We have been walking for almost two weeks now, and we are finally only a day away from pack lands. But instead of going home, we have to go off course and try to find what the humans are up to.
Alexis had found their trail early this morning, and it stuck out like a sore thumb. The humans are obviously not as used to the woods as we are, leaving marks that they had been here all over the place. They seem particularly fond of putting notches on trees every ten feet or so, making it easy to follow their path.
"We're getting close," Alexis whispers from in front of me.
Looking around, I have to agree with her. The notches that used to be about ten feet apart are now much closer together, and the undergrowth is almost completely trampled.
My eyes catch on something familiar in the trees, and my arm snaps out, stopping Alexis in her tracks. Her right foot is still raised, seeing as she was about to take a step, but when she looks in the direction of my gaze, she falls back against me. Because in the trees are large spikes, ones that swing down if you step on the trigger somewhere hidden on the ground. Our saving grace, though, is that the humans seemed to only be trying to fend off the infected since the triggers are almost completely visible under a fine layer of dirt.
"Jesus, how many do they have?" Alexis whispers, her eyes darting from tree to tree, probably doing the same as me and mentally counting all of the spikes.
Situating Alexis so that she is standing again, I carefully pull out my knife, wanting to be prepared for any potential dangers. If the humans are taking this level of defenses, then they must have a lot of attacks from the infected.
"I counted thirteen of them, and they seemed to be placed around the more worn parts of the undergrowth."
Alexis nods her head, pulling out her own dagger before she follows me through the traps. I have spent my whole life setting traps and being out in the wilderness, seeing as I was a park ranger at the forest next to my old pack lands. So my eyes easily find all of the triggers for the swinging spikes, and Alexis makes sure to stay right behind me, stepping where I step.
It doesn't take too long to clear the spikes, and Alexis lets out a sigh of relief from behind me. We stay quiet, though, after that, not wanting to alert any potential threat to our whereabouts.
The sound of voices becomes louder the farther we go, and soon enough, we find ourselves on the edge of a large clearing. We crouch behind the tree line, making it so that we are not visible to the people down below us. Luckily, we are on the top of a hill, and the gathering of humans are down in the small valley.
My eyes widen slightly when I realize that there is actually a good number of them, probably around fifty or so, and they don't seem too concerned about anything. The reasoning for that soon becomes clear the longer I stare at their compound. Because tied to the fence poles about twenty feet apart are eight fully shifted werewolves.
"Holy shit," I whisper, and Alexis nods beside me.
The wolves are clearly agitated, some of them scratching at themselves and others pacing the length of their ropes. Every time a human walks by, they snap their teeth, trying to get a piece of them between their strong jaws. The humans make sure to steer clear of them, though, obviously knowing what would happen if they stumbled within reach of the wolves.
"What the hell are they doing with fully shifted wolves? How did they even get fully shifted wolves?" Alexis mumbles, shaking her head in confusion.
"It looks like they are using them for some sort of protection," I say, watching as one of the wolves sniffs at another, before jumping away when the wolf lets out a growl. "And how they got them, I would guess through torture." Alexis looks over at me with wide eyes and I shrug my shoulders. "The only way a werewolf can access their wolf spirit and fully shift is through extreme pain or distress, usually having to do with a loved one. I bet you anything, these humans are doing something awful to the ones those wolves love in order to keep them chained up. Probably why they are so agitated is because they can't do anything to stop the pain, since they are tied down."
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Fate Heals
Werewolf(Book #3 in the Unusual Fate series) Micah Klein has lost a lot in the past year, barely surviving the infected and having most of his innocent perspective on the world destroyed. But he thought things would start to be less erratic once him and his...
