Chapter 1

*1 Year ago*

Fire. That’s almost all I could see. Apart from the corpses of my pack. My eyes searched the ground as I searched for any survivors. I shivered and rubbed up and down my bare arms. My clothes that I had left near the wolf’s edge had caught fire. I was left nude as I searched for my family. I should have just stayed in wolf form. My human form was much weaker and got cold easy.

When I did find my family, my hands fell from my arms. I dropped to my knees at my mother’s side. Her blue eyes stared up at the sky, seeing nothing. I shivered once more and this time I knew it was anger instead of the chill of the October night. I heard hoots and hollers from where the pack house was. I looked at my father. My sister. I should have stayed with them. I should have never gone on that run. Maybe things would have turned out different for them.

I stood slowly after closing each pair of eyes. I crept cautiously around the fires and saw men I did not recognize. The pack house was broken down, maintaining only half it’s structure. The alpha’s wife was tied to a tree nearby the celebrating strangers. I looked for my alpha but when I spotted him, my anger spiked to a point I saw red. A shrill scream ripped through the air and I turned my head just in time to watch my Luna fall into her own pool of red. I snarled lowly.

I crouched, about to pounce, hiding behind a battered structure of the pack house. But then a whimper caught my attention. I straightened my back and looked around. Someone was still alive. Someone in my pack had survived. I followed the sound with my sharp hearing and hoped that the strangers wouldn’t hear it too.

I found the source of the noise hidden in a bunch of bushes about a yard from the broken down pack house. I pulled back the green leaves and sticks to see a young boy. In the dark, it was hard to make out who he was. But as the light from the fires flickered across his face, I realized who he was.

“Daniel..” I whispered.

He gazed at me with his big blue eyes. He was only five years old. He was the only male child of the alpha and Luna so far. His face was red from the salty tears that ran down to his mouth. He seemed to recognize me as well but he was also too terrified to speak. And in that moment, I realized that the celebration had silenced. My eyes widened.

The strange men must have heard us. Or me. I tried to look through the flames but could not see a thing. I looked back at the terrified young boy. I shook my head, picked him up with ease and ran into the forest. I couldn’t run far without making us noticable so I stopped and looked around us.

We were around two hundred yards from the burning village. I saw a figure coming to where we had just been and knew they had come to investigate the small noises. I got Daniel on my back and climbed the nearest tree.

The dark night was to our advantage to an extent. Werewolves can never have night vision but one wiff of our scent and the men would climb this tree faster than I could run away. The man looked at the edge of the forest but came no closer to it. The different scents around him seemed to confuse him.

He turned away and I let out a shallow breath. I took Daniel into my arms and put my finger to my lips. He understood me and silenced his small whimpers. For a five year old, I was glad he was so advanced. He put his head against my chest and hung onto my hair. I swung down from the top of the tree with my free arm, the other arm holding Daniel.

I looked back at the flames one last time and ran the opposite way. I held onto Daniel with a firm grip and kept running until I could no longer smell my pack, until I could no longer see the battered structures of the homes, until I could no longer see the flames of my former home.

Daniel cried himself to sleep slowly. My bare chest was warm and I felt that he found comfort in me. He was my responsibility now. And I would take care of him like a mother would. He was the last of my pack and that made me hold him closer as he began to snore.