Smoke and Mirrors

Sapphire Ragna Nightborne

“I can’t do this anymore!”

I rolled my eyes as Chloe collapsed to the ground next to me. We had just crossed the borderline which had just been a small little brook running through the forest. I turned around to see the numerous humanoid figures among the foliage and smirked, they could not cross this brook and they knew it.

It was almost laughable, the big bad wolves were thwarted from their prey by a small little river, growls could be heard as they retreated to most probably tell Damien of the situation now. I waited till each and every single one of them disappeared till I turned my back to the other side of the brook, I would not put it past any of Damien’s pack to try something rash and break centuries’ old law.

“Ow!”

I took a deep breath as I looked towards the ground to see the heap at the base of a tree, that heap was Chloe who had so carelessly tripped over an exposed tree root and most probably sprained her ankle. She looked up at me with a sheepish smile on her face, I snorted before wordlessly picking her up and walking on.

“How much further?”

That question caused my heart to ache as I remembered a similar situation before when someone had asked me that question, someone who I had loved very much.

“Not much further, I just need to find a good place to camp for the night where we can rest and you can have enough time to heal. We need to find a place that gives us enough cover from the pack that currently lives on this land.”

She silently nodded before her eyes wandered through the rest of the forest and we began our silent journey.

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“Why do you keep doing that?”

My question visibly shocked Chloe as munched on her piece of rabbit that I killed, nervously taking small bites and chewing on them for a ridiculously long time, the crackling of the fire between us was the only noise in the awkward silence that blanketed us.

“Why do you keep looking around the forest like it is the first time you’ve been in one? I don’t know if you noticed but you have been jumping at every sound the forest makes, natural sounds that usually comes with such a place.”

She looked down and but at her lip before looking back up at me, she swallowed the rabbit in her mouth as she saw me quirk my eyebrow at her body language.

“Well, it might sound weird as wolves…but…I have never been so deep in a forest before much more this far from home.”

My eyebrows were in danger of escaping into my hairline as I processed her response.

“Does your pack not have mandatory training exercises in the forest or go out to other packs to source for alliances?”

The forest became our second home as we were often blindfolded and left to find our own way out in the dead of the night with traps laid everywhere so as to test our senses.

The blindfold scratched against my eyelids as my teacher continued to wrap the rope around me, binding me tightly to the trunk of the tree.

“Sapphire, I am going to untie your blindfold, but I want you to count to ten out-loud. I promise that you will be fine as long as you remember everything I have taught you, just trust your senses as you will be fine.”

My pack might not have been pro-women in the warrior department, but Ryder’s father still made sure that all wolves in his pack, no matter what gender, had at least the basic defence training in case of a fight, hence why most of my pack besides the pregnant, young, old and sick was on the battlefield that day.

Moreover, I had been brought from pack to pack as the Alpha family sourced for allies as I was their main bodyguard and had to fulfil my oath of guarding them, besides that, we often had exchanges between different packs to train together to better each other, thus this improved our relations and allowed for many of our pack to find their mates.

“I know it sounds weird and awful but that has been my life for the last twenty years, Damien had kept me locked up like some princess in that house and he barred me from military training, I was trained just enough so that I would not be a bother during a fight. And about visiting other packs, I am sure you could tell that my brother is not much of a people person so we never visited any packs.”

Poor girl. She suffered, not physically like I did at the hands of Damien, but she suffered mentally and emotionally as well, but unlike me who made a huge fuss out of it, she suffered in silence for years. That almost seemed worst, to allow another to control your life and not having the courage or means to stand up to them to take back they life that you were given, that only you should have the right to control.

“That is just sad, so is that why you wanted to leave? To be free of Damien? And why now? You had at least five years to escape.”

I was curious, to say the least, I could imagine being cooped up in a house for so long, not being able to run or even interact with other wolves besides my own pack.

“To be free of Damien was one of the reasons I left, the other was to find my mate. I know that you don’t find that a very empowering reason to leave but it just that despite being in such a big house so full of people, I had just always felt like I was alone. Nobody actually cared for me there, they just tolerated me because I was the Alpha’s sister, so I just want to find someone who would make me feel whole and loved, I know it may sound stupid to you but it’s what I want.”

She looked up to gauge my reaction and I simply responded with a shrug, finding her mate was her desire so who was I to stop her. It was her life so she could do whatever she wanted with it.

“And to answer your question, I guessed I never left because I still, like you said, forced myself to live in my own little fairy tale. I could not bring myself to believe that Damien was the monster that everyone said he was, you know that when we were young he would make me pancakes when I cried and would go into the forest just to pick me flowers because I wanted them for my hair.”

She gave a watery chuckle as she reminisced memories of her childhood.

“It all changed when our mother left, our father took him aside and soon overnight he changed, it was like he was a whole different person.”

I looked up to the moon above us and thought.

“I bet he was.”

“He barely talked to me and then the torturing began, he started from someone who hated watching people get tortured by our father to someone who enjoyed doing the torturing. I thought that maybe having you in the picture could change him, bring things back to the way they were but after the Bloodbath when I saw how he gave Karen that knife, that was when I realised that I had lost my brother and I am so sorry Sapphire, that due to my blindness I could not help you escape sooner.”

She looked so small as she brought her knees to her chest, sniffling as she used the end of her sweater to wipe her tears.

“I forgive you.”

Her head snapped up from the shock of my words and I could not help but chuckle.

“You seem sincere in your actions and tried to help me besides, we are all a little blind when it comes to family.”

Her lips trembled at my words, she was an emotional one, now wasn’t she?

“I am so sorry that I just stood there when Damien…when Damien…”

I stopped her blubbering with a gesture of my hand.

“The past is the past, what is done cannot be undone so the best we can do is move on from it.”

She gave a few sniffles before giving me a small smile.

“We should get some sleep now, we still have a long and tiring run ahead of us.”

I could not help but bark out a laugh as Chloe’s face fell at the mention of a ‘long and tiring run’.

“My love, wake up please!”

I jolted up from my otherwise peaceful slumber at the sound of that voice, my eyes raked through the forest, my ears on the alert trying to detect any possible movement that could indicate possible danger but there was none, the forest was quiet with the exception of Chloe’s soft snoring.

I could not help but let a small smile escape my lips, she enthusiastically volunteered to be on watch first telling me that I as our main line of defence should get as much rest as possible but I guess she let her fatigue take over as she was probably not used to staying up the long hours that I had been accustomed to without sleep. I shuddered as I thought of that voice I heard, I knew it had not been Chloe due to it being the low voice of a male but what made me uncomfortable was the fact that that voice made me feel safe but yet it had been so desperate.

I shook my head before picking up a stick to poke at the dying embers that was once our campfire. It seemed that I would have to be on watch from now on since Chloe was dead to the world. I continued prodding at the ambers when I heard a crack coming from behind me. My whole body tensed as I shot up to me feet, landing in a crouch, ready to tackle any possible threat.

A girl just couldn’t catch a break.