Traumatised Tim

Chapter Eleven

In the end he had to make his way back to his pack and to Eveliina. The figures didn’t look too good. If the packs became surrounded and blockaded in, their food stores wouldn’t last for very long. The passages to ‘safety’ led to open fields about six miles away and while currently they were safe ,Tim had no idea how long that would remain so.

                The land itself around the safe house and the various buildings that housed the rest of the pack, and the other three, was surrounded with gravel for added security but it didn’t help with the situation of food. The fire to their west had created a ring of devastation; as short lived as it had been, trees fell quickly in dry forests. There was no one around either, no wolf nor human that seemed to have been the ones to have put the fire out. Tim suspected rogues had been staying there and quickly stopped the fire but fled soon after to safer ground.

                The issue of rogues was a terrible one; Ray had reported seeing more and more of them and Tim himself was no stranger to their vast number, nor their reluctance to be rogues. He had sworn to fight for his old pack but had one of his own. Commitments that he was bound to keep were piling up but he wasn’t so sure how it would all work out. He was eager to bring Eveliina to his family, his old pack and not only show her off to them and introduce her but show off his family to her. In short he wanted each to get along with the other and the hostility from his nephew and certain members of the various packs meant he didn’t want his pack going near them. Not yet. He wanted to proof himself first, prove himself as a friend, not a betrayer.

                Ray was adamant that Tim had become who he was today because of his hard decision and his continual guarding of his old pack, and merged three, was an admirable quality to his name. Tim agreed with both sides. He had tried to remain loyal and honourable with his old connections but he also knew what a betrayal he had caused. The ground he covered between Ray and others and his own pack was too vast to expect pack members to travel across easily.

                The danger was everywhere and while he had spent years feeling it increasing, years of feeling the hairs on his arms standing to attention, he knew that now he was thrust into the very middle of it. Something he hadn’t opened his eyes to. Silly as he had been.

                He was sprinting back, eager now to speak with his beta and get some advice that wasn’t bias. The edges of the forest were thinning out, his waterfall coming closer and closer. He smelt it then. The terrible odour of the wayward pack and he knew before he saw anything that the worst had occurred. He didn’t have a chance to see it. A blinding pain cut into his back and he screamed in agony at its burn.

                The scream at the back of his throat turned gruff. His vocal chords changed to that of a wolf’s growl and his eyes turned. Once round coloured irises lengthened and thinned to oval, yellow slits that glared out from his face. The muscles in his body were pulsing, pumping and he felt his form start to change into a wolf. But at the same time he saw the blood pooling on the ground underneath him. He should not have been changing, he should have been far too weak to do such a thing but he had always known his body was designed for endurance and fighting. There was no giving into the human side, not anymore. He would die here.

                But he would not die on his own.

                His teeth lengthened and he let loose one more growl. One of warning. He never did attack without that warning. It was his small mercy. Those who stood before him now were those willing and prepared to fight for their own cause. All others would have run off.

                He saw their faces amongst the trees. Two males and many more wolves. Their faces may have been half hidden, their mouths that of a snout but he knew a smirk when he saw it. And he returned it with one of his own. He wasn’t the first to lunge forward. Neither had he completely changed into wolf form. His legs were still human legs when the wolf infront of him rushed forward and knocked him backwards. Giant teeth punctured the flesh at his neck and dug in deep; he howled in pain and anger as they sank in and held tight. He was not foolish enough to shake his head either, that would only tear his skin that bit more.