“You aren’t…” the man began, but soon he was yanked off his horse and lying on the ground with Sera’s boot heal at his throat.
“I’m the next Red,” she declared, authority ringing in her voice. “And what I say goes.”
The rest of the riders all bowed their heads to her.
“Castiel is going to explain to you our plan, and you’re going to follow exactly what he says.” Sera nodded at me.
I didn’t exactly have a plan; it was time to think on my feet.
“Micco is picking his top ten wolves, and we’re going to spread out to find the child,” I explained. One man began to open his mouth to protest, but Sera gave him a glare that shut him right up. “The wolves can track better than any human like you or I. We need their skills as I found the wolf in question has laid almost a dozen trails for us to follow. If we track each one at a time, we won’t find him by the time the sun comes up. This is quicker, and the wolves all want to help. Not a single one would hurt the child in question. I trust them with my life and the child’s life.”
“But they are wolves, they won’t track one of their own,” a brave man spoke even though he was facing the wrath of Sera.
“We don’t condone biting humans and especially taking children. I have more than enough wolves that will gladly track down whoever did this and apprehend him,” Micco replied. “We aren’t killers, and this lone wolf will be punished.”
The men on horses didn’t seem to want to let me and the wolves track the rogue wolf, but Sera wasn’t taking no for an answer. She nodded to me as I turned to Micco, who was already ready to dole out their assignments.
“Each wolf takes a direction. Weave in a search pattern and then make your way back. If you find anything, alert us all,” Micco directed them before stepping back and turning into a wolf himself. The tree men on horses all stared in shock at the older wolf but stayed right where they were.
“I’m going with Micco,” I said to Sera. She nodded, still holding the lead man hostage with her boot.
“I’ll keep the village safe,” she told me. That was all I needed to hear; I nodded as I took off after Micco.
It had been a long time since I’d seen the older gray wolf. And he was a sight to be seen. As alpha, he was more than twice the size of an average wolf. I was used to running with my friend, Nikkan, but he was only a teen; Micco was like a giant compared to him.
It didn’t take us long to pick up one of the scents. Tracking in the woods could be hard if you didn’t know where you were going, but the woods were home to both of us. Micco picked up speed off in the dark, and I followed. He wasn’t going to lose me in the night. The rogue wolf had run that trail not too long ago.
Mcco continued heading north. When I first heard the cry, it made me miss a step in my run, but I was able to right myself before I fell. As Micco ran in the wrong direction, I turned toward the baby. This rogue wolf wasn’t just dangerous because he had no control over his wolf; this wolf was smart and had left a trail that even the alpha was going to follow. If the child hadn’t been crying, we might have missed it.
“This way,” I said to Micco, who was now several saplings ahead of me as he ran.
Micco skidded and altered his run to match mine without question, not like he could question me while in wolf form.
It didn’t take us long to find a baby, almost a toddler, sitting in the woods. There was dirt all over the poor kid, but it didn’t look like any blood. The child cried as we stopped and looked around. The rogue wolf had to be close by. I could smell but not hear him. Micco took a couple of brave steps towards the baby before I spotted the wolf. His growl shook the leaves around him as he got ready to pounce.
“East,” I called to Micco, who turned his head just in time to see the wolf leaping out at him.
I didn’t wait to see what Micco would do but instead ran across the woods to the child and scooped it into my arms. The wolf lunged for us, trying to get past Micco. Micco used his massive body to protect me and the child. I looked back the way we came and wondered what would be the best thing to do. Do we try to run past the fighting wolves and back to the village, or would it be better to stay away from the fight by getting up in the trees where the wolves couldn’t get to the child?
I didn’t have time to decide as the fight moved closer to me, forcing me to climb the closest tree. Without hesitation, I tucked the young child into my shirt and tied it tighter against my body. The baby continued to cry as I grabbed the lowest branch and hauled us off the ground. Using one hand to support the child and one hand to balance, I made my way to the center of the tree to go higher. When I knew we were far enough off the ground, I stopped and pulled the child out of his make-shift sling. He continued to cry but was quieter now that we were further away from the fighting.
Down below us, Micco continued to fight the rogue wolf. To say the rogue was stronger than normal was an understatement. He was fighting equal to Micco, and Micco was the alpha and strongest of all of the wolves. This sickness was giving the wolves super strength, and that was one more problem the people of Elder didn’t want to have to deal with.
Quickly, I checked over the child. There didn’t seem to be any teeth marks or scratches. He was dirty from head to toe, and his clothing was ripped in more than one place, but he was fine. I looked into his eyes, and the moon was bright enough for me to see he still had brown eyes. The child hadn’t been bitten and was still a normal human. Thank goodness. Now that I knew he was fine, I anxiously wanted to get him back to his people. The sooner they saw there wasn’t a problem, the sooner they would leave, and the wolves would be safe, for now at least.
