[Elara's POV]
I retreated slowly backward, taking cautious steps. I couldn't look away from the forest in the distance, those eyes still watching me. "You have to run!" I couldn't tell if it was my wolf that said that or just my instinct.
I stumbled to the ground, slipping on a stone. My heart, which had seized, started pumping faster than usual.
Managing my stance back, "This was it," I said to myself as I turned, hoping to make a run for it, but paused when I caught no sight of the path I had taken to reach here. As though it had vanished, swallowed by the wall of thick mist. "How? No, this can't be happening?"
Checking around me, staring at those crimson eyes, each place I looked, I was cornered.
My legs staggered even more as though my blood had dried off suddenly. I could feel the beads of sweat that formed on my skin.
But no, this couldn't just be misfortune, nor coincidence... the whole incident of me being here. "Was I lured here?" I paled, figuring that very thought. But by whom? Was it Rendell? Kieran? Or someone I hadn't even noticed pulling the strings?
Many questions kept coming to mind. My steps staggered the more and just then, I froze when I watched several black wolves emerge from the forest.
Their eyes pierced right through me, causing me to crumble to my knees. They didn't attack immediately; instead, they walked with each step deliberately. The aura they emitted wasn't one to kill their predator. But was I wrong to think they wanted me alive—possibly to capture me or take me somewhere?
But wherever this was, I knew it wasn't good. I had to stop them. I can't die here... no, no, that can't happen. Yet, I was faced with one shattering fact: I had no weapon, nothing but my bare hands and whatever I could find on the forest floor.
"What am I really going to do?" I thought.
The wolves were getting closer; I had to do something. I found myself grabbing one of the broken branches and swung it. "Stay away!" I yelled, trying to fend myself. This wasn't going to help, was it? But still, I can't just go down so easily; I had to try; I just had to do something.
But while I was there thinking of what I could do, it only seemed I had failed to realize when they had surrounded me. My eyes darting to each one of them, growling, teeth grinding. Knowing one leap without defending myself right would possibly lead to my death. And just then, one of them sprang at me, claws ready to strike. "Ahh!" I screamed out loud, my legs slipping as it pulled me down to the dirt.
His teeth growling, one that I placed the broken branch in. Trying. I can't let it... "Just stay away..." I yelled the more, the rest were getting closer by the second.
My kicks gave in to my survival instincts as I found myself kicking and kicking at the wolves that stood on top of me, but what was I doing? This was my only choice, one that was put to silence when the very branch I placed my hope on snapped in the very second.
I felt a sharp sting, one that exploded through my whole nerve as the wolf's fang tore deep into my skin. "Ahhha!" I screamed louder, groaning in pain. Blood soaked through my clothes, and just then, he readjusted himself back. It only seemed they were truly planning on leaving me alive. "But yet, I can't just allow it."
I had no idea where they had planned on taking me.
Possibly something even worse than death.
My chest tightened harder. I could see my blood spraying; I was losing way too much blood. An ache kept stinging, getting sharper and sharper in my head. My vision grew blurry, but even so, my hands never ceased for the moment as I crawled through the dirt, blood mixing with it.
Eyes darting back at the wolves that growled continually, they were going to strike any minute now. Was there any escape from them in the beginning? This, everything just made me recall two years ago.
The same fear I had of me being dragged to my death. My lost hope shattered when the guards had struck the last final blow, wanting me dead.
I had survived then, hadn't I? But now, it only seemed like fate wasn't offering second chances.
Yet, I questioned more. Why? Just why do I have to face all this? It only felt like the world was trying to break me. Should I say this was because of my bloodline—the one whispered legend? Am I cursed simply for being born?
Life hadn't been so great for me in the first place, and now this. I coughed harder, the dust sinking deep into my lungs, but just then, my struggle felt like it had vanished into thin air when they dragged me alive.
The stones grazed my injured skin. I couldn't feel my legs; my limbs had gone numb, and it only seemed my vision grew blurrier.
"So this was the feeling when you're close to dying?" I thought.
Eyes looking up at the dark sky. I was never meant to be alive in the first place. Why struggle, why not give in? There was no escape; I should have accepted that from the beginning.
My swollen eyes poured out more tears, ones that splattered on the dirt as they dragged me further. "So I am really going to die..." I thought.
My eyes shut in those moments, ready to surrender, until I heard it—the sound that echoed through the forest. "Howl!" A wolf howling, loud, sharp, and commanding. My skin dried from the blood freezing.
My shut eyes snapped back open, then I caught sight of it... a massive silver wolf. Its fur was gleaming like moonlight, eyes glowing gold as it burst through the forest, charging toward us.