Her laughter seemed to erupt from her belly, rich and unrestrained, as the sound of it floated to my ears across the clearing. She still continued to kneel in the dirt, but one look at her face when she raised her head and she might as well have been standing over me.
An arrogant look stretched across her face as she met my gaze with a grin before rising to her feet and dusting the sand from her knees, as though this moment meant nothing at all.
Worse was watching the rest of my family step out of the building behind her, almost like they had simply been waiting for a sign. The wooden doors creaked as they opened, and one by one they filtered out into the afternoon light. There were a couple more people I recognized among them—pack elders and hunters—but I ignored them.
"What is this?" I asked Lilian. The dead bodies still hung from the trees, their limp forms swaying faintly in the breeze, and their stench was still just as terrible.
"What… what's going on?" I asked, my voice so low it cracked as I raised my fingers to scratch at my throat, which had suddenly gone dry.
Apprehension filled my body as fear followed close behind. The pain in my chest had abated somewhat, but it didn't matter as I stepped closer to Lilian, my boots scraping softly against the dirt.
"What—" but I didn't get to finish my words.
"What does it look like? We allied with the Moonburn pack, and everyone that was against it is dead," she said with a careless shrug, as I watched the rest of my family move forward to stand beside her.
Their gazes of disapproval were fixed firmly on me.
As they began to speak one after the other.
"Raven… this is the best course of action," Mother began, her tone measured and cold, but I was barely listening as I heard a light buzzing in my head.
"…thank your sister. Any longer and I would have had you whipped for insubordination," Father added with a grave expression on his face, his arms folded behind his back in the formal posture he used when addressing the pack.
"…they arrive today! What do you think would happen to us if we have no information to give them?" he continued.
"You would sacrifice—"
"Yes," Lilian said, cutting in before I could finish. "I would sacrifice others to protect myself. It's the way of the world," she said with another shrug, as if she were discussing the weather.
But the panic in my chest only began to ease slightly when I realized something important.
I didn't know their exact location.
The forest between our packs was vast—ancient and sprawling, with old-growth trees that had stood since long before any of our packs were formed. It stretched for miles in every direction, tangled with ravines, streams, and caves that only wolves knew how to navigate.
Maybe… just maybe, they would find nothing.
But the thought had only just settled in my mind when I heard the distant thunder of hooves and the sharp neighing of horses somewhere beyond the outer clearing. The sound carried through the trees, echoing against the hills.
It didn't take long before they galloped out of the forest.
A dozen riders emerged from the treeline, their horses snorting clouds of breath in the cooling afternoon air. Each rider wore a hooded cloak of dark fabric that concealed most of their features. Nothing about their countenance suggested they were here for a peaceful visit, so I stared hard at them as they ordered their horses forward.
Most people in the pack no longer stayed inside their homes. Doors creaked open and villagers stepped out into the open, gathering along the dirt paths and near the training grounds. Fear and awe were clearly written across their faces.
They seemed far more knowledgeable about what was happening than I was.
"Alpha!" one of the riders barked out in a rough growl.
He was the biggest among them, sitting tall in the saddle as if he owned the ground beneath our feet. With a sharp motion he pushed back his hood, revealing a hardened face carved with deep lines and scars.
Scars on a werewolf were rare.
They were something possible only through silver torture—when silver blades or chains were allowed to burn deep enough into flesh that the wound healed around the poison, leaving permanent marks even after the wolf's regenerative abilities did their work.
"Where is the Alpha?" he demanded, his voice booming across the clearing.
I was shocked to see my father step forward from the crowd. There was a slight crack in his pride as anger flared in his eyes, but he still tilted his head to the side in a gesture that resembled respect rather than true deference.
"I am Cavin, Alpha of the Mistvalley!" Father said.
It was obvious from the tension in his shoulders that the man he was speaking to was not an Alpha.
I wasn't even sure he was the Beta.
My heart began to thump harder and faster in my chest as I noticed the leather bags hanging from the sides of their saddles. The riders carried weapons inside them.
The kinds I had only heard about in whispers.
"According to the instructions of the messenger, everyone is united in becoming a vassal to you—" Father began.
But he didn't get to finish.
The man cut him off abruptly, rage radiating from him as if the very idea offended him.
I felt the tiniest flicker of satisfaction as the middle-aged rider—weathered, with a thick mustache resting above his lips—spoke down to Father from the height of his horse.
"…the Blood Moon pack. Where are they?" he demanded.
His voice boomed far louder than it needed to, snapping and degrading as he looked down at us with open disgust. Everything about his posture suggested he didn't want to spend a single moment longer among us if he could help it.
Father was furious.
That much was clear from the tight clench of his jaw and the way his fingers curled at his sides.
But he spoke despite it, fire blazing in his eyes as he began to describe the location of the Moonburn pack.
Using the exact same words I had told my sister earlier.
My heart clenched painfully in my chest as I balled my fists together.
Listening to him repeat the directions I had given.
My panic only worsened when I watched the leader nod slowly before raising one hand and swinging himself down from his horse in a fluid motion.
The others followed immediately.
One after another they threw off the hoods covering their heads, revealing the dark traveling leathers they wore beneath. Their faces were filled with varying expressions of disgust as several of them sniffed the air and spat onto the ground, clearly repulsed by the smell of death hanging in the clearing.
Then it happened.
In seconds, the riders—nearly a dozen of them—shifted into their werewolf forms.
Bones cracked and reshaped with sickening pops, muscles swelling beneath their skin as fur burst through. My mouth fell open as massive beasts took the place of the men who had stood there moments before.
They were enormous.
My father's wolf was the only one that came close in size.
The rest towered over even him, their shoulders broad, their jaws filled with teeth that gleamed like knives in the fading light.
Any one of them could crush most of us.
All of them together could wipe out our entire pack.
And there would be nothing we could do about it.
In the next moment they bolted toward the forest.
Their powerful legs carried them across the clearing and into the trees in seconds, vanishing into the shadows as leaves and branches trembled in their wake.
Tears slowly began to slide down my face.
I lowered my head and prayed desperately to the Moon Goddess that by her grace, the Moonburn pack had already moved deeper into the forest.
That they had somehow escaped.
Everyone eventually returned to their homes to wait.
Doors closed. Windows shuttered. The pack retreated into uneasy silence.
But I simply sat outside on the ground, my legs weak beneath me, staring at the treeline and hoping against hope that the riders would return with nothing.
That my prayers would be heard.
But by evening, they finally returned. They came back in their wolf forms and their fur was completely drenched in blood.
I felt my heart break inside my chest as a gasp escaped my lips. Tears flooded my eyes as I stared at the beasts standing in the clearing.
Angry.
Terrified.
Broken.
Then the leader of the riders lifted his massive head. His gaze locked directly onto me and slowly, his mouth widened into a bloody smile.