Fear

Chapter One

 

9:18 AM

 

Blood covered the expanse of land, gumming to leaves, snow, and trees around them- around Louden. The roar rumbling in his stomach bubbled up; the only thing that he could sense was the sticky liquid, it stained his muzzle, paws, and hide, it filled his ears, and blinded his eyes, it stuck between his paws, the contrast between the thick red liquid and the bright snow was hurting Louden's wolfsight. And yet he still trampled on. He felt her again, her essence had been calling to him for a good seven days now: a smell of cinnamon and bonfire smoke, a strange and compelling smell. It made Louden cringe; it was one of his favorite smells, but only because it was the smell of sweet war and a call of darkness to a wolf.

His nose made small puffs of fog against the cool and icy January air, sniffing, trying to find the tail of the scent that distracted him from the kill he was in the middle of rampaging, now the wolf paws littered the snow floor. A snout was to the right of him, massacred wolf parts laid around him, giving him a superior feeling. He had torn apart wolves that dared to question him, fifteen all by himself; it fed his wolf's ever growing ego another few points.

When he found his mate, he'd be able to protect her.

Right now he just needed to focus on where her scent was coming from, and why it always seemed to disappear. The tang of cinnamon still estranged his nose when he began to run west, he'd finally decided this was the direction it smelled the strongest, sniffing for a good fifty miles, running, he finally came to the direction where the Forrest started to thin just a bit, the point where he could see two feet in front of him at dusk, and the air wasn't as obstructed by thick pines and woodsy oaks.

Crawling on his belly he deposited himself in a small clearing, trying to get his bearings as to how far he was from the pack house, and how far he was from a human or wolf.

He still could smell the faint scent of his mate, or what he thought was his mate.

Mate. Mate. Mate. The instinct inside of him chanted, demanding what would make the gaping abyss in his heart fill.

The more he moved the louder the chanting got: mate, mate, mate.

It made Louden's head pound with frustration at not being able to find her. It made him pi-pissied, or whatever the humans spoke of. Louden was again crippled without the full knowledge of the English language, he was raised on the language of wolves, full of the vibration of growls, and the high pitched notes of howls.

It left him with a strange under tone when speaking English, a growl vibrated no matter how many hours a day he practiced in front of a mirror, moving his lips to form human words, to make them sound right. They never quite sounded normal, especially when his tongue tripped and stumbled over the strange sounds of ss, ts, and so many more. He felt different when surrounded by wolves that spoke the language of humans so effortlessly, it had been taught to them much earlier than him, Louden always knew he was more animal than man. When he had shifted for the first time, at the tender age of two, he hadn't shifted back for months, and even then was only taught how to speak in the tongues of wolves, his mother and father spoke it, along with the rest of the pack, and it seemed only fit that he would, being the sole heir to an Alpha position.