SWNOVELS Chapter into hiding
Secluded in the Moon’s Void, nine wolves, an earth witch, and a vampire prepared to flee those that invaded their island.
“It’s a three-day run to get to Hidden City,” Kaiyou announced.
Larson shook his head, “No, the Delphi said if the temples fells, I was to take Ainsley to Three Moons.”
Kaiyou nodded. “I take it, your rescuing of the rest of us and her wasn’t in her plan.”
“No,” Larson shrugged, “But Ainsley insisted, and I can’t refuse my beloved.”
Lily shook her head in disgust. “Margo always said Del would sacrifice herself before letting Ainsley fall to harm.” Then she wiped a tear. “Margo tried to counter the fire witches, she got the drop on one, but the others overwhelmed her. She had sent me to find Kaiyou and Ainsley. Those two young wolves had tried to kill him. They were just children.”
Kaiyou bowed his head. “I am a warrior. I have never had to kill children. They… they just wouldn’t stop attacking me.”
Ainsley, Dorien and Sharon ran in as their wolves and shifted as Dorien blurted out, “We can hear them digging at the north tunnel and trying to get in. Ainsley showed me how to collapse it.” Ainsley nodded and slapped her hands together one on top of the other.
“There is smoke coming from the tunnel to the temple,” Sharon added.
Larson scowled, “We can’t risk hiding down here, we have to go. There is a cave, six hours run to the north, we can just make it before sunrise.”
Kaiyou stood painfully, “Lily, get these wraps off me, I need to shift. You’ve healed me enough. You can ride on my back. Larson, can you carry Delilah?”
The young vampire nodded, “I can.”
Ainsley rushed back with several wolf packs, then signed something. “My beloved says we need to go before they start searching the other side of the lake for the tunnel exit.”
“But where are we going?” Tilla demanded.
“To the places the Delphis of old had prepared against this day. Larson, if I can’t keep up or we get ambushed, you get the Delphi and Ainsley to safety.” Kaiyou insisted.
“What makes her so special? What about the rest of us?” Tilla demanded in a terrified squeak.
Larson’s shadow surged protectively forward. His eyes glowed like a ruby in the sun. “Because Ainsley will be the next Delphi if Delilah doesn’t survive.”
Tilla whimpered in fear and cowered. Behind her, Dorien’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, while Amber and Sharon exchanged glances. Mona from the pack kitchen and her father, Fracios were already putting on the wolf packs, “Where the Delphi goes, we will follow. The Moon’s will be done.” All of the acolytes except Tilla immediately repeated, “The Moon’s will be done.”
“Let’s go,” Kaiyou ordered.
Ainsley lead them straight through the tunnels to the base of the long stairs to the tops. As everyone began climbing as fast as they could, Dorien hung back and held Sharon with him. He shifted back to his skin and Sharon copied. He whispered to Larson and Ainsley. “Something is wrong.”
Ainsley signed and Sharon gasped then translated, “You think Tilla is going to betray us when we get to the top.”
Dorien’s jaw twitched, “She rubbed her side or slapped her tail against every pillar we passed. She made sure they could follow us if they got in on the other side.”
“What do we do?” Sharon whispered.
“Beloved, how many bottles of scent blocking do you have left?” Larson asked.
Ainsley shook her head, her hands gestured, Not enough to do the whole of the Void and hide us on the run to Three Moons.
Sharon murmured Ainsley’s words to Dorien, the young male oracle frowned. “If anything happens, Sharon, you go with Larson and Ainsley. I’ll make sure you aren’t followed.” Sharon started to object but Dorien added, “I’ve been training with Ketsu and Kaiyou. It is the duty of every servant to protect the Delphi. You’re faster than me, only you and Ainsley can hope to keep up with Larson at a sprint.”
“We need to catch up,” Larson said. The oracle acolytes shifted into their wolves and rushed ahead of Larson. As he climbed the stairs, he looked down at Delilah’s pale face. Her heart fluttered like a wounded bird. There was nothing else they could do for her as the potions, balms, and her wolf healed her. Lily told them the Delphi needed a transfusion, but there wasn’t time.
“Alpha. The tunnel from the Oracles’ hall to the edge of the island has been collapsed from the inside.”
Charlemagne watched the Temple of the Moon’s Gate burn. “Dig them out. They killed my father and took the Delphi.”
“We’re trying but… But Alpha, what about the storm? We can’t stay here much longer, or we will be trapped with no shelter.”
The wind was starting to roar and driving the snow in painful horizontal sheets. Every breath hurt like the time he inhaled ice water after falling into a frozen lake.
