CHAPTER THREE
1230 Words
Matilda’s pov
Few weeks later
Life after rejection by your Alpha, and self exclusion from the pack was a whirlwind of change.
I had been roaming around the wildlands like a rogue wolf.
I didn’t have any member of the pack look for me since then and I didn’t bother going back.
I still couldn’t bear the weight of the rejection and embarrassment, but as the days went by that pain turned to anger and anger turned to hate.
Today is no different than the rest of the days outside the wildlands.
I’m moving around as quietly as possible trying to gather enough berries for the day when the forest floor gives way beneath me with a sharp snap.
I didn’t have time to scream or react as I fell before iron teeth clamped around my right leg.
Pain explodes up my body, intense and blinding. It was as if air was knocked out of my body the moment I hit the ground with a thud.
I collapse hard as my hand claws at the dirt the more the trap tightens, the metal bit deeper into my skin with every little movement I make.
I feel the wetness of my blood before I see it. It seeps warm and fast, soaking into the dried leaves beneath me.
I try my best to calm my breathing, to regulate my emotions and calm my wolf.
When my breathing is somewhat normal I scan my environment.
Hole.
And with how big the hold was it didn’t look like it was dug for a random animal. It looked very much human sized.
Cannibals.
“No,no,no…” my voice breaks as I try my best to fumble with the latch but my hands were too shaky to reach it, talkless of unlocking it.
I cried and yelled for help but the woods didn’t answer me.
I knew I would die in the wildlands but not so early, not like this.
Tears began to blur my vision as I realized that there was no way out.
Because even if I was able to get this trap out of my leg, I wouldn’t be able to climb up this hole.
I was doomed.
I tried to summon my wolf strength to break the trap but my wolf is still weak from lack of proper feeding and lately she had been dull and moody. I didn’t know why because I know for a fact it wasn’t tied to the rejection.
With no sign of help approaching all I could do was sob through clenched teeth as the pain kept intensifying.
Then…
I hear hooves a few feet away from the hole.
I freeze, the sound rolls through the trees. Not just one or two but many of them.
As they circle the hole I yell at the top of my voice.
“Help me! I’m down here! Help.”
Moments later a rope drops into the hole and I grab onto it.
I tried to climb out the hole but the trap on my leg wouldn’t let me, It still kept digging into my skin.
Someone eventually pulls me up with the rope and I hold onto it with whatever little strength I have left.
The moment I got on the surface one of the men approached me and opened up the trap. I let out an agonizing scream as the trap tore open, releasing my leg from the prison it was in.
Flesh stretched and bone cracked as the trap left my leg.
I finally felt relief and collapsed to the ground.
The weight of the presence before me finally dawned on me and I looked up.
A convoy of horses, tall and dark, with riders all dressed in cloaks, circled me.
At the center, mounted majestically on a black stallion, sits a man who feels like looking at him would get you punished.
I tried to look away still, but I couldn’t.
There was something about his presence that screamed danger and destruction.
I wanted to run but my leg wouldn’t let me and even if it could my wolf wasn’t responding to me.
She was quiet, shaking in a corner.
There was something about this man that was familiar, but my brain was too focused on the pain on my leg to realize anything else.
He lifts his fingers and gestures to the people around him.
“Get the healer.” His voice cuts through the clearing with absolute authority. No one questions him.
Hands are on me before I can crawl away.
I snarl and thrash, trying to reach for my wolf, but the pain drags me under again.
A woman kneels beside me, fingers glowing faintly as she grips my damaged leg.
“Hold her,” she said.
I screamed when she touched the trap wound, but the pain didn't last long.
In fact, it vanished.
Just like that.
The bite marks from the metal trap are sealed before my very eyes. The burning in nerves fades and the fog of pain blocking my head thinned.
I sucked in a sharp breath, stunned by how perfect my leg suddenly feels.
My vision finally clears.
And that’s when I finally dared to hold eye contact with him, the man seated on the stallion.
The man who for some reason makes everyone around him stand a little straighter.
His skin is unblemished, far fairer and silk than mine, and his lips are just as pink.
His face appears relaxed but his jaw is locked tight and sharp.
A scar marks his left eye.
On anyone else that would be video due to how nasty it looked, but on him it felt like carrying a well deserved trophy.
He looked perfect.
That’s when his features begin to add up.
Only one person fit that description.
My stomach dropped instantly.
Lycan king.
The name slammed into me with more force than the trap ever did.
No.
I moved without thinking.
It was reckless but I’d rather be reckless than be taken by this ruthless man.
I lunged, rolling a clear from the nearest warrior and spinning back toward him, my grip trembled but I stood my ground.
Every instinct in me screamed to bow, to submit, to bare my throat….
I don’t.
“Stay back!” I rasped, planting my feet and forcing my submitting wolf down. “I won’t let you take me—“
To my greatest surprise he threw his head back and laughed.
His laugh reeked of indifference, of sarcasm and a little bit of surprise.
“I like that,” he said, his dull lifeless eyes suddenly night with interest.
“Most kneel immediately.”
I’m about to run before my vision betrays me.
It swayed.
Suddenly the world tilted, the ground rushed up too fast.
My fingers went numb as the spear slipped from my hand and clattered to the ground.
“What’s…what’s this?” I choked out.
“The trap, it was laced with poison. I didn’t heal that part.” The healer whispered as she walked closer to me.
I fell to the ground, still trying my best to resist the poison.
“I left it there because you nee
d to sleep,” she lowered her voice. “You and the baby.”
I barely had time to register what she had said before darkness swallowed me whole.
- Writer
