Chapter 8
Hera's POV
I watched my my sister as she stared off at the running wolves, but mainly at the black wolf who was clearly her mate. She turned to face me, and I could not tell of her emotions.
'You have a little bit of blood on your face, sis.'
'Oh, I'll clean it up when we get back inside the mountain.'
'K.'
She led the way back up the mountain, and I dragged behind the bloodied polar bear. When it was too steep, Lydia unfurled black wings and picked up Fox by the scruff. I floated and let the polar bear dangle above the ground just barely, and Shadow floated towards me in her wolf form and took hold of the other end of the polar bear, making it easier on me. We landed at the top, and went into the cave system to the main room. I rested the large bear on the ground in front of Elizabet, and she nodded in approval. I padded down to my room, as did everyone else to their rooms. I shifted back to my human form, and walked to my small, mahogany dresser to grab clothes and pulled them on quickly, then walked to my plain white queen sized bed and flopped down, and wrapped myself in the furry, thick blanket that I've had for my whole life. I closed my eyes, letting sleep overcome me, and slipped into the dream that I've had every single night since my mate died replayed in my head.
I was washing the few dishes we had, sitting on the stone floor of the cave. I used my water power to lift the water from the bucket to scrub the dishes mixed with soap. The water that escaped I got back quickly, and repeated several times. I placed the dishes on the floor and used my powers to make them immediately dry.
"Hera! We have visitors!" Elizabet called.
I got up from my spot and made my way to the main cave, to be greeted by Elizabet and two boys. One had red hair and the other had brown hair with black streaks.
"These two are my new apprentices, Dylan, Blake, meet Hera."
I nodded, not really paying much attention to the newcomers.
"Elizabet, can I go hunting? I've finished my chores, so, can I?"
"Sure."
I left the cave and went down the mountain, sliding all the way down. I've been able to use my powers since I was little, because of the magic of the water has. My sister who I have heard about wouldn't have her powers yet. I just hope I can meet her someday. I reached the bottom of the mountain and shifted into my white panther, and sprinted into the snow blanketed forest. I rounded bends with ease, and skidded to a stop when I caught the scent of caribou. It was a strong scent, and I followed the path and came upon a herd of caribou in the bottom of a valley where there were some patches of dull green grass showing for them to graze upon. I was at the edge, and I crept down. I stepped on a branch, and it made a loud crack. They picked up their heads and panicked as they saw me, the predator who was sure to take down one of their own. They ran, and I chased after them, kicking up snow as I went along, loving the chase. I waited for an elderly or ill caribou to straggle behind, so that the younger caribou could breed and reproduce more for me to snack upon. One older one started to fall behind, and I picked up speed, veering closer to the straggler. I came just behind it and jumped on the rear, and it crumpled beneath my weight. I quickly cut off circulation and it weakly kicked. Once it was dead, I began eating, eager to eat. My animal side took over, and I continued to gulp down the body.
"Hera!"
I growled, angry that something was going to interrupt my meal. I got up and growled louder, willing to protect what was mine, and stood over the carnage. The boy with brown hair with black streaks emerged, and for the first time I looked into his eyes. They flashed purple, but my animal did not take notice, but the boy across from me did. One thing you never do is look a wild animal in the eyes, you are only challenging them, and right now I was on wild animal mode. He stepped closer, not seeing the immense danger, and my animal attacked him, and his screams were quickly cut off. I tried to stop, but the animal within me kept on tearing away organs from his body, and gulping them down. Once I was able to stop the animal inside, I shifted back to my human form, falling to my knees over his ravaged body and covered my face with my hands. I sobbed, hating myself for murdering my own mate.
"Oh, I knew this day was coming."
My head snapped to Elizabet, who had seemed to have appeared from behind a pine tree.
"What?"
Elizabet walked to me and flicked her hand, and clothes appeared on my skin. She bent down to hug me, and I excepted the embrace.
"How did you know?"
"I had a vision. Do not worry dear, all Hybrids have two mates. One is just a regular being, while the other is a Hybrid."
"I have two?" I asked as I rubbed the tears away from my bloodshot eyes, and sniffed as the snot went down my nose.
"Yes, and this was just the regular. Usually a Hybrid has another Hybrid as their chosen mate."
I woke up with a start. Goddess I hate that dream! It's more like a nightmare. I recall that night clearly, and I asked Elizabet what his name was, which was Dylan. We had to tell Blake that his only brother was murdered by a wild animal, which was half true, considering I was a wild animal, and that his body was too torn apart to bring him back. He was devastated, and I was too. He quickly put two and two together and realized Dylan was my mate. He soon left by teleportation, and we've never seen him since.
