Into the Light (Axe Druid Book 1)

by Christopher Johns

  “Try it.” The beast held its arms out. “The Pack is here, all around you. I wondered how long it would take for you to notice me, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so soon. Who was it that found me?”

  Yohsuke stepped forward a bit. The beast gave him a nod of what seemed like respect.

  “If the pack is here, then where is the alpha?” I asked. This place was starting to wear on my damn nerves.

  “I am the alpha.”

  Bullshit. “Fuck you. No alpha worth his salt would be caught dead talking to an unknown enemy right out of the gate. That’s why you were watching us, to see if you could find out what we can do.”

  More eyes off to our right, Bokaj informed us.

  Left and behind him where he was, too. Looks like he wasn’t lying about the Pack being here, Balmur supplied.

  “So, where’s your boss?” I asked.

  “Clever,” whispered a voice behind me. I turned to see an even larger Werewolf less than a foot away from me.

  It stood at almost eight and a half feet tall and was powerfully built with silvery-white fur. It looked at me intently with red eyes that shone in the light of the moon. They seemed to glow.

  Fuck, I thought and got ready to fight. I couldn’t get away by leaping back due to our first guest.

  Anybody catch this thing coming in? I asked.

  Everyone just shook their heads. Double fuck.

  “How is it that someone banished from Prime knows so much about how an alpha might act?” it asked.

  “I know things,” I said. “We all do.”

  “Clearly,” the Werewolf behind me said.

  “You may go now, omega. You did well enough.” I heard a snuff, then a clattering of claws.

  “So, this is your territory. What do we have to do to leave it?” I asked. “Unharmed.”

  “Again, clever,” it said. With its lips pulled back like they were, it looked like the creature was smiling. “You’ve been killing in our territory—that cannot be allowed.”

  “Look, we didn’t know, okay?” Bokaj spoke up. He had lowered his bow, but an arrow was at the ready.

  “Ignorance is hardly bliss here.” It shrugged. “I cannot show the weakness that just letting you go would imply.”

  “We clearly got off on the wrong foot here,” I said. I stepped closer to the alpha and offered it my hand. “I’m Zekiel. These are my friends, and we were banished here.”

  It looked at my extended hand before reaching out with its own clawed hand. The alpha’s grip was surprisingly gentle, even if the hand engulfed my own.

  “You may call me Pastela. I am the Alpha of this pack, and I have been since I took it from my lazy mate. He lacked vision. I do not.”

  “And what is this vision?” Balmur asked.

  “To see my people thrive,” she growled. “We will grow our numbers until we can contend with the world outside the forest. Then we do what we want. Starting with killing those who hunt us.”

  “And who would that be?” asked Jaken.

  “The Little Folk and the Seelie Fae,” she explained. “While we respect the Hunt, the bitch who holds the leash needs to die.”

  “We seem to be at odds with the Seelie Court as well. What, with them hunting us and all. Let us be on our way and deny them the pleasure of seeing their prey fall to the Wild Hunt,” Bokaj reasoned.

  “A sound rebuttal to what I said, Ice Elf,” she nodded, “but no.”

  She held her hand up and clenched her fist. The yellow eyes around us swept out from the limbs of the other trees like a tidal wave of fur. I couldn’t tell what everyone else was doing, but I was going out swinging.

  I cast a Fireball at the fuckers swarming from my right. The explosion knocked me backward a foot, and I almost lost my balance. I saw a large, white-clawed hand swipe at me, and then I was unconscious.

  * * *

  When we came to sometime later, we were in a cave behind a cell door, like the metal bars had been built into the stone itself. Except it wasn’t stone, it was wood. I tried to use Nature’s Hidden Path, but the wood was dead, no life force to meld mine to and pass through. The bars were much too close together for me to slip through in fox form as well. I could try to bend the bars, but that would make too much noise, and I had this nagging feeling that I was being watched.

  “You are awake,” a deep voice rumbled from behind me. I turned to find another set of bars. They were about seven feet away from each other, like a double-sided cage. There stood a man. No, an Elf with a wild look about him. His hair was matted, and his face handsome but dirty and scarred.

