Lo ran hard through the trees. She did not slow, she did not stop. Not once. Even when she heard the enforcer's howl to alert the others of her escape attempt.
It just made her heart pound harder.
She sprinted full out toward the territory line. It was an unfamiliar area to her. She had only been out there a few times... the females were forbidden from running out to the borders unless for a specific purpose. Her mother gathered herbs along the river's edge every few months. She had to get permission from the Alpha and she always had border guard escorts.
Her mother used to bring Lo with her when she was younger. But that had been years ago. The land had changed...
Lo hadn't seen or heard anyone out that way. It was just as she suspected, they hadn't set up border guards yet, or she would have been intercepted by now.
Lo heard the rushing water long before she reached it. And she should have known by the fierce sound what she was about find there.
The recent rain storms had the river violently flowing. Lo paused upon reaching the bank and stared in horror at the raging rapids. She turned and started running along the rocky shore as she frantically searched for a place to cross.
The Varga pack lands were surrounded by water. Two intersecting rivers that had deep ravines on the pack land side and a lake with only one area of dry earth that entered the land.
And she had chosen the worst area to try to cross. The river was widest there, but she didn't have a choice.
Lo glanced back when she heard the Beta and enforcer catching up. And they weren't alone. She heard others with them now. She glanced to the right when she heard even more fast approaching, from a few different directions.
Panic set in.
Lo looked to the river again, attempting to quickly assess if she could do it. She was a decent swimmer, her mother and she had spent a lot of time at the lake. Her mother had taught her. But... even if she drowned, would it really be worse then what she would possibly face back there?
At least this way, her death would be her choice...
Lo didn't let herself think anymore. She darted further down the bank where an outcropping a rocks cut partway into the river. She hit them at high speed and leapt out as far as she could into the water.
... and the moment she hit the icy current, she knew it was a huge mistake.
The river was flowing too fast and it was swirling around rocks and debris within the churning water. She was immediately pulled under and at the mercy of the fierce current.
Lo shifted back and attempted to grab at anything to pull herself up and get the air her lungs were increasingly burning for the longer she was tumbling beneath the surface.
Her fingers clutched at the first solid thing she managed to grasp, and she yanked herself up. The moment she broke the surface she desperately took in mouthfuls of air. She clung to what she realized was a log as the current carried her downstream at an alarming pace.
Lo gasped as the log rolled, and she was dunked under again. She tumbled through the water and felt herself slam into something sharp and hard before she managed to break the surface again and gasp for air.
Lo struggled to stay above water as she continued to tumble through the churning current. She coughed and frantically looked around her for the shore.
She was in the center of the river. Lo looked to the bank that would be her salvation... but it was too far. She looked to the other bank... the one that would force her back onto the Varga pack lands. But she had drifted into an area where the rocks along the shore created a steep wall that would be impossible to climb.
YOU ARE READING
Winter Wolf
Werwolf"Why are you so cold to me?" Lo asked. She didn't understand it. This should be a blessing to them both. Tristan stopped at the threshold of the door. She could see his muscular form tense, his large hands clenched at his sides. A thick silence fol...
