Wild and Free

(Auden’s POV)

For the first time in weeks, my mind was blank. Every second of every day until that point there was something, anything, on my mind. Whether it was school work I had to do in order to finish my credits or it was when I would look up places to live in between double shifts at the diner. Any time, my mind was always full of things to think about.

And now?

Nothing.

The first note, scribbled out in the same obviously unpracticed script, had petrified me. It was mostly because of all the thoughts and doubts that came with it but now that there was a second one, and we were sure that it was the grey wolves, I was just confused.

But my mind simply couldn’t think of an answer as to why? What had I done differently in the months since the attack and the deal that would change the situation that we were in?

We ran, the eight of us, through the forest in silence. The only sounds were Holden and Cassie’s slightly heavy breathing and the banter of our feet hitting dirt and dried leaves. I led the group, as I was the only one who remembered vaguely how to get to the old, run down chapel. Mason however wasn’t content with my being separated, and ran about two paces behind me.

I had reminded him yet again that I could defend myself perfectly fine but he wasn’t taking any chances so I gave up asking.

I could tell that he and Kenzie were uneasy about something. They had a private conversation between the two of them just before we set off. I would’ve over heard but they had been too far away and my wolf was weak enough as it was so I couldn’t.

With all the working I’d been doing to get ready to leave, I hadn’t had time to let Celeste run free. I’d stopped counting the days when I got to double digits because it just caused me more pain. That on top of not being able to have full meals was taking a toll on me, which had probably been more prominent outwardly than I originally thought because of how easily Mason noticed after only a few weeks.

As a result, a lot of my senses had been weakened as well as everything else in me. I was still an all powerful, cassie’s words not mine, werewolf and had the usual more heightened senses than humans, but just not at the degree that I would had I been healthy and strong. All in all it added a little bit the the human facade that the Royals still believed. Thankfully.

We broke the edge of the forest in no time and ended up at the edge of a clearing similar to the one the Kenzie described. And right there at the top of the hill was exactly what I predicted. The nearly collapsed pile of wood that slightly resembled a chapel.

The poor looking structure had been abandoned long ago supposedly after a storm had blown the steeple off. The rest of the building followed shortly, which wasn’t hard to tell from the peeling white paint and rotted wood siding.

We all looked around the empty clearing warily. Perhaps it was the thought of the mystery pack’s threat looming over our heads, or the oncoming thunder clouds that literally loomed over our heads, but something there just didn’t feel right.

Greyson glanced at his watch and shook his head, “We’re exactly on time. They should be here.”

“Unless this isn’t the place,” I mumbled, the pit in my stomach, deepening.

“No it has to be,” Mason muttered under his breath. “This is the only place that makes any sense. Where else would they have meant?”

“Well, I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure that people that hand out invites to battles aren’t usually late to them,” Greyson remarked, putting his hands up in mock surrender when we all shot him a look.

A chill ran down my spine, making me shiver despite the luke warm air. I bit my lip nervously, “This doesn’t feel right.”

“Yes because out impending doom is supposed to feel all that great,” Holden replied earning my glare.

“I agree with Auden,” said Mason. “Those assholes should be here.”

We continued to look around from the center of the clearing, growing more and more confused as the seconds passed. Kenzie opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by a loud but low growl that rang out across the valley. We all froze where we stood.

“Damn it,” Mason cursed. “We should’ve contacted the pack. This is a trap.”

“Well of course it’s a trap you idiot!” Cassie whispered panickedly. “Was that ransom note not clear enough for you?”

He ignored her comment and kept his eyes trained on the edge of the clearing, narrowing as if he saw something.

“Show yourself you cowards!” he shouted, using his Alpha tone to carry his voice and fill it with authority.

Nothing happened for a second but slowly the grey wolves crept out of the darkness of the forest, despite it being the middle of afternoon. The clouds that blocked out the sun were doing a great job of reflecting my mood and the eerie feeling in the area.

I had to physically restrain myself from growling along with the Royal pack members when our enemies stepped forward.

“Kenz mindlink Father and tell them there’s trouble and that I said to send help,” Mason whispered, low enough so that only we could hear him.

