The Silver Siren

Chapter 7

Everything was a blur. I kept running because I didn’t know what else to do. I had no idea where I was heading, and my panic was fuelling me on further and further. I don’t know how long I was running, but my mind started to clear, and I came across a narrow creek hidden in the dense forest. As I looked around, I spotted a boundary marker ahead. I must be close to our territory borders. The creek was small and trickled peacefully away from the borders, into the territory. I stopped on the soft bank and took a drink from the slow running water. When I had finished drinking, I waited for the ripples in the water to settle and stared at my reflection in the crystal-clear water. My eyes were still glowing purple, but not as bright as before, and my silver fur was glittering in the moonlight. I had to admit, my wolf was beautiful.

The serenity of the creek had helped to melt away the intense panic, but I could still feel energy coursing through me. My breathing became regular again and I sat next to the creek, gazing up at the moon. I tried to think things through rationally, but it was hard to believe that this was actually happening to me. A lot had happened in the space of an hour, and it wasn’t the birthday I had expected it to be. That thought made me sad, and I thought about Melissa. I tried to imagine what it must have been like for her to lose her friends like that, and then blame herself for their deaths. The anger I felt was gone. Shocking, overwhelming sadness replaced it. What Melissa had told me affected my past AND my future. I should go back and talk to her.

I got up from the bank and turned around to leave. I heard the distant sound of crunching branches on the forest floor and my ears pricked up.

“Rogues!” screamed Lana.

I looked around in every direction, but I couldn’t see any rogues. “Are you sure, Lana?”

“Yes, Yes! I smell them. Danger!” she said, frantically.

I sniffed deeply and the deathly stench of rogues filtered through the air. It was faint, so they were probably far away from us here. But I wasn’t about to stick around and find out. Lana had us running before I thought about it. I let her take control and tried to focus on where the rogues were. The scent was getting stronger, and somehow, I sensed they were moving toward the creek down from the boundary but couldn’t pinpoint exactly where. The boundaries are always guarded by warriors. How could they have got through?

We kept running. The smell was getting stronger, and it didn’t matter what direction we ran in, the stench of rogues flanked us. They must be coming in from different directions. I was hoping that we could outrun them, but that was looking less likely. The stench was so overpowering now that Lana froze, and I didn’t know what to do. If we ran into them, we would have to fight. Rogues would not hesitate to kill any wolf in their path.

I’ve mastered self-defence and combat sports in human form. And I’d even had a real-life fight with a bully when I was 16, who was picking on a younger child. Boy, did I get in trouble for that. But fight in wolf form? I wasn’t sure I could fight as a wolf, and I would have no chance if I shifted back to human form.

“It’s ok, Allie,” Lana reassured me. “We can do this”

“I’m not sure about this, Lana,” I said desperately.

“What other choice do we have?” she replied.

Before I could respond, a lone rogue came into view between two trees. He spotted me and let out a loud howl. Almost immediately, howls from dozens of rogues echoed out in reply. The noise was deafening. There were more than I first thought. s**t!

Instantly, I turned and ran. I knew I was fast, so I decided to try and outrun him. I could hear him giving chase behind me. For a tiny moment I thought I might have got away. But my joy was short lived when I saw rogues running either side of me. They were closing in. s**t, s**t, s**t!

“Just keep running, Lana!” I sensed her fear.

She had good reason to be scared. They were everywhere. As soon as I outran one, another was ahead of me. Soon all I could see was rogues. There were so many of them and they were huge. This was bad. This was very bad.

“There are too many of them, Allie!” she wailed. She was right.

A familiar scent filtered through the foul rogue smell. “Pack. Pack!” said Lana.

“It’s ok, Lana. We just need to hold them off until the warriors get here. They are coming.”

I had no idea how we were going to do that, but we had to try. We were dead otherwise. The pack scent was slowly getting stronger, and I swear they were only two miles away. I had no clue how I knew that and had no time to find the answer. Rogues lined every direction. I circled back around, checking if I could find an escape route. There was no way out. The rogues had managed to form a circle around us. As they closed in, they became a wall of rogues, howling and snarling their intentions.

How did this even happen? Where had they all come from? And in such numbers? It was weird. It had been years since we suffered an attack on the pack. I don’t think there has been one in my lifetime.

