The Feral Mate

Chapter 3: Carrie

Chapter 3: Carrie

My eyes snapped open in the dark. It was early morning, and nearly time for me to begin my watch. I stretched and peered outside our shelter. Normally, I got up with the sun, but my wolf, Lea, had been restless the past few days. I carefully tiptoed around the one room structure I shared with Millie and got ready for my day. Millie often suffered from night terrors, so whenever she did happen to have a good night’s sleep, I liked to let her rest. I threw on a skirt fashioned from different materials we scavenged on the beach and a simple cropped shirt. My breasts were small enough that I could go about my day comfortably without wearing a bra. I thanked the Goddess for that because several of the girls stranded on this island could not say the same. They had to assemble their own chest-supporting devices with the coarse materials that washed up on our shores.

I stepped out of our shelter into a thick jungle fog that blanketed our makeshift village. I sniffed the air, and the scent of potential rain filled my nostrils. I decided that before I relieved the current sentry, I’d check on our Luna. Most of the time, she was a fierce, fearless force of nature. However, during storms, I would find her crying and flinching at every clap of thunder.

Her shelter was more separate from the rest of us, built utilizing a rock outcropping on the side of a hill. She also had the only shelter with a real door that she scavenged from the boat that brought all of us here. Well, all of us minus her. She had been alone here for six years before we were brought to the island. I saw smoke coming from her chimney, so I knocked, knowing that I wasn’t waking her.

“Luna Amelia? It’s Carrie,” I waited for a response.

“Come in,” Amelia’s breathy voice called out. We all look to her as our leader even though she is a woman of very few words. I think being here and relying on her wolf so much had made talking sort of difficult for her.

“I just wanted to check on you, Luna. I think a storm is approaching so…” I said, stepping inside and closing the door. Amelia was sitting in front of her fireplace and turned to face me. Her wavy pale blonde hair was free instead of constrained in its usual braid. Green eyes met my brown, and I noticed that she had yet to get dressed for the day and was instead covering herself with the weather-worn tarp she used as a blanket.

“Just Amelia, Carrie,” she said and motioned for me to join her. We faced each other in front of the fire, and it suddenly occurred to me that Amelia was stunningly beautiful. I rarely got to see her when she wasn’t covered in mud or wearing that frightening mask she had crafted from a boar’s skull.

“We’re a pack, Amelia, and you’re our Luna. I know you didn’t ask to be, but you took us under your wing without hesitation. It’s been six years, and we still rely on you for so much. Calling you Luna is the very least I can do,” I rambled. Amelia reached out and squeezed my shoulder comfortingly, but her gaze was stormy as it fell on the fire.

“I-if I…If something ever happens to me, you have to be Luna. For them,” she said softly. I felt panic rise in my chest. Her eyes were fixed with their usual determined glint, but this time, they also swam with the deep sadness that Amelia hid from the rest of our tiny pack.

“What? Don’t say that, please! Nothing is going to happen, besides I…I can’t,” I stammered.

“You can. Your wolf will learn. Mine did,”

“Amelia, why are you saying this?”

Amelia looked back into the fire. My head hurt from wondering where these thoughts were coming from. Was she sick? Surely she wasn’t considering…giving up? I couldn’t imagine Amelia laying down her spear and simply throwing herself to the sharks. Abandoning us. She would absolutely never do that.

“Something is coming,” she said after a while.

“What do you mean?”

“Wolf is on edge. Worse than all the other times. It feels…like something more than danger. Wolf is…scared,” she whispered the last part. Amelia’s wolf didn’t have a name, so she just called her Wolf. I had seen Wolf in action quite a few times, and if I had to describe her in one word, it would be monstrous. The thought of Wolf being scared would normally have me rolling on the floor, but now? Now my flesh was erupting in goosebumps, and Lea was beginning to pace in my head.

“Lea has been restless as well. I thought maybe it was the storm? But now…I guess we need to prepare the others,” I said. Amelia nodded.

“Please promise me, Carrie. Promise you’ll look after them,” she pleaded. I’d never seen Amelia plead before.

“I promise,” I said, and pulled her into a hug. I still felt like an utterly unworthy replacement. I made a different promise to myself then, to fight by Amelia’s side and make sure she came out okay. No matter what.

“Thank you,” she whispered, squeezing me tighter. We stayed like that for what seemed like a long time. Then I noticed a few rays of sun poking through the branches and stones that made up the walls.

“ Damn, I think I’m late for sentry duty,” I grumbled and released her so that I could stand. She gave a short laugh.

“Go. I’ll join you later today, just in case,”

“Okay. By the way, would you like a few of us to stay with you tonight? Just until the storm passes?”

“Yes, thank you, Carrie,”

“Of course,”

I left. For the rest of the day, I thought about our conversation and came up with wild scenarios of what could be coming. A part of me dared to hope it would be a rescue from this hellish place, but every time I had wished for it in the past, I was always majorly disappointed. Nothing appeared on the horizon that day, and that night, me, Millie, and Hannah all squeezed ourselves into Luna Amelia’s tiny hutt. Thunder exploded over our heads and rain beat against the thatched roof, but we were all dry, warm, and safe. Everyone slept well that night, despite the squall. I, however, had a hurricane raging inside my mind, and when I drifted into darkness, it was restless and tense.