Luna's Salvation

Two

Aurora

The moonlight shone through the single window above the mat I called a bed. It barely lit up the space, but I didn't dare turn on the lamp in the corner. Not tonight. Because tonight was for the Goddess of the Moon.

The Deadcrest Pack celebrated her every full moon. For the two or three nights that the full moon crossed the sky we sang her praises in many ways. During the first night the Alpha would howl and signal the rest of the pack to shift for a group hunt. The hunt would last from moonrise to first light.

The second night was dedicated to worshiping the Goddess of the Moon. The wolves would gather in the temple to sing her songs and pray to her. The service also served to bless the wolves born in the past month, as well as those who had experienced their first shift. My own blessing was the only worship service I had been permitted to attend. Even then it was only because the pack feared what the Goddess would do to the pack if I wasn't blessed.

It was the third night that alternated. When there were three nights of a full moon during the month, night three was dedicated to being a big party with bonfire's that reached the sky. It was the night reserved for the dead. Wolves would write the name of a loved one recently lost on a piece of paper and throw it into the fire and say a blessing as the smoke carried the name away.

But every five to six months the third night was a second hunt, and not a hunt for food. Pack numbers were decimated during the civil war and my uncle needed to shore up the numbers. On that third night he would take a group of warriors out and attack other packs. The warriors would kill entire families only to return with five or six tiny children who had been orphaned and gave them to childless couples in our pack.

Despite the fact I wasn't permitted to attend any of the events, I was expected to do all of the preparation for them. It took a week to clean the temple and build the fires, and I would spend all three days in the kitchen preparing massive amounts of food for them to consume. So during those nights I would worship the Goddess in my own way.

Tonight was the second night of the full moon, and while the rest of the pack was in the temple praying I was saying my own prayers. Had I not been lashed this evening for still being in the temple to put the finishing touches together when the Alpha and Beta arrived, I would have been kneeling and basking in the moonlight as I said my prayers.

The light from the moon just barely illuminated the picture that had worn down over the years. The four people in the photo seemed to be a typical family.

The man was just breaking 30 years of age, but it was obvious that any power in the picture was his. Yet there was extreme kindness in his face, and the light of hope in his eyes. The woman was close in age to the man, but she was trying to hold her children close and trying to get them to behave for one picture. It wasn't going to happen though because the young boy with the auburn hair was trying to push away from the little girl who was trying to reach for her father.

Had they known this would be the last picture they would ever take together I'm sure that everything would have been more posed, the picture of a perfect family. But it was only two weeks later that everything went to hell.

Mom and Dad had been killed by my uncle, that was confirmed by the way he displayed their bodies. The official report stated I was the only survivor from my family and that my brother was a civilian casualty, but no body had ever been found.

As I ran the tips of my fingers over his face I often wondered what happened to my brother. I was too young to know why he wasn't there that night, so I didn't know what happened to him, no matter how much my uncle tried to beat it out of me. He was the only one who could challenge my uncle's position, and that made him a threat.

Part of me hoped he was dead. Because that twisted part of me deep down knew that him being dead was better than living the way I did.

As the light of the moon started moving past my window I started saying my prayer's. One by one it was the same prayers every month.

A prayer of thanks to the Goddess of the Moon for letting me survive another month. A prayer for the parents who became traitors to free the pack from a tyrant. A prayer for the lost brother who's fate would forever be unknown. And a prayer for the little girl who died that day as well, that one day she would find peace with the rest of her family.

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It wasn't the smell of wolves that clearly weren't from my pack that woke me up. It wasn't even the sound of footsteps carefully making their way through the territory trying not to be heard.

It was the screaming that woke me up.

I didn't even have to raise myself up in order to tell that it was coming from the temple. Despite my back screaming at the effort I had to see what was going on...and what I saw was a sight to behold.

We were under attack

The temple had been surrounded by the foreign pack members and they were practically storming the place. There were people screaming from inside the temple as the warriors started meeting the foreign pack head on. Tonight was for the Goddess of the Moon and worshiping her, so not a single one of our warriors were ready for a fight. So many of them were injured so easily that they might as well have just offered themselves up.

Is it wrong that part of me wanted to laugh? Our pack had spent years attacking others and kidnaping their children. I would hear my uncle, his Beta, and the other lead warriors planning, gathering intel, and figuring out when the most opportune time to strike the pack would be. Now those very same methods were being used against us.

As I looked out my window I was in a war with myself. I should shift. I should shift into the wolf that I buried and ignored right after my first shift and defend my pack. But with no fighting experience whatsoever I would just get myself killed. Then that tratorious part of me wanted to go down to the kitchen, make some popcorn, and sit back to watch as karma finally caught up to them.

It was that 4 year old inside of me who watched her parents die that won out. Adrenaline, pain, and fear coursed through my body as I flopped off of my mat and army crawled to the wardrobe I had been allotted. It was a bit of a tight squeeze to pull myself in there but I had already mastered the art of figuring out how to place my body in here by the time I was 8.

Even with the doors to the wardrobe and my window shut, I could still hear the screaming outside. Screams of terror, rage, sorrow, and frustration all at once.

Ironically focusing on those screams helped me keep my own mouth shut when I heard the door to the pack house open. I knew the footsteps of every wolf who came through here...this was not one of our wolves. Ever so slowly the footsteps kept climbing up the stairs, and my heart rate picked up as they finished climbing to another floor.

But once the footsteps passed the fifth floor without stopping the panic really started to set in. The fifth floor had all of the offices, including the Alpha and Beta offices. The only thing above them was the attic...my attic.

Oh god! Please not again!

Once the door to the attic opened my hand immediately shot to cover my mouth. Like it would have done any good. My heart was pounding and any werewolf worth his salt would be able to hear it a mile away. I could hear the footsteps stop right outside of the wardrobe door and tried tp hold my breath.

My head was spinning because I knew one of two things were going to happen. Option 1: The wardrobe would open and I was going to be killed. Option 2: The wardrobe door would open and the wolf would take me from one pack to serve another. Honestly I don't know which option is worse!

Once the wardrobe finally opened I did the only thing I could think of. I curled up to protect my organs and face from whatever blow would come my way. I was ready for it like I had been ready for all of the other blows that came my way...but this one never came.

Looking through the space between my arms I could see a pair of sterling grey eyes trying to find mine in the darkness. I know he found them because that's when I could make out his growling. It wasn't so much of a growl, but a deep rumble. Those eyes and that rumble were the last things I could make out before I passed out. Well that and the single word he growled out.

"Mine"