Caught between the three Alpha Kings.

CARRIE The garden has always been my favourite part of the palace. It’s the one place that is quiet and serene, a place that is well removed from the rest of the people and all the problems that come with them. That is one of the reasons I enjoy and cherish these weekly dates with my father so much. The fact that we both get some quiet time together in my favourite place of the pack. My father is the king, and as such, he is the busiest person in our pack, always swamped in work and the various different problems that pop up constantly in the pack. But he always makes time for me, always makes sure that we have these weekly dates as a sort of bonding exercise while we talk about several different things that interests us. Today we’re picking flowers. Spring is at its height this time of the year so we think it’s best to take as many as we can because there are so beautiful and so many varieties. At some point, we turn it into a game of who can pick the most flowers and the best ones. I and my father are laughing over a joke he just said when a guard walks over to us. Or rather, to my father. I notice that he looks very stressed and panicky, and I begin to mirror his emotions. What could possibly have happened that could worry a high ranking guard like this? He comes over to my father’s side and whispers into his ear for a few seconds. I watch my father’s face, see how his expression goes from mildly confused to serious and foreboding. My heart begins to race. This seems like something serious. More serious than anything the pack has faced in a while. My father’s face immediately shuts down all emotion. He looks at me and orders me, in full Alpha strength, to go back to my room and stay there. “What happened?” I ask. But he doesn’t respond. He is barely even listening to me. He whispers some more to the guard and their tones grow more intense by the second. I am sad that the date with my father has been cut abruptly by some new issue, but this isn’t the first time it’s happened. There is usually a good reason for that, and he always makes up for it after. But this time, I feel like something more serious, more threatening, might have happened. And it scares me. Another guard comes toward us and my father distractedly tells her to escort me to my room, rushing out of the garden with the first guard. “Father! What’s going on? Somebody explain to me!” But no one does. I’m led by the guard out of the garden and towards my chambers. In my chambers, the guard advices me to stay there and not come out for any reason. Then she leaves. I stay silent for a while, not knowing what to do with myself. Then I fall asleep. The sound of cacophony and screams jolt me awake. It sounds like the entire palace is in a commotion and I move to the window to see what’s going on. When I look through my window, all I see is smoke and fire everywhere. I gasp in terror. Something really bad has happened. The palace is on fire. I have always imagined it as the one invincible place, impenetrable, incapable of being destroyed. And now it’s on fire. My whole world has been tossed askew and I don’t know how to make sense of it, or what to do about it. I lie on my bed, my breaths coming faster and faster as the terror coursed through my body. I try to think of what could have caused the fire and all the commotion but in my panicked state, I come up blank. My father is out there. The thought rings in my head and refuses to leave. It adds to my panic, building and building till I’m almost lightheaded and shivering from it. And then my door slams open. I scream at the sudden entrance, but it’s just a guard at the door. It does little to calm my fears, however. “What is going on?” I ask in a shaky voice. “We are under attack,” he says gruffly in a stressed tone. My mouth falls open. Attack? Who would dare? So many questions rush through my mind as the weight of this situation settles in my mind. “We have to leave now,” he says. “The enemy will soon be here.” “What about my father?” I ask, suddenly very scared. “Where is he?” The guard hesitates, not saying anything for some seconds. A pained and apologetic expression appears on his face. “No,” I breathed, feeling tears build in my eyes. “No, it can’t be true.” “I’m so sorry. He didn’t make it. But his last wish was for you to be safe. And you can’t do that unless you get yourself together. You hear me? You can’t fall apart, not now. You’ll die if you do. You have to stay focused.” My world whirls around me as the news sinks in. My father is dead. I will never see him again, never walk the gardens with him, never speak to him again. The guard shakes me back to reality and I remember that I have to keep it together. Without a second thought, I follow him out of the room, out of the palace, chaos raining all around us, bodies littered everywhere, the screams ringing in my ears. Soon we are in the woods beyond the palace. We stop to rest for some minutes. “The enemy are coming this way,” the guard says. “They’re going to catch up soon. You have to go. None of them know you exist, so that’s an advantage for you. Run away from this place until you are safe. Don’t look back.” Without a second thought I run, my heart aching with grief, my limbs shivering with terror. I am not really familiar with the woods, so I have a bit of problem navigating. That and the tears that blurred my vision as I think about my dead father, our destroyed palace, our slaughtered people. I run blindly, aimlessly, my heartache consuming me whole. I stop to rest for a few minutes. My limbs are sore, my throat feels like sandpaper, my eyes hurt from crying. I collapse at the foot of a tree panting with exhaustion. I am still for a few minutes, regaining my energy to keep running. The tears I thought was gone are back, but I push them away, knowing I have more important things to do than grieve at the moment. Then the woods go alive all of a sudden. Masked people come out from their hiding places, like they knew I would be waiting there for them. I spring to my feet immediately. They all have weapons and they surround me instantly, like they have done this a thousand times before. Rogues, I think. I have heard stories about them, both from my father and several pack members. They roam the woods, looking for unfortunate people to capture and enslave. I was always terrified when those stories were told. My life flashes in front of me, the life I will have if these rogues successfully capture me. The results are not good. I make a split second decision and dive between two rogues so fast they can’t catch me, and away from them. I run and the rogues pursue me but after a while they stop, instead standing and looking at me. I wonder why they don’t chase me further, wonder if they are put off of something I might be running into. But my safety is all I think about, my panic doesn’t make me reason well. Two guards appear out of nowhere, stopping me in my path. They are dressed very differently than the guards of my pack. It occurs to me that I might have accidentally stumbled into another pack. That’s why the rogues didn’t chase me further. One of the guards holds me at sword point. He asks me my name. But my head is spinning, my exhaustion taking over. My vision begins to go dark around the edges. I don’t even know when I pass out.