There was no way we could take on them all. The pack was getting closer, I could feel it. Just a little longer.

Two rogues broke free from the circle and lunged towards me. I dodged them by jumping quickly to the left and whipped back round so I was standing behind them. While their backs were still turned, I landed a bite on the hind leg of the closest one to me. Once anchored to him with my jaws, I swung my hind legs around and kicked the other rogue as hard as I could. He flew. He literally flew across the forest floor and hit a tree with such force, a branch cracked off and landed in front of him. He didn’t get up. Whoa. The strength I had was unbelievable!

I still had hold of the other one with my teeth. I bit down harder, violently shaking him until I could feel the warmth of his blood in my fur. A little gross, but I had to power through. I lifted his huge body into the air by his hind leg still shaking. I let go and he went the same way as the first rogue, flying through the air, stopped by a helpful boulder. I heard his neck crack as he made contact.

I quickly eyes another two rogues coming in towards me from the opposite side of the circle. So many. Too many to count.

“Keep going, Allie,” said Lana, sensing my despair.

One of the rogues leapt into the air as he sprung towards me. I slipped underneath him whilst he was mid-air and lashed out with my claws and slashed his throat. As he slumped on the ground, I was slammed into by the other one. The force knocked me down and I rolled but managed to right myself quickly. And so did the rogue. We were now head-to-head. He snarled and we circled each other. He made the first move, leaping towards me at speed. I dodged his attack and he stumbled forwards past me. As he did, I sunk my teeth into his flank, biting down hard. He howled and I began to shake my head. A chunk of his flesh tore away, and his body rolled away from me, spraying blood everywhere. I spat the chunk of flesh out and bared my teeth to the rest of the waiting rogues as I growled.

The smell of the pack warriors was getting much stronger now. They must be less than half a mile away. They would be here soon. But what was that other scent? Mixed in with the pack’s scent, I caught the most heavenly smell of sweet lemons. Like fresh lemonade. It was amazing.

“Mate! Mate!” Lana started to scream.

“What?!” I said. She couldn’t be serious.

“Mate. It’s our mate. He is coming.” She danced around my head, purring.

“Lana, this is not the time!” I said, angrily. It really wasn’t. The circle of rogues was closing in.

“Our mate will protect us, Allie,” she said firmly, believing it without question.

“But he’s not here right now, so get your head back in the game,” I said, “We don’t need him.”

Don’t I have enough to deal with right now, Moon Goddess? I don’t need a mate charging in and ruining my future. A loud bang rattled out in the forest.

A sudden thump to my shoulder sent me tumbling back. Pain was shooting down my front leg as I felt the trickle of blood make its way down. As I tried to get to my feet again, I saw the rifle, aimed at me by a rogue in human form from outside the circle. s**t. I heard the rifle fire again and, almost in slow motion, I saw the bullet darting through the air. I tried to dodge the bullet, but it caught me on my flank. Lana was whimpering as pain took over. They were closing in on us. In unison, a howl rang out through the trees. I closed my eyes. A tingling sensation in my paws and intense pressure in my head. I was too scared to open my eyes, but I heard them all advance. Closer and closer they got. A surge of energy shot through me and the pressure in my head was suddenly gone, and all I could smell was fresh sweet lemonade before everything went dark.

Reece

Today has sucked. Virtually no sleep, back-to-back meetings all morning, and training all afternoon. Not helped by Mikayla appearing around every corner, turning up at every meal, at the training ground. She was irritating the f**k out of me. Maddox had been unsettled all day too, constantly pacing and whimpering. He won’t tell me what’s wrong. The whole day has been a bust.

After dinner I snuck off to my room to have a shower. I was in no mood to go for a run, and neither was Maddox. I threw on some sweatpants and a clean t-shirt and slumped down onto my bed. I really needed to sleep. The exhaustion was getting ridiculous. I closed my eyes and started taking deep breaths. After a few minutes I felt more relaxed.

