Chapter 6

It was something close to hell, hiking through the woods with him. My inner wolf was fully awake now at the worst possible time. Everything in me was screaming to go back, to return to my fated mate. My fated mate, the enemy, who probably very much wanted me dead. I didn’t want to die. So I kept hiking despite my wolf’s protest.

Ziron, for his part, was silent, leaving me to my internal struggle. He was probably fighting his own demons. He’d just watched his home, his family go up in smoke.

I was one to talk, we were probably walking towards the charred and smoking remains of my home, of my family. I didn’t have a lot of hope in them. That they won, that there is anything left of my world to return to.

But I kept walking forward anyway because I didn’t have anywhere else to go, nothing else to do. Just put one foot in front of the other, leaning on trees, stepping over rocks.

There was nothing left. I was right.

When we got there, my home was gone. My family was bodies on the ground.

We came out of the woods and stood on the edge of what used to be my pack’s cabin group. Fourteen cabins, all in a little circle, a little community to protect each other. They were gone now, the charred remains still smoking up from the earth.

I found the bodies of my parents in the ashes of my house. I didn’t look at them, their bloody remains, the skin peeling off their burned bones. I turned my face away. And I saw Ziron.

He had the same look of utter helplessness in his eyes. His family wasn’t here, he could see that. There was no family left, no home, no safety for either of us.

We were all that was left.

“I’m sorry.” I said. My voice was low and cracking, the smoke in the air making me wheeze.

“I know,” he replied. I leaned on a tree and it helped me sink to the ground. The cold grass helped me feel a little less like the world was spinning out of control. He sat beside me.

“I knew when you came,” he said, his voice soft. “My dad told me. That your pack was gone. That we might be next.”

“And you spent your last night making out with a girl in the kitchens?” I asked. My tone was harsher than I had meant it to be, but I was emotional. I was angry. Not at him, but he got caught in the crossfire.

He dropped his eyes.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” he said. “I didn’t want to believe that it was all so fragile that in a moment… it could all be gone.”

I looked around. When mother had sent me away, she’d promised I’d come back. She’d promised that there would be a home to return to. She’d lied. And I was angry.

“I don’t have a wolf.” I said it forcefully, spit out the truth with intent. I was tired of the lies. Tired of the pain the lies brought. If Ziron and I were all that was left, I was going to be honest with him.

“I don’t have a wolf, that’s why mother sent me away. I couldn’t fight with the others.”

“…I don’t have a wolf either.”

After the revelations we just sat together, silently, for a long time. The two of us, still in our pajamas, scratched up and weary from hiking through the woods, covered in ash and soot and tears. Wolfless.

What were the odds. Two heirs to two packs, both without wolves, both orphaned overnight.

It was ironic. Almost funny. But I wasn’t laughing.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

It was a good question. I didn’t have the answers.

“The Moonbloods will kill us if they find us,” I said quietly. I was sure about that.

“So, we don’t let them find us.”

“What do you suggest. We have nowhere to go, no shelter, no food, and no wolves. Have you ever even been out of your pack before?”

He dropped his eyes. That was all the answer I needed.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to die,” I said firmly. “And we will die if we stay here.”

“What’s your plan then? We go to another pack and beg for them to let two wolfless orphans in? We both know how that would go.”

It was true. We didn’t have anywhere to go.

And nothing left to lose.

So…

“I’ve got a crazy idea.”