It seemed to take them an eternity to pad to the center of the clearing, stopping about ten yards away from us. They might have tried to look intimidating but the hesitation to come closer to the fuming Alpha twins was evident, even on their wolf faces. Not that that made the situation any less daunting.

There were about ten wolves that fanned out on either side of the first who, judging by the look Mason had shot me briefly, was the leader and the one who would definitely be the one to make the first move.

And he was.

He morphed and stood before our group in the same dressing as he had that day. Black clothing. Black mask. Black curly hair.

I saw Mason’s jaw clench tightly out of the corner of my eye when the man stepped forward, his pack staying behind him.

“I see you received our message,” he began simply.

Mason nodded, “Both of them actually. That was a pretty foolish stunt you pulled, destroying her apartment like that instead of facing us like a man,” he jabbed.

If the leader was affected by the comment, he didn’t show it, “My associates and I did not feel it necessary at the time. We wanted to give you time to correct your mistakes before we had to intervene. But sadly, here we are,” he gestured around us.

“Might I ask,” Mason said, “why here? Too afraid to be closer to our territory?”

The man smirked, “My reasons for location are none of your concern, Little Alpha.”

Patience Little Alpha. Everything will work out in due time. I recalled the psychopath’s words from that day. It felt like a lifetime ago. Mason clearly remembered them as well, however with less fondness over the demeaning nickname. His hands balled into fists at his sides.

“In case you’ve forgotten, my territory, my business,” Mason fired back, doing a pretty good job at looking unfazed by the guy’s comment.

I gave him props for his control because, even in my weak state, I could tell that his wolf was giving him trouble. Poor Bentley was probably just itching to be let loose on this asshole. And I wasn’t completely opposed to the idea.

I took a step forward so I was even with Mason. I pushed away any fears that were eating at me for the movement, “I think we can both agree that we’d like to leave here today without any blood on our hands.”

I met each pair of eyes of the grey wolves. Four had been a fair fight. Ten we stood no chance. Our only hope was to work out whatever issues they had with us in words to buy time.

“Unfortunately I do not predict that would be so Princess,” he sneered. I stiffened and narrowed my eyes at the man but he seemed unfazed. He moved his head, glancing at our friends behind Mason and I, “I do believe that our message said to prepare for a fight. It doesn’t seem as though you and your little band has changed a bit. Apart from adding yet another human. As if that would make much of a difference.”

Holden fumed at the insult, going to step forward toward the leader only to be pulled back by Kenzie. She held her mate at bay by her side, much to his disappointment.

“You’ll do well not to insult my pack,” Mason snapped, earning the leader’s obsidian gaze. “Just as she said,” He gestured to me, “we intend to leave here in the same condition we came. So we insist that before you make any decisions that you might regret, you tell us why the hell we are here?”

“Is that a threat?”

“It was a warning,” Mason replied immediately. “Now answer the question.”

The leader grinned maliciously, “Was our first message not clear enough? You didn’t hold up your end of the deal that we made.”

“No one here has said a word about what you monsters did to us that night,” Mason told him, keeping his voice even despite that fact that was he was saying wasn’t totally true.

“Tsk tsk. Now we both know that it not true, Little Alpha,”

“What leads you to believe that we did anything to break our deal?” Mason asked, ignoring the name again.

The man shrugged, “My patrols found Royal pack wolves sniffing around our border.”

“And that made you believe that we told about you?” Mason folded his arms across his chest. “Did you not think for a second that maybe they were doing their job patrolling our territory?”

“Our lands are discretely hidden. So much so that no mere patrol would be able to find it unless they knew what they were looking for. Which they obviously did because they got much to close for our liking,” the leader explained. His argument almost sounded childish. I had to hold myself back from laughing.

“I can assure you that if my pack’s patrols were anywhere near your pack, they had no idea what they were doing. And if they did, it was none of my, or any of my friend’s doing,” Mason told him, taking a challenging step forward, presenting his dominance.

“In part,” I said, “we have done nothing to break the contract that you made whilst I was being choked to death.”

The leader tensed the slightest bit, surprising me. Did that mean he felt guilty?

He straightened, trying poorly to cover it up. He opened his mouth to argue but was cut off by Mason.

