BLACK

(19) Mistakes

EDITED

My neck is cranked all the way to the left. Stiff, sore, and unforgiving as I tilt it to the right. The ride I'm on is bumpy and unpleasant, a jut in the pit of my stomach aching.

The ground dips closer and farther in a pattern, the dark green underbrush mixing with rich soils in my sleepy state. I glance further up, fighting the kink in my neck. Tall trees grow into the air, large green leaves blocking the sky. But from squishing under the movement, the morning dew was still fresh.

I groan in the back of my throat, trying to rise to sit up. That was when I noticed the movement was not from a caravan at all, but a hairy, dark grey shoulder. Immediately I freaked, fighting the kink in my neck and the straps holding me down. My screams echo through the void forest, and morning birds flutter from trees. A second arm latches across the upper backs of my thighs, matching one across my waist and emitting a short blurb from me to quit my protest. The same arm across my waist is the one keeping the shifters shoulder piercing my abdomen.

I pound my fists to his back, scratching my nails down his grey skin in rage. "Let go of me!" I reel in my hands to his muscular shoulder, trying to push up against his arms weighing me down.

His growl drills the fear further in my head. In a single motion he sweeps me from his body, kneeling to set my feet on the forest floor.

'Don't run.'

The depth of his voice blossoms in my head like a second thought, and memories of earlier crash into it. I shove away from him, tripping out of his beast-like arms and crab crawling a safe distance away. I can't tell his expression, for he's in the form of an animal. The colour of his eyes suggest anger, but what right did he have to be upset? He's kidnapped me!

Suddenly a chill rattles me, goosebumps forming along my exposed arms and legs. My body longed for the warmth his arms gave, but I only crawled another step back. The shifter growled furiously, stepping forward.

"You don't!" I rasp viciously from the bottom of my sleepy throat.

The shifter halts at my voice. I take the seconds of space to breath evenly, relieving my bruised stomach of his shoulder. For how long has he been carrying me? Where are we? The surroundings of endless trees are no help, and I don't remove my glare from the beast. He killed Aris, mutilated all of my soul mates. And the great goddess of wolves made a joke to make him my mate.

No. I refuse. He can't just take away my mates, and then put himself in my life. That isn't how it works. You hear me, goddess of wolves? That isn't how it works! I was going crazy. Plus one minus one, did she really think I wouldn't mind? Or that I wouldn't notice? This wasn't the neutralization of an acid with a base. This was a murder with a sick inevitable twist.

I turn my head to crack my neck, eyes shutting out the dark pelt crouched before me. He waited, prepared to lunge should I run. Yet what was the point? I was no match for the strength of the thing. Shifters were one hell of an ugly beast. With limbs human like, over stretched and matted with fur. They wore heads of wolves, stomachs empty with a hunger for bloodshed. I had never seen my father or brothers shift. And not just because I left while I was young. I had never seen any of my mates shift, not up close. When Aris's nerves became too much and he would take laps of our home, I hid in bed underneath the blankets and waited.

They called themselves wolves, but they were far from being mistaken with the small, gentle breed. Gentle in comparison to shifters. There would always be a feral part. A jealous twinge that the shifter can never have full liberty. That they exist to the extent of the human. The rage in a shifters eyes wasn't good, so I knew to disappear when the gold flashed in Aris's eyes. Though for some reason they seemed to be the permanent colour for this shifter.