Coven & Claw

CHAPTER #2

Red...

It's everywhere... It's all Verena can see. The ground is covered in it and she is covered in it too from head to toe. The dark liquid keeps sputtering and pouring out as this attack goes on. There are wolve's bodies falling everywhere, her own people's bodies are going up in flames. Thunder and lightning, growls and howls fill up the place she once called home for the past 20 years. It descended into chaos in the blink of an eye and she is caught in the middle of it with no way of escape...not that she wants to anyway. This is not her life anymore. She can't believe how everything has suddenly changed.

A while ago everything was as it should be, it wasn't perfect but it was as it should be. It was a dark peaceful night with very clear skies and Verena was out in the woods getting some fresh air like always and after staying there for the longest time she decided to head back home before her mother would start worrying.

She was about a stone's throw away from the village boundary when she saw them. The huge dark figures that were pouring into her village. Her mind knew instantly that they were under attack. She should have screamed because these were the enemies in the stories that have been told to them since they were children. But she didn't, she found herself looking at them in awe. Their magnificence was beyond her wildest imagination. Their forms were something to behold and just how they carried themselves gave her goose bumps. And unlike her coven, part of her felt a sense of belonging, because if she remembers correctly she had transformed into something similar once before. Then she was only 18 when it happened and her life at the coven became worse than before. Her own people shunned her completely as she was known as the coven's abomination for shifting into a wolf, the coven's worst enemy. She had endured their harsh treatment for just being a bastard child and being a wolf made everything worse. They wanted her dead. To them she was not worthy to breathe the same air as they did. Only her mother's witch blood flowing in her veins kept her alive. As it turns out no witch could take another witch's life without attracting a curse upon themselves. They hated her for that too and no one wanted her near them, so she spent her time in isolation with her mother as her only support.

So having that connection with the wolves by just looking at them tugged at her heart so much it made her forget that the wolves she admired were the enemy. By the time she came to her senses it was already too late. What was a peaceful village a moment earlier looked very much like a war zone in a split second and with it her life was forever changed.

As everything around her goes up in flames, she stays rooted on her spot. She doesn't even try to fight. The chaos before her pretty much reflects how her life has been while she lived under the spring coven and she sees no reason to change it now when the one person who helped her bear all of it is gone never to come back.

She looks down and her anguish overflows from her heart. The lifeless body of her beloved mother lays limp in her hands. This is the end of everything for her. How is she supposed to go on without the only person who ever loved her.

A coven was supposed to be a tightly knit family no matter how big it got but to her all that sounded like a fairy tale. She has never felt any closeness to her people in any way. From as far back as she can remember, she has always been an outsider. But her mother was always her light in her darkness. Even when she couldn't get the coven to accept her daughter she made sure to love Verena unconditionally. She was her everything and now that she is gone, there is nothing more for her here. Nothing to keep her here and so she closes her eyes and waits for the end of it all. She holds her mother's lifeless body close to her heart as she whispers her goodbye both to her and to the only life she has ever known.

She blocks out everything going on around her and floats in the peace and quiet that surrounds her. She is now in her own world, her little escape from reality. Its something she has been able to do since she was young. Whenever she was too sad or too alone this was her way of coping. She smiles as she waits for her fate, this way she is not afraid and she will be at peace. But suddenly a sharp pain rips through her shoulder and she is pulled back into all the chaos with so much force she falls back a distance from where she was.

The pain is like a fire sweeping through her entire body. She can't help but thrash and kick as she is dragged away from her mother's lifeless body. The pain in her shoulder is killing her with every movement that the wolf that has sunk it's teeth in her makes. She wished for death but this pain makes her scream out loud when she cannot bear it. In a blink of an eye the wolf lets  go and she falls to the ground. She doesn't know what just happened or why the wolf decided to let go but she is grateful it did.

She quickly gets a hold of her bleeding shoulder as tears pour out of her eyes like never before. She doesn't understand or get it at all. She doesn't understand why she was born, if all her life was meant to do was give her pain and more pain from the moment she was born till she died. She can't help but wonder what she had done either in this life or her past life to get such punishment. She'd tried to be good all her life even when everyone around her wasn't but it was still her whose life sucked the most. It was her who paid the heaviest price. A life devoid of happiness and full of tears is all she has ever known. Her chest is heaving as all these thoughts run through her head.

She looks up with blury eyes wanting to see what just happened and she finds two huge wolves facing off. She is confused for a moment when it seems like they are about to fight each other but her confusion gets worse when she finds herself worrying about one of them. And if she didn't know any better she would say this fight was about her. But why would she be protected?

Her eyes widen when the larger of the two wolves growls so fiercely even her own hairs stand on end. The wolf seems to be giving a warning while shielding her from the wolf that attacked her.

In the midst of all her pain the wolf's action lights a fire in her deepest of hearts. Apart from her mother no one has ever done anything like this for her. For once she has a bit of hope but it quickly disappears when her protector turns and his eyes find hers. She thought he was her knight in shining armour but the hateful look in his eyes says otherwise. There is a storm brewing in those amethyst eyes and she finds her heart aching more than it ever has. And just like earlier when she felt a connection to the wolves she wonders how she can have such a connection with a total stranger. Why do his actions affect her so? Everything about him seems to be striking a code in her, even just the steps he is taking away from her right now.

While her head tries to process everything, she finds herself being dragged from her home but her heart doesn't mind that much. She has shed more tears there than she has smiled and with her mother gone there is nothing more for her to hold on to. And she knows that for the Spring coven it's good riddance.

She doesn't think so much about where she is being taken to either. She has a pretty good idea what happens to enemies in the enemy camp but that doesn't scare her so much. Whatever happens, her life has already ended and she has accepted her fate. After all it can't be worse than having your own family treat you like their worst enemy.