“My Alpha,” his brother’s witch purred in a soft voice that carried over the wind, “I sense no one alive within the tunnel. I must insist we leave this place; you are now the Alpha of Des Rues, we cannot let you die from exposure.”
Charlemagne bowed his head against the wind, then looked out over the burning village. “Gather our dead and load them on the snowcats. The oracles chose death over alliance. We are leaving.”
The warriors ran to obey as the witch stood by him. “My Alpha, my sympathies for the loss of your father.”
“Don’t!” Charlemagne snarled at her. “This is the third time he has failed to capture the Naphtal Oracles. Please tell me my brother had better luck and captured the Delphi’s sister.”
Throwing a handful of something into the fire. Her eyes glowed unnaturally like burning embers. She turned her unnaturally pale face to look at him and he marveled that there was no ice on her hair or lashes and the snow melted like dew on her skin.
“Alpha Helios says he has captured the one called Esther and several acolytes. He will take them to Solarues.”
He snorted, “Good, at least the line of the Naphtal won’t be lost and it will be blended with the lineage of the Des Rues as it should be… I look forward to seeing my Luna again.”
The witch smiled. “Of courses, my Alpha.”
They retreated back to side of the island where their vehicles were parked in the shelter of the melt cliffs. It took twice as long to return to the main road across the frozen reservoir in the blinding, blowing snow.
By dawn, they were driving south to the private airport where their private jet was parked. Charlemagne grieved his father, but the more time passed, the more he felt giddy. He was now the Alpha of Des Rues, oddly he didn’t feel changed or any rush of power after his father’s death like he expected.
When they reached to top, everyone was panting. Kaiyou led them carefully out. Amber whined urgently and rushed toward the lake. Across the lake, they could see the Moon’s Gate Temple burning, the horror reflected on the ice like a mirror. Larson and Ainsley were the first to turn away, Sharon followed. Tilla lifted her head and howled, but the sound was cut of suddenly by Dorien’s teeth in her neck and he slammed her to the ground. She whimpered terrified, as the other wolves snarled. Amber snapped her teeth in Tilla’s face.
Lily scolded Tilla, “For Goddess’ sake, be quiet. You can grieve after we escape, you stupid girl.”
Kaiyou raised his lips, baring his fangs at Tilla, then nudged Lily, who climbed onto his back. The wolves started north, but Dorien stayed close to Tilla. The third time she stopped the urinate on a tree, he and Sharon surrounded her. Dorien bit Tilla snarling threateningly. Back in her freezing skin, Sharon demanded, “Shift.”
As Tilla did, Dorien shifted faster and held her arm.
“What is wrong with you?” Tilla demanded. “We’re going to get left behind.”
“So, what? Afraid you won’t be able to lead the apostates to Delphi Delilah and Delphi Ainsley if you get left behind?” Sharon accused.
“I… I…” Tilla suddenly looked afraid then she blurted out. “Why are you following Ainsley? She can’t be Delphi, she’s mated to a vampire… a parasite… and why did Delilah bring us here if not to freeze to death? She’s lost her mind!”
Amber came out of the forest and shifted, “She brought us here because if we were at the Eye, we would probably have been killed tonight… Tilla, what did that wolf say to you through the window before Larson rescued us?”
“He didn’t… uh… nothing… What wolf?” Tilla lied and they all smelled it.
“Liar. The younger blond alpha looked straight at you and mouthed something. I was hiding behind the curtain in my room. I saw him speak to you,” Amber accused.
Tilla backed away. “I… uh…” She turned and ran in her skin then screamed as they gave chase. Looking down at her broken body on the thick ice below, the acolyte oracles only hesitated a moment before putting their fur back on and running to catch up with the others. The traitor was dead and none of them would mourn her.
Del came back to the consciousness slowly. The air was so cold it hurt to inhale. She could feel her blood slowly freezing into icy spiderwebs, moving sluggishly beneath her numb skin. The blanket she was wrapped in seemed to hold no warmth in her body. Around her, she could hear the crunch and claw-scrapes of wolves running hard across the icy landscape. Her eyes raised to the sky and her head tipped slightly. Del could see the clock of the stars turning above her as a shadow carried her away from the oldest temple of her goddess in this land.
The smell of perversion, blood, and witchcraft still clung to her hair as it blew across her face. The leaking from her wounds ebbed her life-blood away slowly. She wondered if it was dripping on the pristine snow. A path for her enemy or perhaps her chosen one turned enemy to follow as she remembered why both hate her. Del groaned out. She could feel the frigid night petrifying her wounded body. The only boon was that the cold kept her from bleeding to death and dying in the thrall of hypothermia.
“Please…” Her plea turned crystalline clouds in the waxing night. “Please, let me go… to the Fields…” She just wanted to surrender to the inevitable.
