Blood moon

Chapter 27. A jump to the past

Twenty years earlier.

We were two young men at that time, in the prime of our lives. We had been raised among cattle and hard lands. We worked for a long time for the first born of each family. We had become friends, best friends, bonded the two herds with our friendship, Halland and Garroway.

In those days the alphas of each herd led their group, they used to fight on a sandy field, the young men could prove their worth until they were unconscious from the pain, among them only the heirs of each lineage remained conscious at the end.

—Halland, you should quit— joked one of them.

—Garroway, give up, he beat you every week and you come back to the ring, week, after week for a barrage of blows— were the same conversations since they were a couple of kids.

—One day I'm going to beat you— exclaimed the Garroway boy as he walked away on his way home.

—You wish!— replied the alpha who would be the next leader of the pack.

As he walked through the door, Garroway knew what was waiting for him, a beating. His father found it dishonorable that his son was unable to defeat another boy, a smaller one from a lineage as weak as that of the Hallands.

—You have to break his face, kill him if necessary— the older man's anger was felt as he broke every bone in his body, as he did when he found out the results of the competitions, always in second place and never in first place.

For his luck or misfortune he healed very fast. He would fracture his ribs and places where the fractures were not visible with clothes, but when he was drunk, he would only continue, then he would fracture his legs or arms, send him to the basement, not allowing him to leave until he was completely healthy.

In those moments he hated him with his soul, he detested his best friend. He wondered what it took to defeat him and wondered what would happen the day he succeeded. He didn't have to wait long until his twentieth birthday, after that things changed.

His father, once a bully, now felt proud, but he was still beating him for much more irrelevant reasons. If he left a glass in the dishwasher, if his shoes left some dirt on the floor, if his voice was too loud to listen to a TV show, the cycle of abuse only began to increase, his mother cried every night listening to them argue, because eventually she had the strength to talk back.

One moon there was a competition, it was really important.

The future leader of the Garroway attacked with everything he had, the fury had been building up inside him for too long, he just wanted to get these feelings of repressed anger he had out, so he kept hitting, he was so furious that he could see red from the anger he felt.

He hit him even on the ground, no, he noticed when the boy stopped moving, the knuckles of his hands hurt, his arms burned, but he kept moving forward.

—Stop— growled his best friend, punching him so hard in the jaw that he lifted him a couple of meters. Both men realized that something bad had happened, people ran towards the boy who was no longer breathing, he did not need to be a doctor to realize it, his hearing allowed him to realize the mistake he had made, the man in front of him had tears in his eyes.

—I didn't mean to do that— his voice had cracked with fear. The truth is that the law of the werewolf says that, if you murder another, you must also die by the same hand, the boy lying on the ground was from the Halland family, that would indispose the two families.

—LEAVE— that was the only thing he could say to her. He did not want the future of the pack to be given with a bloodbath, a part of him knew that the competitions were something serious, there was always a risk of death, but there was a feeling of helplessness inside him.

As soon as the rising alpha of the Garroway family ran off, the rest of his family joined him. There was a nascent sense of fury, everyone wanted revenge. The howls, roars and screams began to get louder and louder.

—He is a murderer.

—He must be killed.

—There must be revenge.

—Kill us all.

A sense of horror was born in my heart. Harold Halland knew it would get much worse, he had to act like a leader now, because it would become a worse bloodbath.

—Let's take the body to the house, let the family know before we think— his voice had trembled at first, but it became a shout with a command.

The Garroway family was frightened, they went to their alpha's house, they claimed the boy for his actions, others praised him and made all kinds of comments. George Garroway was terrified, he had no idea how to explain the situation to his father.

The man knew the truth, he saw it in his son's eyes. He had killed another werewolf, with that he had become a man, he smiled genuinely, he was proud of what happened. He hugged his son holding him, he could not fit in his heart with happiness.

The family leader of the Halland family went with his eldest son to the enemy's house. Both werewolves looked at each other angrily, each had a totally different point of view. They stepped forward, leaving the two older men chest to chest.

vWhat have you come here for?

—You know perfectly well what I've come for, one of the men in my family is dead— the way they looked at each other said it all, they weren't there to play games.

—These things happen.

—Well, they shouldn't.

—But they've always been like that, since we were kids, how many people did you kill?— There was a lot of silence after that.