A soft knock on the door echoed through the room. I ignored it. I knew who was there and I was not opening that door. I could smell her. Mikayla. The smell of desperation hung in the air and seeped under the door, invading my space. She knocked again but said nothing. I heard the door handle jingle. Thank f**k I locked the door earlier. I heard her huff and stomp away, like a petulant child. Wow, she just wouldn’t give up! I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her right now and was thankful that she had left. I got comfortable again and closed my eyes, when I got a mind link from Cole, one of the pack warriors.

“Rogues!” he said frantically, almost yelling.

“Where?” I heard Brad ask, who was in on the mink link too. Cole had included my dad and his Beta too.

“On the north border, near where the creeks breaks the boundary.” Cole said.

“How many?” I asked firmly. I was already up and throwing on a shirt, heading for the door of the packhouse at the same time.

“Too f*****g many,” he snarled.

“Cole!” I yelled at him in my alpha tone.

“At least 35, maybe more. They have breached the boundary and are travelling down the creek. They are all still together and haven’t broken off into groups as far as I know. It was just me and Ben at this guard point. He’s hurt pretty bad but he’s still alive. I managed to kill 3 but there were just too many. They were more interested in getting onto the territory than killing me,” he said.

“Be there soon”, I said, leaving the mind link as Dad started giving instructions to all the warriors. As I got through the main doors to the packhouse, Brad was just ahead of me. We both rushed to take off our clothes and shift. Brad took off first, and as I took my clothes in my mouth, I soon caught up to him and we reached top speed. I heard the other warriors join us from different areas of the forest. The north border was about 2 and a half miles away, so we had some ground to cover. One of the warriors let out a howl into the night and others followed suit.

I knew that this would happen. I just knew it. Man, I hoped Ben was ok and we weren’t too late. I’ve known these guys since pre-school. We grew up together and learned to fight together.

It seemed to be taking forever to get there, but now virtually all the warriors has assembled and were now running with us. My Dad had stayed at the packhouse with members of his private security team for protection. He made me head of security a while back, so I was on my own on this one. The team of warriors was a strong one though, so it shouldn’t be a problem to deal with rogues in these numbers. But it was strange that so many are together in one place, seemingly travelling together. Rogues are usually lone wolves. The pack hadn’t suffered a rogue attack since before my dad was named as Alpha, and back then it was a lone wolf who came onto our land in search of food and retaliated to advances by our warriors.

We ran for what seemed like hours, but in reality, was only a few minutes. The stench of rotting flesh and sewage swilled through the air. The unmistakable scent of rogues. It was strong but we were still over a mile away. The rest of the warriors smelled them, and their collective snarls and growls echoed through the trees. The passing air whooshed past my ears and the forest was passing by in just a blur. The fresh scent of coconuts filtered through the rogue stench, but only just, reminding me of my recurring dream. I took a deep sniff, but it was gone. Great! Now my mind was playing tricks on me!

We were almost there now. But there it was again. Coconuts and sunshine. I knew I wasn’t imagining it this time. Adrenaline shot through me and Maddox let out a howl. I breathed in deeply again. The beautiful scent surrounded me like a cosy blanket. It was intoxicating. For a moment I forgot what we were doing. Mate? Here? Now? That had to be the worst timing ever! Thanks Moon Goddess! You don’t make it easy, do you?

“Mate! Mate!” echoed Maddox, “Mate is here!”

What?! Are you kidding me? She was here? But so were dozens of rogues. Rogues that had already breached our defences and injured a warrior. If they came across my mate, they wouldn’t think twice about killing her. Encountering a lone rogue was bad enough but running into these intruders would be catastrophic. My stomach dropped. She was in danger. Maddox knew what to do. He sprinted us away from the group with speed I never knew we had.

“Hey, wait for us!” Brad mind linked me.

“My mate. She is here. She’s in danger. I have to find her,” I said.

“s**t,” he said stunned. “Reece, please wait for us. We will get to her in time. It’s too dangerous to go in without us. Think, man.”

As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. Charging in and potentially getting killed would be a f*****g stupid thing to do. Only Brad could have that insight into my thinking. I know he will be a great Beta because he already acts like one. And he always has my back. I ended the mind link and pulled back to the pack, joining them once again. Brad quickly told the rest of the warriors that our future Luna was nearby and potentially in danger via mind link.

“What’s the plan?” he mind linked me.

“Get there faster,” I said.