Rivals of the Heart

Rivals of the Heart: ~ Chapter 7

The dog days are done,

Can’t you hear the horses,

Cuz here they come,

And I never wanted anything from you,

Except everything you had,

and what was left after that too. – The Dog Days are Over by Florence and the Time Machine.

***

I crouched behind the tree, my heart thudding in my ears like the deep beat of a drum, its panicked rhythm drowning out all other noises in the still forest. I tried to keep my ragged breathing shallow and paced, so they couldn’t hear me. Too loud, I thought fearfully. It was still too loud!

My head hurt from the lack of oxygen but I continued to keep my breathing to the minimum, trying to hide myself from the Wolves. Tears stained my cheeks as I tried to shrink my figure down, wishing I could vanish into the ground. An enraged roar suddenly broke the thick silence and I shivered. The Wolves had mum. I had to hide. She’d told me to hide. But they had mummy...

Tears kept falling down my cheeks, obscuring my vision into a blur but I didn’t dare move to try and wipe them away. I knew the slightest movement could give my hiding position away. I heard another scream followed by a roar, and simultaneously I pressed myself impossibly closer to the tree which was digging into my skin like needles.

Help! I screamed in my head, hoping – wishing – someone could hear me. There was no reply, and I sobbed silently to myself, cursing the world for not letting me be old enough to Shift. Horrific images converged in my head of what could be happing to mum, and I let out a small whimper.

I froze, shocked that I had accidently given my position away. I strained my ears, trying to hear for any sign of danger. Tears streamed down my cheeks and I felt as if I’d never be able to hear over my deafening heart-beat.

A beast of huge proportion slunk around the side of the tree, its feet only inches from the base of my dress. It looked at me curiously as I stared at it with wide eyes, a scream threatening to spill from the base of my throat. The Wolf’s face contorted into a grin, its eye glistening with what I knew was a lust for blood.

And I could only sit there and watch – frozen – as pain tore me limb from limb.

***

I yelped, bolting up into an upright position. My breathing came out in distorted rasps as cold beads of sweat began to trickle down my back. I stared at the stone wall opposite me in panic, my senses frayed as the strained to make out the danger. I could feel my body contort with pain as my lioness tried to Shift, before I automatically pushed back.

I took a deep breath as realisation hit me. It was only a nightmare.

From past experience I knew that if anyone from my Pride had heard me, they wouldn’t be in any state of mind to intrude. With that quick self-reassurance, I got up and changed into clothing that wasn’t bathed in sweat, pulling the strand of hair sticking to my face up into a tight bun. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palm, trying to get the wolfish grin out of my head, before I sighed in defeat and made my way over to my window.

Knowing sleep was beyond a lost cause, I opened the window and sat on the wooden ledge, my arms wrapped around my legs tightly. I stared out into the forest lazily, the cool wind teasing my mattered hair. After some time, my mind drifted to the day ahead. Unfortunately, it was in early hours of my first day of the new school.

I growled low in my throat at the thought of spending two years cooped up in a school infested with Wolves. Something large moved from underneath the trees and I blink, momentarily startled, at the placed my eyes had focused on while my mind had wondered.