasn’t even sure he heard her until he asked a follow-up question.

“Name?”

She glanced up and his eyes were devouring her, making her immediately break eye contact and focus back on the ground beneath her. “L-Lyra.”

Silence surrounded them for a while and it felt deafening to Lyra. She kept wondering why he would ask for her name and age if he planned on killing her. Usually getting personal information wasn’t part of killing someone unless this was a sick fantasy of his where he got off on getting someone comfortable and then killing them…

Endless thoughts filled her head, every scenario possible and Lyra old found comfort in knowing if she was going to get eaten by a wolf, at least she’d be dead soon enough and once she was dead, nothing would matter.

Her heart raced as she heard him get up and take a few steps toward her and from her peripheral vision, she could see him bend down in front of her. He reached forward, gently pinching her chin with his index finger and thumb, raising her face to look at him.

His stare was cold yet also ravenous as he stared into her eyes. “Liam.” He said gesturing to himself.

She gulped and stared back, wanting nothing more than for him to let go. His fingers felt like fire against her skin, but she couldn’t tell if it was because he was so cold or just that warm. Her entire body started to feel weak and it felt like her exhaustion was finally catching up with her and hitting her at full force. Then her vision began to double and her head rang violently and she knew what was coming.

Her vision darkened and she lost feeling in her body as the blackness began turning into views of the night sky. The moonlit illuminated the area around her and she saw a broken-down statue, it looked like it was once a statue honoring a human, but now it was just the legs and even that was inches from collapsing. Suddenly the views around her switched between various shops and homes lit up in the night and stopped at a small bar. Inside the small building was packed with men and women. All of them were physically fit beyond imaginable, yet all gorgeous. They were clanking around glasses of various liquors, laughing, and roughhousing. It was hard to focus on any of them as their movements blurred, but ahead she noticed a man with slicked-back dark brown hair. As he turned around, his face went in and out of focus, but Lyra realized the man looked just like Liam, but with darker shorter hair and a clean shave. He smirked at her and even though she knew he couldn’t see her, it felt like he was staring into her soul and knew she was there. A smirk spread across his lips making her stomach drop and she felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. Just as fast as the vision came it was gone, nothing but black surrounding her.