  “The mistress will be pleased.” He turned and began to walk away.

  “Where am I?” I tried to keep the building panic out of my voice. “Where are my friends? Let me the hell out of here.”

  He just ignored me as he walked on. I decided to take the opportunity to observe my surroundings. The ‘cave’ I was in was small. Two entrances, a ten-foot ceiling, and I was alone. So there either had to be more nearby, or I had been isolated for a reason. It mustn’t have been too long because the moon was still in the sky.

  They took everything I had been wearing while I was out, and I stared down at my nearly-nude body. At least they had left me some small clothes. I had my inventory still and my old weapons, but they wouldn’t be ideal in this environment.

  A short while later, after I had decided against trying to escape until I knew where my friends were, Pastela sauntered into view.

  “Good, you’re awake.” She grinned, flashing her sharp fangs in the moonlight. ”The time has come for you to join the pack. Your friends have all failed to turn, so I am curious to see if you will.”

  “What?!” I asked in shock. “What do you mean, failed to turn?”

  “Are you stupid?” she asked after looking at me. “Did I break your mind when I hit you?”

  “Answer my question first.”

  She chuckled, “They failed to turn. The Fae-Orc because his Goddess protected him from the gift. The Azer Dwarf because the gift burnt up as soon as it was given. Hurt one of my betas, too. The dark one… none would bite him, not even I. Dragon blood dominates all when in combination with Fae magics, so the Dragon Elf wasn’t so blessed to take the gift. The marksman, he was actually clever enough to escape. Some of the pack is out hunting him as we speak. That leaves you.”

  As she was explaining, I felt a presence behind me. I turned to see a Dwarf, well muscled and scarred, and a human, wiry and also scarred. I was beginning to sense a pattern here. They stood safely on the other side of the bars, so I didn’t pay them too much mind. My attention was on the bitch in front of me.

  “Your friends will make excellent slaves and playthings. After they break like these ones did, we will gather more to join our cause. Then we will sweep over the Fae realm like a cleansing fire.” She smiled at me sweetly, then touched the wall beside her on the right. “Bring him.”

  I hadn’t heard the bars fall into the ground, but two pairs of iron-like hands grasped both my arms and carried me forward. The bars between the alpha and I lowered silently with another press of her clawed fingers in a groove I hadn’t seen before, and then she led the way outside of my wooden cage.

  Once we stepped out, I realized we were close to the ground in the middle of a huge clearing. It was the size of a football field, and in the middle of all of it was a campsite. An altar in the center on a dais by a roaring fire drew my attention. The thing was six feet long and covered in furs with blood spattered over it.

  “I thought you said you were going to turn me?” I berated her for her lie.

  “I am. That is the blood of the Bitten. Those who are turned at the altar usually have more control of the gift. Do you prefer I bite you here and now and see how the change affects you?”

  I shut my fat mouth before I got myself or my friends killed. This was some bullshit, man. The two men dragged me down the sloping roots of this gigantic, dead tree into the throng of lycanthropes awaiting us. They howl
ed when their leader stepped up onto the dais where the altar was situated. The two slaves kicked the backs of my knees so that I ended up kneeling over the altar with the back of my neck exposed and held my arms out and away from my body. I struggled but didn’t budge them much.

  I wish I could say that there was some kind of ceremony. That the alpha looked to the sky and offered my blood to the moon in exchange for the ‘gift’ she hoped for me to claim. I wish I could say that receiving the bite was as romantic as I had hoped for when I was a kid, that I thought that this was going to make things better and put an end to my problems.

  Yeah, none of that sappy crap happened.

  The thought to shapeshift into my elemental form, any of them, came briefly to mind, but there were dozens of werewolves here, all of them slavering open-mouthed and eager. They wanted me to run. They wanted an excuse to hurt me.

  Fuck, they had my friends—if I ran, what would they do to my friends?

