Heat of the Moment

My limbs shook, making the chains that held them tight against the tree trunk jingle in the silence of the woods. I couldn’t feel my hands anymore, the circulation cut off for too long. My ribs ached, everything ached, from the beating I had received. The stoic faces of my pack – my former pack – stared back at me. Just when I had thought that I was free, that I had reached safety, fate spits me in the face. I had escaped one hell, just to be subjected to another.

Alpha Reese took steps toward me, but the image of him blurred as blood dripped from my head into my eyes. He stopped inches from me and leaned his head towards mine. “From this point on, you no longer exist. You forfeit your right to be a member of this pack. You forfeit your right to my son. In the eyes of all wolves, you are a ghost.”

I whimpered, partially from the physical pain, but mostly from the pain of a bond like that of a pack being severed by the alpha’s words. My pack had been the only thing keeping me optimistic in my imprisonment; my mate’s scent the only thing keeping me alive. Now I’ve lost it all.

“If you survive the night,” Alpha Reese continued, “We will take you to a human community, where you are to forever reside away from wolves. But, if instead the Moon Goddess sees it fit, you will perish in these woods tonight.”

Slowly, pack members began to leave the scene, fading into the forest. Only one lingered behind. Jason’s eyes burned as he watched the exchange between his father and myself. But, he did nothing to prevent it.

“Goodbye, Camille.”

In a matter of seconds, the two of them shifted and ran off, leaving me stranded, chained to a tree, to die. As the darkness fell in, my shivering and cries became more frequent, growing in intensity. I could feel myself weakening and I knew that I would not be surviving the night.

The forest barely stirred. My vision faded in and out. I knew the moment of my death was soon. It was ironic that after living through everything to this point, it would be at the hands of my own pack that I would die; not the hands of the sick, twisted men that had kept me captive, but the hands of my alpha and my mate.

Then, just as I thought I wouldn’t be able to open my eyes any longer, a gust of wind brought the smell of something that I had never smelled in my life. The meager beatings of my weak heart grew in a crescendo as a great shadow fell over me and the largest beast I had ever seen descended from the skies.

~*~

This is just a test run for an idea I had recently. Let me know what you think. :)