To Steal the Alpha's Throne

3. Escape

CALLA

"We have to help them!" Calla shouted, unable to rip her gaze away from the horrors unfolding on the streets below.

Moon Goddess, save us, she prayed, nearly losing her stomach at the sight of a monstrous wolf carrying the head of a young woman, her hair clamped in its blood-stained jaw. Bits of carnage spilled from where her head had been severed from the rest of her body.

Lucia wrapped her delicate hands around Calla's wrists and tugged. "Calla, come away from the window, please."

Still reeling from the shocking sights below, she obeyed the younger girl's command. "My parents... Where are my parents? And Cyril?"

Had they managed to escape? Or were they among the piles of dead accumulating outside of her childhood home? Her mind began to spiral, even as fear paralyzed her limbs. She felt too much, yet she was numb at the same time.

"Your mother came to find us. She told us to help you escape," Lucia explained, pulling Calla behind her toward the bedroom's exit. Iva still stood in the doorway, watching the hall. "I haven't seen Cyril, or your father."

The information washed over Calla, not entirely registering.

Hadn't she seen this? Hadn't she warned them that this would happen? She should have tried harder to convince them. She shouldn't have taken no for an answer. This was her fault.

Moon Goddess, it never would have happened if she'd simply been honest with Einarr the moment she received this terrible premonition. He would have believed her. He wouldn't have dared to send her away. If only she'd not been so selfish...

Her entire body trembled. Self-loathing and guilt wrapped their talons around her throat and squeezing. She deserved to die here, alongside the people of her homeland.

"Calla!" Lucia shouted her name, pulling Calla from her deteriorating thoughts. "We need to go now."

She nodded, blinking away the numbness. She couldn't afford to think like that. She needed to get Lucia and Iva out of the city. Needed to save the unborn child in her womb.

"There's a back exit," she rasped at last. "In the kitchen. It leads to the chicken coop. We might be able to avoid the Alpha King's soldiers if we slip out the back."

With this plan in mind, the three women raced toward the back exit. Screaming and snarling created a dreadful chorus beyond the house's quaking walls, and a piece of Calla broke apart everytime one of the screams came to an abrupt halt. She knew what that meant.

Calla waited until Lucia and Iva filed out of the kitchen's back exit before following them. Heavy smoke descended upon them as soon as they stepped outside, and it burned her lungs with each deep inhale. She felt like she was breathing in a thousand small sewing needles.

"Now where do we go?" Lucia coughed, covering her nose and mouth in the bend of her elbow.

Calla's head swiveled back and forth as she searched for the safety escape route. In the moments when she'd been looking out the window, she saw a heavy concentration of wolves at the city's center and main roads. None of the Alpha King's shifters would know the back alleyways like she did.

"Follow me," she ordered, forced to practically shout over the cacophony around them.

She followed a familiar, back pathway that extended between a row of several houses. Throughout girlhood, she'd this little pebble road to sneak out in the mornings to catch the sunrise over the ocean. She never imagined she'd be using it to escape certain death...