I looked to my small digital clock and saw that it was close to midnight. I got up and stretched, and walked over to my own bathroom, and walked into a secret passage that I doubt even Elizabet knew about, considering that I created the tunnel myself. I soon came to a large opening illuminated by a few torches, and in the center was a cat bed with a sleeping lynx. I had found the lynx when it was just a week old. I came across it during one of my walks. I found her and her siblings in a pit, along with their dead mother. She was the sole survivor, and the others were too torn apart for me to save them. She was on the verge of death because of the cold, but I found her in time.
"Hey Amber," I cooed softly.
She picked up her head and stared at me, and got up and stretched. She padded over to me and walked in and out of my feet. She was about two years old now, so she was getting pretty big. I leaned down to pick her up, and she purred in content. I looked at the leg that she had recently broken, and it was still mending. If it wasn't dangerous for animals to be cured by magic, then I would have already gone to get her leg fixed. But I'll just have to wait for it to properly heal itself.
She meowed and squirmed a bit until I gently set her on the stone ground. She hobbled back to her cat bed, and plopped down and quickly fell back asleep.
I crept through the main room, and slipped out the passageway that lead to outside. My footfalls gave off a light sound and echoed around me, making the dark stone tunnel more eerie than it normally is. I reached the top of the mountain, and slid down on the ice. I reached the bottom and stripped off my clothes and shifted to my white panther and took off, running in between the snow covered pine trees and stopped when I reached a frozen lake. I come here after the dream to let my mind think. The moon was starting to wane, so it was slightly smaller than a full moon. The wind blew slightly, making my fur move, and all I could smell was the cold air, and the sap from the pine trees. I sat down, and began to groom my fur. The bushes behind me rustled slightly, and out of the corner of my eye, a black animal slinked through and padded towards me and plopped down beside me. Lydia groomed her paws and shook her head when some snow fell onto her head to get the snow off.
'What are you doing here?' Lydia asked me through the mind link. Her golden eyes stared into mine, and my blue eyes fell from her gaze, intently staring into the snow layered ground.
'I go out here every time I have that dream. I'm sorry, but I didn't tell you everything about me. I was just hoping that I could tell you in my own time, and, I, well. I don't know when that will be.' I looked away to the forest, and Lydia stayed silent for a moment.
'Hera, look at me. I understand that you don't want to tell me yet. But when you're ready, I'm all ears, ok? Just remember that I'm here for you, now, lets go hunting.'
She got up and slunk to the trees, but not before shifting to a snow leopard to blend with the surrounding snow. I followed after her and sped up to her where she was walking. We padded along side each other, and we did not speak to each other so that we could listen to the surrounding area. Lydia looked at me, and her eyes glowed in the darkness. She shifted to a barn owl, and flew up. I shifted to a snowy owl and followed her through the air. I don't use this form much because I'm not a big fan of heights and being in midair at the same time. Oh well. I looked down through my owl eyes and saw the dark ground below me, and was quickly getting farther and farther away. I looked to Lydia who was flying ahead of me, and she started to dive to the ground. I dived, too, and I could see a herd of caribou grazing. Several small baby caribou ran around, head butting each other. Lydia landed at the top of a pine tree, making the snow fall. I landed underneath her and stretched my wings out, and finally folding them in. Lydia jumped off the tree and flapped her wings to stay aloft and slowly let herself fall until she reached a thicker branch. I decided to fly to the ground, as I was beginning to grow nauseous. I shook my head, trying to clear it. A twig snapped behind me, and a snow leopard with gray eyes leaped over the bushes and tried to land on me, and most likely rip my head off. I quickly moved out of the way and shifted to my white panther as the snow leopard batted at my head. The snow leopard stepped back a bit, and shook its head. It stared at me with wide eyes, baffled at the sight. Lydia stepped up behind it in her black panther form, and growled, snapping her jaws. The snow leopard shrinked down, and shifted to a young girl around the age of seven or so. Her hair was almost white like mine, and went down to her thighs in matted clumps. Her eyes were a dull gray, and black and blue bruising was around her eyes and her lips were dry and cracked, and her face was pale and gaunt. Her arms had dark bruises in the shape of hands. She was very thin and her ribs showed, and her arms and legs looked bony and frail. She wrapped her bruised arms around herself, cringing slightly. Her legs had cuts along with bruises, and one cut that went from her lower thigh to her ankle looked swollen and infected. I shifted to my human form, and flicked my wrist so that thick clothes appeared on me and the girl in front of me. She looked in surprise and stared at me and my sister.
"You're a Hybrid, like me," she whispered, and looked at us in awe, then fear. She backed up slightly and said, "Please don't hurt me, I have to keep my little sister safe."
"Do not worry, we won't hurt you. But please answer when I ask this, why are you so thin?"
