Snagged by the Rogue [COMPLETED]

3.

Anaya.

Ironically, I slept soundly overnight. I was always exhausted after raids and apparently even the bombshell my father dropped on us couldn’t keep me awake.

It was the first thing on my mind when I woke up though. We are raiding the Darkhide Hounds. 

Why were we so terrified of the Darkhide Hounds you might be wondering. Well, I would love to give you a full history lesson about them so that maybe, you might get just a little bit of understanding. 

But we knew almost nothing about them. 

With a pack size of a few hundreds, the Hounds took up a vast area up north. And like I said before, they were Lycans. Not only were they Lycans though, it was rumored that their Alphas were direct descendants of the first Lycan king which would make them Lycan Royalty. 

Purebloods.

They were extremely powerful and didn’t take kindly to visitors which is why nothing else is known about them. 

So, to recap, my father was saying we were raiding Lycans led by Purebloods who hated visitors. 

And we were doing it today.

Awesome.

I lay on my bed, listening to the sounds of the early morning forest. I decided to go on a run to try to clear my head because lying on the bed and feeling my heart rate get faster and faster thinking about my father’s plan wasn’t going to help anything.

 I wasn’t expecting my father and brother to be up for another hour at least which is why I was surprised to find Tim in the living room. 

“Hey,” he said when he saw me, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” I studied his face. His eyes were red and had dark bags underneath them, “Did you sleep at all?”

He sat up and ran his hand over his face, snorting, “Was I supposed to? Who needs sleep when they’re going to die anyway?”

“Tim,” I said quietly, sitting beside him, “You know you have a choice, right? We all do.”

His eyes were tired and sad when he looked at me, “I don’t.”

Tim had always been like this. He lived to impress my father, to prove to him that he was a ‘man’. He was like an eager pet, ‘sitting’ and ‘rolling over’ just to get a ‘good boy’ from his owner. Except, Tim never got that. Dad didn’t feel Tim was doing anything special, just what he was supposed to do. 

When Tim, in his small 9-years-old wolf form, took on a small boar and won and brought the carcass home for us to eat, he was just feeding his family, which is what a man is supposed to do. 

When the wood at the back of the cottage became weak from termites and collapsed a few years ago, and Tim took charge and rebuilt it with wood from the forest, he was just doing some ‘light’ work around the house, which is what a man is supposed to do. 

So, I knew he would go on the raid tonight. He wouldn’t be able to face my father again if he didn’t. He would feel that he had finally proven that he wasn’t, after all, a man.

“Are you going?” He asked me. 

“I guess.”

He stiffened, “You can’t.”

Truthfully, I had no idea if I wanted to go. Even more truthfully, I was leaning more towards not going. But it rubbed me the wrong way the way Tim said I couldn’t with such finality. He could decide to be stupid and go but I couldn’t?

“Except that I can.”

“Ana-”

We both jumped as my father’s door opened. 

What was it with everyone waking up earlier than usual today??

After a raid, my father wasn’t up until afternoon. I guess he was anxious about his plan as well. 

*****************

After breakfast, three of us sat in the living room, not speaking. We were waiting to see if anybody else would show up. 

We had to leave earlier than our usual raids because the Darkhide Hound pack was intentionally a little remote, it would take a while to get there. 

I, ever the accurate time keeper, announced that it was now 2pm. Meaning we had an hour, give or take, before we had to leave. 

My father grunted but didn’t say anything. He had grown more and more sullen as the hours passed and nobody had shown. And knowing my father, he would soon channel it into anger, directed at anybody near him- which, today, happened to be my brother and I. 

Tim and I shared wary looks now. 

Then in walked Eric. 

“Let’s get this!” He said, as he sat down. He was the only one I knew who would be so excited for something that could potentially kill him.

Next was Sonya. She didn’t say anything, just sat beside me and stared at the ground.

One by one, everyone arrived and soon, all 9 of us were in the cramped living room.

I guess greed overpowers fear.

Our journey was silent and mostly uneventful. Tim kept shooting daggers at me after trying unsuccessfully to convince me to sit this one out. 

I was too caught up in my head to care though. Something about this raid felt different. Something inside me told me something big was coming. But instead of the normal human reaction to what I was feeling, i.e clammy hands, uneven breathing, my body felt eager. 

As if it couldn’t wait.

I didn’t dare voice any of this out though. They would chalk it up to me being a ‘girl’ and Tim would add it to his arsenal of reasons why I should have stayed home.

The journey took a while but still much sooner than any of us wanted, we had reached the north. 

Dad was right, they were having a celebration of some sort. There was loud music and from where we were waiting, we could see hundreds of people gathered at one spot which we assumed to be the Alpha’s house.

Everybody’s rituals seemed more fervent today. Dad and his friends were drinking more, Sonya was humming and then stopped and started praying in rapid Spanish, Tim disappeared as usual, Devon and Gabe who were usually rough-housing were quiet and still, even Eric who usually just smoked one cigarette was chain-smoking now and had gone through about three.

Me? Excitement was building up in me for reasons I couldn’t even begin to understand. I felt giddy. 

Something had to be wrong with me. We were walking to our death and I felt like it was my birthday.

“Let’s go,” my father announced, rising to his feet, making all heads snap to him. 

We could still see the tip top of the sun where it had fallen behind the horizon and my watch read 6:50 pm. Which meant it was still way to early to proceed.

“Vance,” Bolik said, “It’s early. Most of the pack is still at the party.”

Packing up his things, my father said, “Precisely. The party is at the Alpha’s house which is where we’re headed. Right now, their guard is the lowest it’s been for years. The crowd will help 
shield us. We have to go. Now.”

My heart was drumming in my chest. Tim wasn’t even back yet. 

“Tim isn’t back!”

“We have to go now,” my father repeated.

We followed him like sheep. 

Him, the shepherd leading us to slaughter.