‘Maia,’ Grace says.
‘Yes, Grace?’ I smile at the young girl in front of me.
‘Can we come to your forest and meet Ember one day?’
‘Sure. I’d love to show you my home. And I’m sure Ember would love to meet you,’ I say excitedly and smile.
‘Perhaps when this war is over,’ Vivian says, exhaling and folding her hands in her lap. The girls nod and run off again.
‘Vivian?’ I say. ‘Where’s your mate?’ I ask.
‘Only werewolves have mates. Humans have husbands. I had a husband: it was love at first sight. His name was Derrick. We were married a few weeks after meeting and had our girls not long after. When they were two, he died in a mining accident. The mine collapsed and killed him and twenty other men,’ Vivian says, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief.
‘Oh. I’m so sorry,’ I say, watching her dab her eyes.
‘I don’t know if I could love another man. I know Derrick would want me to. He’d want the girls to have a father, but I just haven’t been able to move on. I’ve courted a few men over the years, but it wasn’t the same,’ she explains, and I nod, stand up, refasten the clasp on my cloak, and tie the strings together.
‘Tea has been lovely, Vivian. It has been so nice seeing you again. I must go home now,’ I say.
The girls run up to me and squeeze me in a tight hug.
‘Please say you’ll come again, Maia,’ Grace and Ella chime.
‘I will. I promise,’ I laugh, open the front door, and step into the cool night air.
***
As I trudge through the forest toward my cave, a group of thirty men, dressed in the same armour as the men from Wellmore market, camp around a fire.
‘Start at Darkpaw, and we’ll start at Mystic Pride. Then, after you’ve wiped out the small packs, meet at Ravencull village, and together we’ll decimate the village,’ a man with a very long beard in war attire says.
His companions listen and nod, and I lose my footing and crunch a twig under my boots.
‘Who’s there?’ The man says, and they all stand, poised, ready to defend themselves.
Holding my breath, I stay as still and as quiet as possible. The men pull their swords from their sheaths and slowly approach my position. I run.
‘Get him!’ Someone yells.
Running, I leap over rocks and duck under low-hanging branches before falling and hitting my head on a large rock. A hot trickle of blood escapes my forehead and runs down my face. I’m disoriented, and my vision is blurry.
Three men approach me cautiously, staring at my dress, cloak, and bloody face.
‘Her eyes are violet!’ A man shouts.
‘Who are you?’ Another asks.
‘My fair maiden. The gods have blessed us tonight!’ A third man says, his expression one I have not seen before. This man grabs my arms and pins me against a tree, breathing heavily near my neck. He places his hand on my leg and runs it up to my thigh. I quiver and squirm.
I kick him as hard as I can between the legs, and he falls backward onto the ground holding his crotch.
He yells, and I run off again.
I don’t get very far before I fall again, near a river, and a cliff-edge, with the men right behind me, their swords ready to kill. Instinctively, I throw out my hands, and a gust of wind knocks the men over. I imagine fire and fill a power surge through my body. My palms light up with a ball of flame hovering in each palm. I throw the fireballs at the men, and flames engulf them both. They jump into the river to extinguish themselves. The rest of their companions have reached us, and they watch on as their comrades heal their burns in the stream.
‘She’s the Forest Princess,’ someone shouts, and the men gasp.
‘I thought it was just a fairy tale,’ someone says.
Over the cliff-edge surges a large river with a strong current; the drop is more than one hundred metres.
I have two options: jump and hope I don’t drown in the current or be captured. I jump off the cliff and fall into the river. I’m thrown around violently by the swells and the rapids, unsuccessfully reaching for low-hanging branches to cling onto. I am slammed into a rock and instantly lose grip when the water pushes me along. Not knowing how to swim, I instinctively take breaths when I can. It isn’t long before the world fades to black, and I’m unconscious, floating along with the current.
A soldier
In Mystic Pride and Darkpaw, we talk about the Forest Princess. It will be interesting to see what King Fenris has to say about her. We knock down front doors and trespass inside pack homes, slitting everyone’s throats regardless of age or gender.
We impale any who attack with our swords, place their heads on victory spikes, and plant them on a small hill in the heart of the village.
Inside a house in Darkpaw village, a boy of around eight years old hides from us underneath the floorboards in a bedroom. My comrades, hearing his crying, rip up the floorboards and discover him. His father, an Alpha wolf called Ezra, has just been slaughtered by my kinsmen. We burden his neck and wrists with a gaol chain to contain him.
‘Who are you, boy?’ I ask. The boy looks at his father lying in a pool of blood on the other side of the room.
‘Zayden, Alpha Ezra’s son,’ he says softly, tears streaming down his young cheeks.
‘An Alpha pup. We could get some good coin for you. You’d make a strong slave.’ I tell him, and we drag him behind us out of the house. The werewolf heads are spiked on the hill in front of us monumentally.
With the number of men we have lost, we decide to avoid Ravencull and instead return to West Wallow for more soldiers.
On the way to West Wallow, we reach a town called Shadowguard, and the locals applaud us for our victory. We’ve defeated two packs and the wolf pup we drag behind us is a testimony of our strength and power.
An auctioneer auctions off orphan children to whoever can afford them. Most will be employed as maids and as farmhands. I go over to the auctioneer, with Zayden in tow.
‘How much for the boy?’ I ask the dishevelled, broken-toothed man.
‘Six gold for the boy – twice what slaves usually fetch,’
‘Ten! He isn’t just any boy. He’s an Alpha’s boy. He’ll be much stronger than the average wolf,’ I explain.
‘Eight. I have to make a profit too. Otherwise, you can wait here all week and sell him yourself,’ the auctioneer says.
‘Done. Sold,’ I say, handing the chained boy to the auctioneer, who pushes Zayden into a cage and locks it with a key.