A face as pale as death looked down at her as he stopped. “Not yet, Delphi. Ainsley, my beloved, she’s awake and bleeding again.” Larson laid her down.
Ainsley looked down at Del with worry, whispering over the panting of wolves, “Hang on Del. Don’t leave us.”
Del closed her eyes as Ainsley and Lily changed the bandages on her arms, and legs while wolves huddled around them trying to keep her warm. Del’s breath hissed as she was wrapped back up and lifted.
“Drink this, Delphi,” Lily’s soft lilting voice encouraged. The liquid was warm and Del swallowed instantly, because her body craved warmth, in moments she was alone in the utter darkness of anesthesia. Lily put away the bloody bandages “How much further?”
“If we don’t stop again, we can be there by midnight. The lake is frozen so we can cross straight to the bunker,” Larson revealed. “There are warm beds and food waiting.”
Darien trotted up and shifted, “We aren’t being followed. But we need to hurry, from the ridge it looks like a storm is coming. It will further hide our trail.”
Kiayou chuffed, he couldn’t risk shifting again. Only Lily knew how wounded he really was, Lily looked at him in concern then she asked Dorien, “Could you carry me for a while? Kaiyou needs to scout ahead and I need to stay with the Delphi, she has lost too much blood.”
Dorien nodded, “Of course, Healer.”
He shifted into his tan and slate wolf and stood patiently as she fitted the wolf pack with her healing supplies in it. They were all shocked at how prepared Ainsley had been and terrified when Ainsley admitted that she had visions that the attack would come for years but no idea when. They started out again, toward the place prepared by Delilah’s great-grandmother for the time when the burning ones destroyed the temples.
Nyall arrived too late to help. He couldn’t suppress his rage and fear as his wolf walked through the rubble. Everything at Moon’s Gate including the cedar temple itself had been destroyed. Oracles where sacred, moon-blessed, and it was the highest offense to the Moon to try to harm one, let alone kill one. But these wolves had blasphemed the temple of the Moon Goddess herself. He knew the Sun-worshipers would not hold the Moon’s chosen in high regard. When he was just thirteen his father had taught him that to attack a sacred site was dishonorable. Nyall could smell blood everywhere. The lumps under the fresh snow were werewolves he knew, wolves he was friends with. It was like the night his pack had fallen. Sifting to his skin, he carried one after another to the last remaining house. Surprisingly none of the Apprentice Servants that he trained with where there, nor were the acolytes Delilah brought from the Eye. He placed Leon in last and lit the building on fire. He hadn’t found Ainsley or Del with the dead, in fact he was shocked at how few dead there were. He feared going through the temple ashes but shifted to his wolf and began scent the ash. He was shocked to find the residue of only two young wolves he didn’t know and Louis’s ashes in the burned-out debris pile that had been the Moon’s Gate Temple. He was terrified the bulk of the inhabitants were taken by the Sunwolves, but he had one last hope that they had escaped.
His wolf crossed the ice-covered lake, then climbed the shore cliff and ran inland to the landside entrance of the Moon’s Void. Nyall could smell the faint residue of Mamó’s scent blocking tincture. Going down the stairs, his wolf could faintly smell that a young shewolf had rubbed against the posts. He followed her scent until he found a hidden room with a bed and table. Ainsley’s scent and a vampire’s scent were on the books on the shelf. Four of the Acolyte Oracles had escaped to this room along with two temple pack members. Kiayou had laid on the floor while the Healer Lily had treated him for many wounds. Del had lain on the bed in much worse condition.
His wolf howled its grief as it scented the stench of her violation by another alpha on her torn gown left on the floor. The gown was covered in Louis’ blood too, and Nyall wondered if Del had killed the petitioners coordinator or if he died defending her. Nyall couldn’t figure out why Louis was at the Gate as he climbed the long stairs then he had the horrifying realization that the Eye of the Goddess could have been attacked too and Louis brought here by force when they discovered the Delphi at the main temple to be false. Nyall’s wolf sprinted the rest of the way to the surface and tried to scent where the group of eleven that was in the hidden room had gone.
He started to follow the track toward the buried city where Marcus hid with his pack, but several scent marks led him toward the north side of the lake instead of west. Two hours later, he scented blood on ice. Looking down, the female who had left the scent marks was broken and dead on the ice below, with snow drifted against her body. Nyall wondered why she had died here. Finding no other trace, he wondered if she had run this way to lure the sunwolves away from the wounded Delphi, and then jumped to save herself from being captured. Shaking his head, his wolf turned west. He prayed Kaiyou managed to lead his group of survivors to safety.