Children of the Moon

Chapter 11 - Granted Freedom

---Nyra’s POV---

I stared up, trying to figure out whatever was holding me. It definitely wasn’t a wolf nor any animal I had heard about. Its face was flat and weirdly furless, except for the brown locks that flowed over the top and back of its head, decorated with a few wooden rings and some feathers.

Blinking in confusion, I growled as it lifted me higher so we were face to face. Its brownish eyes shone with curiosity, as it reached an equally furless paw up towards my muzzle. Growling, I tried to wriggle out of its hold but it was fruitless, as it simply held on tighter, relaxing again when I stopped wriggling.

“Where are their tails?” Coda barked out in surprise, making me want to turn around to see if I could spot a tail on these creatures. The two that captured us were talking in that weird language, which made my ears flutter and strain, trying to understand what they were saying.

“Can you understand them Coda? I can only understand parts of it.” I breathed, looking up at the creature as it was still staring down at me, now frowning as he looked from me to my brother and shook his head, telling something to the creature behind me.

“Same here sis. Why are we so far away from the pack? If we were closer, we could have alerted them!” He whined softly before he yelped in pain, making me trash in the hold of that thing, wanting to protect my brother.

“Easy wolf, calm down!”

I froze as I understood what that thing said. Looking up at him with widened eyes, I saw him blink in confusion and shock, as if he couldn’t belief that I listened to him. I couldn’t belief it myself, but when Coda whined again, I started thrashing again, snarling wildly as I used my paws to scratch at the furless skin of that creature.

He dropped me with a pained hiss as blood seeped out of a few shallow scratches, while I crashed on the ground. Another of those creatures was bent in a threatening position over Coda, who was whimpering and whining as he tugged with his leg, desperately trying to get out of the vine around his hind leg.

The creature reached out for him and my paws reacted before my mind registered what I was doing. I darted in between the creatures opened legs and snapped at his hand, successfully nipping at the skin before he pulled back with a shout.

“Are you okay Coda?” I asked softly as I crawled over him, meanwhile keeping my eyes on the two creatures as they looked down at us. Coda whimpered and nodded slowly, still trying to escape from that rope around his paw, though we realized by now that we wouldn’t be able to get it off him.

The two creatures slowly lowered themselves on their hunches, looking at us cautiously as I growled lowly at them, joined by Coda as he twisted around to look at them. His paw was hurting him, I could tell by the way he winched and carefully moved around.

One of them, the one that hovered above Coda, made a hushing sound between its pink lips as Coda started pulling again. The other one, that had grabbed me before, had leaned forwards with his paws on the forest floor, stopping when I growled at him and snapped my jaws. I might be a pup, but I knew that I could cause pain with my teeth and claws.

They both looked at each other, as if they were communicating silently before one of them slowly stood up and circled us until he was behind us. I followed its movements while Coda kept looking at the one who had previously caught me, his growls becoming more worried than aggressive.

I observed the creature that was now looking at me; its fur on its head was black and fell straight down, only decorated with one white feather. The furs on his body were weird though; they smelled as prey. If my nose wasn’t tricking me, I smelled deer and rabbit on him but that wasn’t possible.