“Our deal was that we would not tell our pack about the fight or the discovery your miniscule pack of rogues, and in return you would cause us no more harm,” he said, reminding him of the deal that I hardly caught while fighting to stay conscious that night. “We have fulfilled that deal in every way. So despite what you think you saw by your borders, the deal hasn’t been broken.”

I saw the ghost of a satisfied smile settle on Mason’s face and refrained from doing the same. I could have hpe yet that we were finished. Especially judging by the rageful look on the grey wolves leader’s face.

“How dare you imply another Alpha of starting a battle on ungrounded accusations?” he fumed.

“I did no such thing,” Mason snapped. “I simply corrected your ignorant assumptions. And to correct another thing, I do not consider an egotistical rogue a true Alpha, even if he proclaims himself so. Especially one who doesn’t even have the guts to tell us his own name. Now I think we are done here.”

“I am Orion if you must know. Only a coward would keep his title a secret and I can assure you that I am not,” the leader growled. Mason seemed to have struck a chord with his words because the man was not happy.

He slinked backward, seemingly melting back into his wolf form. None of us had a moment to blink before they attacked.

~*~

After approximately three seconds I had concluded that Orion, self proclaimed Alpha of the grey pack wolves was the stupidest werewolf alive. Care to know why? Well in his presence, no matter how much he would insist otherwise, it was blatantly obvious that he was not a true Alpha. And yet, he still made the decision to take on Mason by himself.

It’s an important custom of our entire kind that a fight is not allowed to break out until the second move is made. The rule was in place to keep fights from breaking out if possible. Which here wasn’t the case. Since Orion attacked Mason first, the rest of us were not allowed to fight back until Mason made a move on Orion. So after Mason was tackled to the ground by the large grey wolf, we had to stand there and watch until Mason moved to fight back.

It was agony waiting for him and we could tell that Orion’s pack was waiting as well. But as soon as Mason shifted and began fighting back, everyone jumped into action.

Even without Mason’s reminder a while ago, it was clear that the Royal pack valued their fighting abilities. Greyson, Riley, and Kenzie jumped into action without a second thought, shifting as soon as they were allowed. They moved with practiced and precise grace that we could tell had been drilled into their brains since they were children.

Unfortunately for us, the otherside didn’t play quite so fairly. As expected of a pack of rogue wolves with no true Alpha to lead them, these warriors had not been taught to fight properly. So as a result, their attacks were spastic and random, while the Royals were calculated.

It didn’t put them at a huge disadvantage but they did have to pay more attention to their opponent to learn their patterns rather than just relying on the uniform way that they were used to.

Lucky for us mere ‘humans’, Holden and I always fought dirty. It was something that I began doing after the first few rough encounters after my departure from my pack. I learned the hard way that strategy didn’t always help, even if you were one of the highest ranked warriors in the pack. Sometimes you just had to throw the rule book out the window and rely on your instincts.

In this case, these wolves hadn’t published a rule book, period.

Mason threw Orion off of him and to the ground a couple yards away. He took that moment to shift and turned his gaze over to me, “Remember what I said! Don’t look back!”

Without another word he morphed again just in time for Orion to get to his feet and charge again.

While our friends went into wolf on wolf combat, Holden, Cassie, and I had two choices. We could either run and not look back, just as Mason had told us to, or we could keep our dignity and help our friends take down those cocky sons of bitches.

Of course we opted for the latter.

Cassie shot me a look and I knew instantly what she was thinking. We both ran toward the remains of the church, dragging Holden with us, knowing we had caught the attention of two of the grey wolves.

They bolted after us and we had just enough time to slam the creaky doors of the building shut before they plowed into them.

The angered wolves banged against the doors that wobbled and cracked slightly under the pressure. In response, I reached down to grab a thick plank of wood and slid it in between the handles of the doors to keep them in place. But we all knew it wouldn’t hold for long.

“Grab what you can to defend yourself,” I commanded them.

They panted a little from the running but nodded and rummaged frantically through the broken floorboards and church pews scattered around the small room. The place was probably beautiful once, judging by the windows of stained glass on the floor that hadn’t been broken. It was almost sad that it was probably going to be reduced to nothing when the doors were broken down.