  I stiffened and fought the urge to break free, and they must have seen it as defiance. I heard a feral growl as not just the alpha but two more creatures bit into my flesh—the white werewolf at the neck, the others on my arms. I couldn’t even cry out in anguish because the teeth in the back of my neck were at the base of my skull, and I couldn’t move in the slightest. I didn’t dare. I was too afraid.

  One of the Werewolves must have caught the scent of my fear because instead of letting go of my arm, he started to chew. He shook his head once like a dog with a favorite toy, and teeth in my neck be damned, I growled at the pain. A notification popped up in front of my eyes unbidden, so I read it hoping to distract myself from the pain.

  Warning!

  You have been cursed with the ‘gift’ of Lycanthropy. As a lycanthrope, in this case a Werewolf, there are some perks.

  + 4 to Dexterity, + 2 to Strength, Wolf Form, and Hybrid Wolf Form.

  The trade off – loss of all magical abilities when shape-shifted due to the curse and increased bloodlust and rage in shape-shifted forms. Intense emotion can cause the curse to take hold and a silver allergy to make you howl. In pain, that is.

  Divine Intervention – As one of the Mother’s gifted, you can eventually learn to control this curse or be cleansed of it. This is the best that can be done with you in a different plane of existence. Please hurry back.

  * * *

  Shit. I lost consciousness again. I had fitful nightmares reminiscent of what I had back home.

  One where I was a snarling beast, ripping at my cage and anything nearby. Another where I tore into a side of meat that tasted heavenly. Each one tinged by red and hatred so deep and primal that it seemed alien to me. Granted, yes, normally, I’m an angry person in certain circumstances. I have daddy issues. Mommy issues, too. Screw it, let’s just chalk it up to issues, okay? Don’t judge. But this was unreal.

  Sometime later, I woke up with the worst cottonmouth. An earthen bowl was shoved into my face. I took it, sniffed it, and decided I didn’t care if it was poisoned. I sipped from it greedily before looking over the rim at my guest. It was a Kitsune, dark colored fur in the shadows of the tree-cave.

  “The first change is always the worst.” She smiled, but it didn’t quite touch her eyes. She had light scarring on her arms where the fur seemed to grow patchier. None on her face, though. “Come.”

  She made a gesture, and the cell door opened, letting me step out. My body ached, like I’d run ten miles with a hundred pound weight strapped to me. I cast Regrowth on myself, and it seemed to help a little bit.

  “Do not do that,” she hissed at me. “No magics, or they will attack you. The mistress must give permission first.”

  “I’ll do as I damned-well please,” I growled back at her. She flinched, and something in me seemed to stir. Red began to cloud my vision, and I had to stop following her because I was beginning to panic. I felt a thrum through my body, and my back went rigid. It was the change. I closed my eyes and willed my pulse to slow, corralled my anger, and breathed through it. It was something I had learned to do back home on bad days.

  After a few minutes of continuous breathing, the red began to recede. It was slow and took a few more minutes, but I didn’t flip shit and eat my guide. Good for me.

  The woman in front of me stared at me openly for another minute, then turned and motioned for me to follow her to the camp. Once we were amongst the other werewolves, I began to try and take everything in. There were no real buildings except the one we were walking toward, and that was more like a tent. Everyone seemed to be snoozing in the sun, so they were a mainly nocturnal sort of crew. Cool. There was a rather large, wooden structure away from the camp to what felt like east. It was crudely made from what I could make out. I’d have to get closer to find out what it was.

  Bad news was that I didn’t see my friends anywhere. I had to be discrete about how I observed everything. Otherwise, someone might gather that I was plotting something. Better to appear obedient for now, or at least somewhat. I wasn’t going to make this too easy.

  As we entered into the tent, more of a pavilion now that I was closer, I saw that most of the werewolves were eying me suspiciously.

  Oh boy.

  There was a large pile of furs over in the right corner of the roomy tent. There were potted ferns scattered here and there to really home-up the place—probably in an attempt to hide the chains on the floor, too, but you know, whatever. There was a nice brown and green rug that just pulled the whole forest inspired room together. Very impressive, I thought to myself sarcastically. I reached up to scratch my ear and realized that they had left my earring on! Yes! I couldn’t risk being distracted right now if the Big Bad Bitch of the Wood was here, but later I would be trying my luck.

