Oracle

Chapter Zero|| Elain.

Three and half winters ago.

First wolf: Elain, Becomes the reigning second in command.

A sliver of light, the moon is hidden from the sight, high up in the sky, peeking just enough to witness the horrific atrocities of her children.

As if she could turn away and ignore the massacre.

Breeze waddled restlessly in the battlefield, yet eeriness settled over the bloody wounded survivors on the winter's night. On barren highland, the mangled bodies littered as death hung heavy in the air.

My den-mates had fallen and were on their way to Eius Imperio where they would feast with the Moon Goddess and their loved ones. Hounds and the eagles were here to receive heroes slain in battle.

Saddened and angered by all, I witnessed it all. The battle was lost. The waddling wind ruffled our fur. The raiders had defeated us with claws and teeth, brutally. We were the last hand-full survivors left of what was once a glorious pack—The Oak Pack; now cornered behind our alpha facing the Warlord. Our Alpha, Hervis, alone stood battered in skin and the rest of us, in fur, behind him.

Against the Warlord and his troops.

"These warriors don't have to die! Trial by combat, right now!" Warlord announced, warm fog trailed behind the words.

"Fight you?" Hervis scoffed. "That's no trial, it's an execution!"

"Fight my second." Warlord countered.

"My second will be, Elain." Alpha Hervis called me out. Lips pressing together in a slight grimace, I stepped up but refused to move; my hind leg was probably broken.

But if I refused, there would be a mad-house slaughter. Fear tarnished my courage. I avoided eye contact. I did not wish to die, but I had sworn—

"Of course, however, not before I take care of you." Warlord muttered.

I heard him shuffle closer to Alpha Hervis.

In an unseen and unheard action, simple as a swipe of the claw and the head rolled down to my paws.

I stepped back, a pounding heartbeat grew louder in my ears and my belly tightened and hardened. My shaky legs wobbled.

'How?'

Hervis was an Alpha, how could he- a deviant heathen- with a swipe of claw kill an Alpha?

I looked at my Alpha's human head, eyes wide open, with mouth open in shock... fear slithered up my spine and guilt clawed at my inside- I couldn't look at him any longer, I was supposed to protect him. I was supposed to protect my brother.

He spat on the corpse of my brother, insulting "Coward."

My lips pulled back and a warning growl rumbled in my chest, nose flaring. My human skin wanted to kneel and bare my neck in submission, but my fur side growled.

That was the day I finally met the infamous Warlord. He called himself the Warlord but by the Moon, he was nothing but a scoundrel.

My wolf saw no reason to submit to a miscreant heathen. There were rumours that when wolves howled to the Moon, he growled at her.

Blasphemous heathen!

Instead of attacking as my wolf desired, I chose an ambivalence show of dominance.

My wolf crouched down preparing for a possible attack, bristling his pelt to appear larger and more threatening, at the same time the eyes took an angry wild expression and the lips curled back to expose the fangs and gums. Ears parted. It was a defensive threat position during a dominance display.