Holden found a metal rod on the dais floor and was finding his grip on it. Cassie had never been the fighting type but at one time had insisted that I teach her how to use a knife. Again, learning from past mistakes while in the wide world alone, I kept a knife in my boot almost at all times. It was my preferred weapon if not in hand to hand combat but at the time she needed it more than I did. So I handed over the silver knife, careful not to touch the blade and injure myself before I’d even joined the fight.

I was forced to improvise with my own tool. After a look around, I decided to take the alternative route of using a long shard from a broken window. Its edges were jagged and sharp, the perfect replacement for the trained weapon.

The fighting outside could be heard through the thin, crumbling walls of the church. We all heard at and I could tell that Cassie and Holden were eager to get back out there and make sure their mates were okay. The added comfort of their new defenses didn’t seem to do much to ease their minds.

“Try not to worry too much about them,” I said, earning their gazes. “If anything were to happen, believe me, you’d know it.”

They looked down almost sickenedly but nodded and tried to looked determined and brave. I had to give them credit for that.

“I’ll be here to protect you and them if it comes down to it,” I added. Their attention snapped toward me this time, surprised.

“Auden you can’t be serious,” Holden said. “You can’t reveal yourself just to save us.”

“If it comes down to it I’d do anything to save you guys,” I told them.

Cassie shook her head, “No way. If we survive this, you’ll get arrested by the Royals, your freedom will be gone! You can’t sacrifice that for us!”

I put my hands on her shoulders, “It’ll be okay. We have to focus on right here, right now. I would live a thousand years in prison if it meant you guys were out, living and breathing.”

She enveloped me in a tight hug and a part of my mind made it feel as if was goodbye. But I couldn’t think that way. At least not yet.

I pulled back and gave her a last weak smile before the door finally gave out and exploded in a burst of splintered wood. I didn’t waste a second jumping on the first one and holding on as he writhed and threw us both into the corner of the room in a ball of limbs.

We separated and I had half a second to see Cassie and Holden fighting off them other one together.

My attention went back to the one I fought against.

Care to make it a fair fight? Or are you too scared to fight a girl? I told him through mind link.

The surprise that crossed his wolf facial features was almost comical and it gave me the time to swing my arm upwards and create a long slice across the side of his face. He growled and stepped back, taking an irritatingly slow time to morph.

A minute later, a man with skin the color of chocolate stood in front of me, a black mask over his eyes just like Orion. I guess they had a dress code in their pack, for whatever reason.

I held myself back from grinning at the large gash across his cheek that I’d create. But the moment was short lived when he came at me, aiming his first punch at my ribcage. It was an obvious choice because women were usually weak in the abdomen area. However he didn’t anticipate the women’s ability of speed and I was able to dodge, landing a kick to his kneecap before he could react.

His leg buckled beneath him and he landed on the ground with a growl. I tried to get ahead of him to stop the fight before it had really even started but he got to his feet quicker than I realized, unretracting his claws and swiping them at me before I had the chance to step back.

The burning sensation of his claws scraping across my skin made me tense as I felt the cold air meet my warm blood. He managed to get his own revenge for my scratch. He swiped across my collarbone, and my upper arm, in the processing tearing my shirt in both placing so it was barely holding together.

I didn’t have time to worry about it then. I had to think and end this quickly.

So I dropped low to the floor, swinging my leg out and sweeping his legs out from underneath him. He fell to the ground with a grunt.

Before he could get up, I jumped on top of him and used the butt of my makeshift dagger to knock him on the back of the head so he fell unconscious.

I didn’t stick around for him to come to, instead bringing my attention to my friends who still fought off the other wolf. Holden seemed to have the same idea as me because while their opponent was focused on avoiding the deadly blade of Cassie’s weapon, he brought the metal rod down over his head, knocking him out cold on the floor.

I didn’t have time to be proud of them for taking down a large and powerful werewolf because we still had other issues in the form of about eight others that our four friends were battling. We were easily outnumbered but for now we stood a small chance.

We ran back out to the clearing to join the others, only to find that it wasn’t just a clearing anymore. It was a war zone.

~~AUTHOR’S NOTE~~

Okay so this, just like the lost boys situation, is going to stretch over a couple of chapters. it’s mostly because I don’t want to just publish like two huge chapters with swapping POVs so just stay tuned.

Hope you enjoyed!

As always, comment, don’t hate, and read on!

~ your Cheshire Cat loving friend