I watched as Micco slowly wore down the lone wolf. It would have been a quicker fight if Micco was going for the kill, but instead, he seemed to be just trying to subdue the wolf. I only knew which wolves were my friends, so I had no idea who the rogue wolf was, but it seemed Micco did. I kept the child tucked in my arms as Micco worked away at the rogue wolf. After what felt like forever but could have only been moments, Micco had the wolf trapped and hurt bad enough it couldn’t get away. I saw it was now time for me to get the child back to the tree villagers who were waiting at the wolf village.
Easier than going up, I jumped down to the ground in one motion. Micco growled at the rogue wolf, who dared to lift his head and look at the child. Wolf Micco couldn’t talk to me, but I knew it was better to get the tree people away from the village as fast as I could. I knew he’d understand why I was leaving him.
“I’ll send backup to help you,” I told Micco, but he shook his head. He didn’t want help, but he didn’t have much of an option. The wolf couldn’t get away; who knew what it would do next? “You plan to stay here all night like that?”
Micco nodded. I wasn’t about to fight with him. I would get the child back to his people and then come to help Micco.
My return was quicker than anyone expected as all the wolves seemed to be still following trails or fanning out in the woods to search. Sera still held the man on the ground, and many of the tree villagers were on the ground now by their horses. I could see more than one was holding their weapons even if Sera hadn’t authorized anything like that.
“I found the child,” I told the crowd as I approached. Wolves and tree villagers alike started to chatter in happiness at what I was holding.
Sera looked up at me and nodded. She let the man at her foot go and took the young child from me. After a quick check over, she turned to her people.
“Go home,” she ordered them with only the authority the next Red could have.
The tree villagers lingered for only a moment before turning around to head back to the tree village.
“Charles,” Sera called to the man she had been keeping on the ground. “I’ll be borrowing your horse, and you can ride back with another one of your friends that aren’t supposed to be here.”
Charles scowled but handed the reigns over to Sera. She handed me the child as she climbed up on the horse
. I handed him back to her once she was seated.
“I’ll personally return him to his mother,” she told me. I nodded as she turned and faded back into the dark trees of the forest on top of the horse she borrowed. The child calmed in her arms and was quiet before they were out of view.
I didn’t wait for anyone to ask as I made my way back into the woods too. I followed the path back to where Micco was still with the rogue wolf. I paused as I neared and smelled blood. That wasn’t a good sign. I took off running to help Micco, who might have been overpowered by the weird powers of the rogue wolf, only to skid to a halt where I left him.
Human Micco was standing over the body of another human. He was bending down to pick the other man up.
“Micco…” I didn’t know what to say.
I knew who the man was. It was only days before that Micco showed me his friend Nathan, who was one of the first wolves to get sick. He was doing everything in his power to keep his friend alive. No matter how it went down, the sickness had taken its first wolf.
5th March
The sun was high in the sky by the time I woke the next morning. I really didn’t want to get out of bed after the disaster of the day before. What started out as a fun day with a festival that made me forget all the problems of Elder ended with a reminder that Elder needed help. I was kind of wishing it was all a dream even if I knew I couldn’t be that lucky.
I never knew the real details; I don’t think Red shared them with anyone, but I knew that Elder was a better place because the curse was gone. The place I was raised had problems, just like any kingdom, but it was working towards a new era where the people of Elder were one people and not divided tribes. At least, that was what Red was going for the night before. It didn’t exactly turn out that way.
Eighteen winters ago, Red had faced and beat the curse. While that didn’t mean the wolves would be free from turning into animals, it meant the wolves regained control of their animal. They could change or not change at will and remembered every moment they were in their wolf form. As my best friend, Nikkan, had explained to me more than once, being a wolf meant having a second person in his head, he was still in control of that person. The curse was when they lost that control. Anyone with the wolf side could be called by the moon to turn into a vicious wolf that would attack humans at will.
The curse divided Elder. The non-cursed people fought and feared the cursed. Neighbors turned on neighbors. No one was safe. Nighttime became dreaded as people feared the wolves in the woods. The human-only people retreated to the safety of the trees. Elder was a different place then, and no one wanted to go back to that.
The divide was something Red had worked so hard to stop. Even after the curse was broken, people stayed in the trees, and the wolves stayed in their villages. Red could see that they needed to be one kingdom and tried her best to encourage everyone to get along. That was ruined now. All her work had gone out of the window.
What we saw last night was just like everything that had ever been described to me before. I wasn’t alive when the curse happened, but I knew all about it. Most of my childhood had been spent sitting in meetings of people seeking retribution from Red for what had happened to them winters before. The curse touched everyone and devastated many families.
I groggily made it out of bed and was disappointed to find Nikkan was still gone. Three nights without him felt like the longest we had ever been apart in the past three winters. It was strange. Yes, he was a wolf, and no, he wasn’t related to me, but he felt more like my family than anyone. He was my brother in every sense of the word but blood. I hated to fight with him, but I knew he just needed to cool down. I could wait for him, but it was still weird to be in my house alone.
Breakfast was going to have to be tea, and I needed to go hunting. There was close to nothing left in my cupboards, and even more so, I needed to be up and going. I didn’t have time to hunt, though I needed to. Azren had supplies I could get, but I preferred to hunt for my food, and that way, owe nothing to anyone. But hunting would have to wait; the wolves needed their fence now more than ever.
