Last stand
1042 Words
I watched, paralyzed, as the stranger didn't even wait for a challenge. He launched himself forward, shifting mid-air with a sickeningly fast crack of bone, turning back into the massive, dust-coated beast before he even hit my father.
Blaze met him head-on.
The impact sounded like two semi-trucks colliding. The ground groaned as they tumbled across the grass in a blur of dark fur and marble-grey muscle. My father was a whirlwind of blue light and teeth, his claws carving deep furrows into the stranger’s side, but the mountain-wolf was unnervingly strong. He fought with a primitive, heavy brutality, using his sheer mass to pin my father against the earth.
A spray of dirt and fur flew into the air. Blaze snapped his jaws shut on the stranger's shoulder, and a guttural, pained howl echoed through the valley.
Just as the stranger prepared to rake his obsidian claws across my father’s chest, the treeline erupted again. I expected help, but my heart dropped into my stomach as four more shadows burst into the clearing—the Sentinels. They moved with a synchronized, military precision, but they weren't looking at the stranger.
Their snarls were directed at my father.
The tan wolf with scarred ears didn't hesitate; he slammed into Blaze’s flank, tearing him away from the stranger. The black-as-pitch female with piercing green eyes went for my father’s hamstrings, her movements a blur of lethal speed. Two large brindles followed, circling my father like sharks in the dark.
"Lilly, move!" Maggie’s voice cracked like a whip. She grabbed my good arm, dragging me further toward the edge of the clearing as the fight turned into a chaotic, snarling mass of teeth and fur.
My father was being overwhelmed. He fought like a demon, his blue aura flaring as he tried to shake the Sentinels off, but they were his own kind—trained to take down an Alpha. The stranger stood back, shifting into his human form as he watched the Sentinels do his dirty work. He stood in the center of the clearing, his golden eyes glowing with a cold, triumphant light.
"You see, Everett?" the stranger’s voice rasped, echoing through the clearing. "You ran away to protect her, but the pack doesn't forget. They don't follow a ghost."
Blaze let out a roar of pure agony as the brindles pinned his shoulders to the dirt. He struggled, his blue eyes fixed on me, desperate and pleading. He was losing. The very men he had once led were now the ones crushing the life out of him.
The tan wolf stayed over my father’s throat, a low, warning vibration coming from his chest. The stranger walked slowly toward me, stepping over the patches of torn grass and blood.
"The moon doesn't wait for anyone, Lilly," he said, his voice dropping to a hiss. "Your father is a relic. You are the future."
The Sentinels stood in a defensive perimeter, their eyes fixed on my father, making sure he couldn't rise. I looked at the man I called Dad, pinned and bleeding in the dirt, and then at the monster standing in front of me. The "static" in my head didn't just itch anymore—it screamed.
The sight of my father pinned to the dirt, his blue eyes dimming as the Sentinels' weight crushed him, was more than I could bear. But before I could even find my voice, Maggie let go of my arm.
She didn't run; she surged.
"Enough!" she shrieked, her voice sounding less like a woman and more like a gale-force wind. Her brown eyes were gone, replaced entirely by Ember’s molten, predatory gold.
She threw herself toward the tan wolf that held my father’s throat. She was half his size, but she hit him with a ferocity that caught the entire pack off guard. She didn't have claws, but she had a lifetime of knowing exactly where a wolf was most vulnerable. She drove her thumbs into the soft tissue behind the Sentinel's ears, wrenching his head back.
"Let him go, you traitorous curs!" she spat.
For a second, the circle broke. The black female and the brindles hesitated, their ears pinning back as they looked from the stranger to this old woman who was suddenly radiating a heat of her own. It was the opening my father needed. Blaze let out a strangled, wet roar and threw the brindles off his chest, his blue aura flickering like a dying candle.
But the stranger moved faster than any of us.
He didn't shift. He didn't need to. He stepped forward and caught Maggie by the throat mid-stride. He lifted her off the ground as if she weighed no more than a bundle of dry kindling. Maggie kicked and clawed, her gold eyes blazing with a desperate, dying light, but his grip was a death sentence.
"Maggie!" I screamed, stumbling forward, but the brown wolf was there in a heartbeat, snapping at my heels to keep me back.
The stranger looked at Maggie with a bored, cold curiosity. "Loyalty to a sinking ship is a waste of a good soul, old woman."
"Go... to... hell," Maggie choked out, her face turning a bruised purple.
With a flick of his wrist, the stranger tossed her aside. She hit the trunk of a massive pine with a sickening, hollow thud and crumpled into the shadows. She didn't move. She didn't even moan.
"MAGGIE!" My voice tore from my throat, raw and broken.
The stranger didn't even look at her. He turned his attention back to my father, who was struggling to stand on trembling legs. The Sentinels closed the circle again, their eyes fixed on the stranger, waiting for the final command.
"The girl is watching, Everett," the stranger said, stepping toward my father. "Let's show her what happens to Alphas who forget their place."
My father looked at me one last time. The blue light in his eyes was gone, replaced by a deep, heartbreaking clarity. He wasn't Blaze anymore. He was just my dad, and he was saying goodbye.
- Writer
