The Lonely King (Book 1 of the Shadows, Roses and Ice Trilogy)

Chapter Five

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Amabelle's POV

I underestimated how dark it would be down the path at night. The rose garden had a ghostly eeriness I hadn't been expecting. Something about it felt surreal, made me want to turn back. Only for a second though, because I knew I wouldn't find any comfort from the place I was running away from.

The once beautiful and graceful trees were now dark and luminous. I shuddered walking in, feeling like I was being watched by someone... or something.

Every hair on my body stood on end as I continued through. This felt like a grave mistake, that I should stop. But of course it did, I had just been branded and accepted into this pack. Technically I was leaving my pack, in fact the mark that blade made on me was burning the more and more I walked. My heart hurt, feeling conflicted with pain of what I was leaving behind.

Even though I hadn't been at the castle for very long and I was a captive there, the friends I had made were hard to forget. I found myself not wanting to.

Painfully so however, I pushed onward knowing that if I kept going I could forget this whole thing. A breeze blew past me, my hair blowing off my shoulders. It was a chilly, unforgiving night.

The winding trail that had been so much easier to see in the daylight got darker and darker the further I went. Shadows morphed into beastly shapes among the threatening tree line. I caught myself slowing as the monstrous outlines became more frequent.

"It's just my imagination," I whispered.

Then from the far right of me I heard crunching, like the sound of feet walking. Big, heavy paws...

"No, there can't be anything out here, it's just your mind playing tricks on you, Amabelle," I tried to tell myself.

Much to my horror though, I heard growling now, very close. Along with that came extremely intense howling from all around me. Realization began to settle on me that I was now perhaps surrounded by either rogues, or something else with an agenda that involved terrorizing me.

I took a deep breath. "Come on! Show yourself."

In response, at least seven or eight savage werewolves crept from their hiding places. Each one looked starved, and their coats were mangy. These rogues clearly lacked any kind of humanity and their eyes were red, pure scarlet. The only readable expression of emotion I could pick up on was hunger, a ravaged depravity of them clearly.

This was something out of my childhood nightmares. Rogues were the unlucky cursed or just mentally broken werewolves who could no longer revert back to their human state and roamed hungrily. They did not have any sort of intelligence and only wanted death out of anyone or thing they saw in their path. I used to be afraid of the scary stories the elders would tell us as kids of rogues, and to this day the idea or becoming or seeing a rogue frightened me.

They bared their teeth at me, obviously wanting to sink their fangs into my flesh...

Fearfully I looked behind me, expecting to be circled. Luckily I wasn't, and I could still run if necessary. My other worry was that I would be caught even if I did...

Swallowing nervously, I began to creep back cautiously. The wolves got braver, the more afraid I became. A cold sweat started at the base of my spine, I was pretty sure I was going to die.

Then when I was least expecting it, one of the wolves, probably one of the largest out the group, lunged at me. I lept back just in time as it snapped it's huge jaws at me, snarling.

In a blind panic, I started running. I didn't know what else to do, I didn't want to risk just standing there any longer, the wolves were not threatened by me and wanted to claw me to pieces.