  “How lovely of you to join me so soon.” The figure that had been at the desk turned around and smiled at me. It was an Elven woman with alabaster skin so white you’d thought she was made of milk. Her eyes, though, were as red as her werewolf form.

  “Pastela,” I said with what I hoped was only a mildly venomous tone.

  “That’s my name.” She smiled as she got up.

  She walked over to me, nude as the day she was born. I took quick inventory of whether she was armed or not—and she wasn’t—so I looked away. Her athletic form burned into my mind in a way that was unusual for me. Not too thin, muscled, and graceful were words that came to mind, and she wasn’t so athletic and firm that she was… well, let’s just not go there, shall we?

  “How did you like the change?” she asked as she stood in front of me. In this form, she was only slightly shorter than I was, and she could easily look into my eyes. “Ah, you don’t remember it? You were quite the savage. Injured three of the pack, bled that poor girl who brought you here pretty well, too. I had to heal her myself.”

  I looked at her, then in alarm as I realized how close she was; she was actually pressed up against me. I could feel her chest against my chest and arm; it made my skin crawl and my mouth go dry all at once. I looked for the woman who had brought me here, but she was gone.

  “The slave has other duties to attend to,” she said dismissively. “You have some here.”

  “Look, lady, I don’t know where the hell you get off but you will let me and my friends go, or–” I began and started to step forward. The red started to edge my vision, but I was holding it back already.

  “Or what?” she asked, her voice a little deeper and huskier all the sudden. “You’ll attack me? Would you really? All it would take is a thought, and the whole pack will drop you, then play with your friends as you watch, helpless to stop it. Now, I am a fair Alpha. Unlike my idiot former mate, I don’t kill everything that displeases me. I do, however, love to watch the hope leave someone’s eyes. It’s quite exciting, don’t you think?”

  She looked at me again, and this time, I recognized the predatory gleam in her eyes. She was enjoying this. I had come in here and done exactly what she knew I would. She was in control, and she knew it. She must have seen my reali
zation because she smiled again and clapped.

  “And I didn’t even have to order you. Oh good, this will be more fun that I thought.” She put her hand on my chest and began to slowly walk around me in a tight circle trailing her hand over my shoulders and back. She was looking me over like I was some kind of challenge. A prize to be mounted… on her wall.

  “You are going to help me create a stronger army,” she murmured from behind me. I could feel her breath hot on my neck, making my skin crawl again.

  “No.”

  She began to laugh softly and patted my shoulder. “You are going to be fun, Zekiel. Do I need to go get your cute, little Dwarf friend? Oh! Maybe that big, strapping Fae-Orc? He looked like he would do well under my ministrations.”

  “You leave my friends alone, you crazy bitch,” I growled at her. This time, I welcomed the rage.

  She walked around to stand in front of me and smiled again; her teeth had begun to look decidedly more wolfish. “Oh-oh.” She shook her head. “Can’t have that, now can we?”

  The burning rage subsided like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over my heart. The red tinge in my vision was gone.

  “Mate and agree to teach my army your Druidic skills, or I will beat you until you decide to listen to reason.” Her voice was no longer playful but commanding. “No? Fine, like I said before—I do so enjoy seeing the light of hope leave a person’s eyes. Be still.”

  Something took hold of my body, and I couldn’t move. I could breathe, and my eyes could move—but I couldn’t move. I was resisting mentally with everything I had. In my mind, I was screaming, roaring at my body to move, to fight, to rip her to shreds—anything.

  I stood there, unmoving as she stripped me of what little clothing—rags really—that was still on my body. Then she did as she pleased. She arched her clawed hands over my back and chest and bit into my arms and shoulders. At one point, she even lifted me by my throat, and I couldn’t breathe. She beat me as many times as she pleased throughout the evening. She looked me in the eyes the entire time, laughing at my fear and pain well into the night.