I heard someone outside the door to my house and hurried over to open it. I was going to be glad to have Nikkan back to talk to. There was too much that happened, and I needed his opinion on it all. He was a wolf, but he never really acted like one. He was pretty impartial most of the time and was good to bounce ideas off. Together we could come up with some great, and sometimes not so great, plans.
I opened the door and tried not to be disappointed. Sera stood there looking at me, waiting for me to invite her in. It wasn’t Nikkan, after all.
“What do you want?” I asked, a little harsher than I intended. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t Nikkan, but she wasn’t the face I wanted to see right after waking up.
It wasn’t that Sera wasn’t a pretty face to see. She was beautiful when she wasn’t scowling. But we never got along the best. Somehow, she always pushed my buttons, and I did my best to do the same to her. We had nothing to be competitive about, but we still were. I couldn’t help it. Something about Sera made me want to try harder and do better. I couldn’t let myself be bested by her no matter how much I really didn’t care about something.
“Tsk, tsk,” Sera said as she pushed her way into my house just like she always did.
Sera had grown up with me for the most part. My mother insisted on keeping track of her over the winters. Therefore, we visited her and her parents often. They were one of the few human people of Elder left living in the woods on the ground. They refused to move to the trees, and Red made sure they had a cottage protected by enchantments to keep the wolves out.
Needless to say, that made them into really tough people, and Sera inherited all of that toughness from her parents. She tended to say what she thought when she thought it, and that meant we didn’t always see eye to eye. Sure, I had opinions about everything, too, but I knew when to keep my mouth shut. Sera didn’t.
“I came all the way here to collect you and find you sleeping until the sun’s at the highpoint of the day. You’ve probably missed two meals already. Bet you were planning to sleep until supper time, lazy,” she said as she walked around my house, scrutinizing it as she went. She looked in my sink as she passed it and raised one eyebrow at me.
Yes, there were dirty dishes in the sink, but who cared? This was my house. I didn’t have to live like Red, the perfect leader of the kingdom of Elder. My house didn’t need to have everything in complete order like Red’s house. I never recalled seeing even one thing out of place growing up. Red was perfect; I was not. This was my house, and if I wanted to leave a dish in the sink, I could do that. I didn’t need Sera’s opinion or approval.
Sera made her way back to me after inspecting my house. I just stood with my arms crossed and waited. I really didn’t have time to argue with Sera. I had things to get done, and obviously, I’d overslept.
“Red asked me to fetch you,” Sera finally told me, looking me over like she was checking to see if I was even dressed for the day. I was basically dressed since I had slept in my clothing the night before when I got home so late.
“Like as in, she wants me there today?” I asked.
Really? Red had great timing. I had better things to do than spend another day at the tree village. It wasn’t like she needed my account of the night before. She already had Sera, who was there the whole time. I was ready to argue with Sera when she continued talking.
“I wasn’t to return without you,” Sera added, touching the cupboard like she was checking for dust.
Yep, Red wanted me there today.
“Fine,” I said, unable to avoid the inevitable.
If Red demanded I be somewhere, I had to go. At least, for now. When I had my place completely self-sufficient, I wouldn’t have to be at her beck and call. And really, I’d do anything to get Sera out of my house.
I motioned for Sera with a grand wave to leave out the door I held open for her and shut it behind us as we left.
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br /> “Race you?” I dared her once we were both outside in the clearing before my house.
Just because I had to go to the tree village didn’t mean I had to waste my whole day. The sooner I got there, the sooner I could be done and back to the wolves to help them.
Sera wasn’t one for backing down from a challenge, and she took off full speed into the woods. I laughed at her head start and ran after her.
It didn’t take me very long to catch up with her. Yes, Sera had the power of the Red and could see better in the daylight than the dark night before, but what she didn’t realize last night was that I could go faster than we had run when tracking the rogue wolf. I only kept pace with Sera and Grace, but alone I could have been to the wolf village quicker.
Sera pumped her arms quicker as I caught up beside her, but she was unable to break away from me. She expertly jumped and ducked branches in her pathway as I did the same. Gritting her teeth, she tried to get ahead of me, but I just smiled. I wasn’t going at my full pace yet; I was just keeping up with her. Knowing that we would be there soon at this pace, I decided to pull in front just a little to drive her nuts. Sera huffed and tried to keep up with me.
Racing was actually a great idea. My blood was pumping, and my brain was thinking faster about everything. The wolves needed help. Micco shouldn’t have to bear the weight of their problems alone. Red needed to see that, but she didn’t go the night before to the wolves. I didn’t have time to ask Sera, but something was up. What did Red need from me?
Breaking through the tree line, we made it to Red’s cottage on the ground in record time. She stood outside the doorway, holding a steaming cup of tea, staring into the woods. Red wasn’t staring in our direction as I pulled to a stop two saplings away from her. Red continued to stare into the trees.
“Not fair,” Sera said as she stopped beside me, panting from her exhaustion. I had barely broken a sweat.
Heir of the Curse Page 2