So she explained to us that she is a were-cat and demon Hybrid, and she lives in an abusive home where her foster dad would starve and torture her, and even force her to be his sex slave. She would make deals with him so that her four year old sister would never be harmed as long as she did what she was told. Her name was Snow, she was eight, and her sister's name was Ice and looked like Snow, except she was not thin or abused. When she told us her story, I was both angered and mortified.
"Snow, do you only live with your sister and that bastard?"
"Yes," she answered quietly.
"Ok. What we need you to do is take us there, we can help you and your sister, before it is too late."
Lydia shifted back to human form, and I used magic to get her clothes. She walked to me and nodded, as if saying that I made a good choice and I was doing the right thing.
We followed Snow back to a small log house on top of a hill. We urged Snow to go on while Lydia and I floated upwards to keep an eye through a window that looked into the living room. It was lit by a fireplace and had a dark colored rug layed out on the wooden floor. A burgundy couch was placed against the wall, and a large, burly and muscular man sat there. He was bald, and his dark eyes stared menacingly at Snow. He had scars slashed over his face, making him look even more scary. He stood up to reveal he was at least six feet tall, and walked forward to where Snow stood and drew back his hand and slapped Snow across the face. She crumpled to the floor, and the man stepped over her. My eyes gone dark in anger, and I burst through the glass, and smashed into where the man stood. He looked in shock, then shifted to a large tiger. I shifted to my white panther, and my sister stood beside me in her black panther form. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Snow get up, cupping her hand to her cheek. The tiger lunged at me, and Lydia barreled into his side, knocking him off his feet and onto his side. Lydia kept him down as I stepped forward and placed my paw on his shoulder and pushed slightly until I heard snapping. The tiger wailed in pain and I backed up. The tiger stopped wailing and stood up, and fire started to burn around him, but didn't burn him. Lydia stepped forward and her eyes blazed gold. The fire around the tiger constricted to coils and wrapped around him tighter and tighter, like a python. The tiger stared in horror as his own fire turned against him, choking him to death. He lay there on the ground with his eyes wide open and jaws parted slightly. Lydia and I shifted back to human form and I magicked clothes onto us.
"Ok Snow, where's your sister?" I asked and she pointed to an open door that led to the basement. I moved down the steps, and heard the creaking of the stairs as Lydia and Snow followed. It was dark and smelled of mold, and I could slightly see two small beds and on the one was a small, sleeping form of a child. Snow went past me and nudged the sleeping form.
"Ice, wake up, we gotta go," the sleeping moved a bit and Snow tried to lift Ice, but could not keep her aloft for long. Lydia moved forward and lifted Ice up easily, and Ice held tightly onto her and continued to sleep peacefully, unaware of recent events. Lydia carefully went carefully up the stairs so that she wouldn't wake her up, and Snow and I followed her.
We went out the door, and with the cold, Ice instantly woke up. At first she seemed frightened, but then Lydia whispered into her ear, and Ice calmed down.
"Ok, lets shift so then we can get there faster. Hera, let Snow ride on your back. I don't want her to get hurt," Lydia shifted into her panther, and I helped Ice onto her back, considering that she was so tall in her form.
"Hold on tight Ice."
I shifted to my form, about the same size as my sister, and knelt down for Snow to climb on my back. She held on tightly, and Lydia sped away from the house while I followed after, keeping pace at a comfortable sixty miles per hour. I could feel Snow burrow her head in my fur as the wind began to blow harshly. The wind blew the snow around, and made the trees whip back and forth. I hope Lydia knows where she's going, cuz I don't. Soon enough we reached the mountain, and Lydia and I floated upwards with the girls on our backs. Ice squealed in amazement, making Snow look up from my fur. We reached the top of the mountain, and you'd never guess who was waiting for us! That's right, Elizabet. We landed on the top of the mountain, and Elizabet walked forward, and took the girls off our backs.
"Well I see your little mission went well," she stated as she turned to look at us, but did not show any emotion.
Lydia and I shifted back, and I flicked my hand so that we would be clothed.
"I know what happened, so you do not need to explain. Though what I saw was compassion for two young girls that were not even in your pack, and you did not even know them. Compassion is a great quality in an Alpha and Beta, and in a parent. Well done." She turned to look at the two girls and said, "Snow here will need to get some medicine and get some meat on those bones. Now, lets go before we all freeze to death."
The five of us went into the mountain, Snow and Ice were wary at first, but eventually went down. In the main room, Shadow, Thorn, and Fox waited on the couch. Fox's eyes landed on Snow, and even though other people can't see the purple flash, I can tell when a person finds their mate, so it wasn't hard to tell that Fox and Snow are mates.