⚔️I have a prequel book to this story that is complete on my profile.
It is called Ghost of the Alpha.
Here is also a character info video for the two main characters
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Autumn has always been my favorite season, one filled with leaves of gold, orange, and crimson. The time for dances around fires, praying our summer harvest will last us through the coming winter snows. A time when everyone in the village is needed to prepare for the fearsome cold, even my muddled self.
For hours I've stalked the forest streams, checking trap after trap for fish to fill my people's bellies. While the clouds overhead grow thick, and the air grows damp with the scent of angry rain. It does not deter me, even though my scars ache from the cold. Even though the soles of my callused feet yearn for the warmth of soft furs. Even though the hem of my heavily patched dress is tangled with mud and leaves. Even though my knuckles have turned white from holding onto my birch walking stick for so long, I press on.
I know these forests well, their temperaments, trails, and the animals that dwell in the vast expanse. After all, I have lived in them for eighteen long years. Years of warm summers, tender springs, crisp autumns, and chilling winters. Years spent hunting, tracking, foraging, and nearly dying twice in my lifetime.
A life that I would never dare give up, for it may be treacherous, unstable, and inhospitable. It is the only cost for the purest form of freedom a mere human could have. Instead of being forced into slavery at the hands of the wolves, of monsters. A race of beings that can shift from beast to human with a single thought.
The age old enemy of all humankind, our sadistic overlords that leave us in peace. As long as we follow their laws, their rules for how humans may live in their world. Sequestered in remote villages like mine, or held under the thumb in the great cities as free labor, bed warmers, cooks, maids, and gladiators.
We lucky few however, are left alone. As long as we pay the yearly tithe of furs, meat, and healing plants to our governing pack, the Howlers. A fearsome collective that numbers nearly over a thousand wolfen soldiers. All centered, in the fortified Silver City, a week's long journey by foot down the Old Mountain through woodland, rivers, and the barren Blood Plain. Barriers that offer a small amount of assurance, that the wolves would only bother us for the most serious of transgressions. Resulting in either a claiming, or an execution by only the most barbaric methods the beasts could conjure.
Far weaker humans would think me mad to think this way. But still, I have seen the longing when we've gone to the city to pay our tithe. Their beetle like eyes, devoid of joy, hungrily watching our animal fur covered bodies. The scars on our flesh, tattoos etched into our skin, and the bones of our bodies not as prominent to the naked eye.
For that, the wolves do not force us to pay our respects beyond the tithe. Content to leave us to our own devices, so long as we don't complain nor defy them. Two choices I would love to do, but would be punished severely for. I am reminded of this, when my foot catches on a root, making me trip onto the uneven muddy ground.
"Curses," I hiss, gritting my teeth now coated with a thin layer of wet loam and grit.
"That will teach me for letting my thoughts roam."
Scrambling up off the forest floor, I wipe away the wet earth from my face. Glancing down, I find my well worn black dress far more muddied than yesterday. Not only that, my deer skin cloak is riddled with spots of blood. Dorja strike me, the wound on my arm has been reopened, only adding to my scraped palms and knees. Now I have no choice but to head back to the village, with only four fish to my name.
"Merciless Mother," I growl, picking up the bark basket and my walking stick with aching joints.
"Malek is getting an earful for not marking that when I get back."
Distracted by the blood soaking into my sleeve, I don't hear the padding clawed feet until the wolf is but six feet away. Air clogs in my lungs upon seeing the sleek amber she-wolf appear along the riverbank. Her gold eyes taking in my haggard state, and the blood dripping down my arm.
She cocks her head to the side, most likely confused that I haven't run or screamed my fear. It would be unwise to, wolves love to chase. It's the predator in them that drives that very urge. I know the feeling of the hunt, the heady rush when prey is close at hand. Unless your the prey, running for its life, only to be gutted mere moments later.
The wolf continues her assessment, while I remain stalk still. Waiting, watching for the slight change in her stance. For the moment that she decides I'm better off has her dinner, than a simple creature to forget about. With bated breath I wait, until a howl pierces the air. A long cry of loneliness, hunger, and sorrow, followed by the yipping of young pups.
My mind calms, and I continue on my way. Giving the wild wolf a sizable berth, as she turns tail and runs toward the sound of hungry little ones. Most likely a pack, looking for better hunting as their youngest members are finally old enough to be moved.
On days like this, I wish my fear of monsters did not warp the calmness and beauty of true wolves not turned by greed or hate. Except, that is not the world I belong to. With the wind blowing my hair into limp brown tangles, and the scent of wild pine blowing on the breeze. I know that I belong to this time, this place.
I may tremble with cold, ache from hunger, and rail against the ones who mean my people harm. However, I know my limits, the extent my strength goes, the beating my body can bare, and the endless power of my mind that still grows with every day I live.
YOU ARE READING
Forest of Lies
Hombres LoboA thousand years past, the world was run by humankind. But it changed, when countries became embroiled in a war that gave the werewolves the opportunity, to recreate the earth in their own image. Now humans are the lowest on the food chain, little m...
