The Archer: Lost Omegas Book 1

1. Alliance

CYRENE

Cyrene could feel the cold start to reach her damp skin. The sweat and blood on her tunic was now causing the chill of the wind to work against her. She sighed. She was tired, her arms felt like stone, and she still had to help set up camp for night. The battle against the Serpe had been long. Many of her fellow Raposo had died today, even more were wounded. Had the northern Lobo tribe not arrived and fought back the Serpe, they would have lost today. Why the Lobo tribe had fought with them, and almost magically appeared at the right place and right time was a mystery to her. She didn't trust them. They were a savage tribe, and fought that way. Giant men, with curved swords and huge axes, had sliced through the Serpe so easily. Too easily. And now, the battle was over and they were surrounded by hundreds of these strange warriors.

Squinting her green eyes in the setting sun, she readjusted the fox mask covering her face as she guided her horse towards her commander and the several Lobo to his right. At this distance she could not make out their features, but could see their towering forms on their horses, metal swords reflecting in the lowered sun.

She slid her hand along the strap of her quiver as she approached. Fingers twitching at the ready. Had these men not saved their lives today, she would have already notched an arrow and aimed. They made her feel unsettled. The Lobo tribes had violent reputations. She did not know much about them except they were all warrior tribes, built on fighting and the pillaging of others. Why were they here? Today of all days? Benevolence was not a word anyone had ever used to describe the Lobo, yet they had come to their aid today. Saved them. She wished she knew more about them. Her knowledge of the tribes past the mountains was limited.

Her father had told her a story once about the great Lobo warrior tribe of the north. Many years ago, they had been united under a single king, who ruled the entire North. The great Lobo King, victorious in all his battles, had built a vast empire. The Wolf God had been impressed with the king's conquest and breathed the soul of an alpha wolf into his body and his warriors, giving them the strength, speed, and brutality of the animal. The King was able to unite all the northern tribes under his rule.

He soon desired an heir for his great kingdom. But he could find no woman that the wolf inside would accept as mate. His warriors were the same. None of the wolf spirits would accept any of the women in their tribe. The King prayed to the Wolf God, speaking to him of his loneliness despite his great power and kingdom. The Wolf God agreed to put a matching soul inside any woman that would sacrifice her life to his wolf. At the next full moon, any willing woman must meet him in his wolf form on the Moon Bluff. No man should be present, and the God would tear out the throats of the women and make them part of his pack. Then they would rise with the sun, alive again with the spirit of a wolf.

The King and his warriors, desperate for mates, staked many women to the bluff, unable to escape. The Wolf God kept his word and tore the throat out of every woman, adding them to his pack. He breathed the spirit of a wolf into each of their bodies in the light. But he pitied them, as they were staked to the ground. As they awoke, alive again, they found that they had been freed. Many of them, horrified at what the king and his warriors had done, fled. When the men returned to the bluff for their women, they found only a few remained. They searched for those that had fled, but were never able to find a single one.

The King took the most beautiful of the remaining women as mate, and left his men to fight amongst themselves for the rest. Brother killed brother. Warriors grew angry and more brutal, each desperate for a mate. The fighting eventually fractured the great tribe into six tribes, each group venturing out in search of mates. The tribes had been divided for centuries until this past decade, where a new King had risen in the North and had united the tribes again.