I dragged myself with difficulty, my chest heaving with pain, but the border was very close and the other wolves following me still seemed far enough away.
'DOMINIC, DON'T YOU DARE CROSS INTO THEIR TERRITORY, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND...' Nate screamed in my mind, his last words fading as soon as I crossed the line.
I could feel him accelerating behind me as his scent grew stronger, but I was already in enemy territory. I could hear the wolves of the BlackBlood pack approaching; their snarls and loud howls warned me of my mistake, but I could no longer run, and I couldn't go back.
I collapsed into a pool of my own blood. My skin felt sticky and cold, and a thin layer of cold sweat covered my body. I tried to fight against unconsciousness, but I failed miserably, and the darkness pulled me down into muddled dreams and blurred images.
In the dream, a tall man with long black hair approached my body and pulled me into his arms while Nate screamed like a madman, held back by his own men. 'What an unlucky little wolf you are, escaping the hands of a madman only to fall into the hands of a savage.' The tall man, with a scar running across his eye, flashed a sharp-fanged smile at me. My body shivered with fear as I met that smile, but I had no strength left.
Demether's POV
I was in the council room, stressing out once again over the old men's complaints about how other packs feared us, making it difficult to forge alliances—honestly, I didn't give a damn about any of that as long as they didn't start a war against me. Then, my Beta, Kyle, burst in urgently, saving me from a slow death by boredom.
'Alpha, wolves from the Crescent Moon pack are near our borders. They might invade, and we don't know the reason,' Kyle said firmly. The urgency in his voice made me bolt from my chair. I ran out of the house, shifting immediately as soon as my feet hit the grass bordering the forest.
I ran with the full strength of my paws, and my men couldn't keep up. Within fifteen minutes, I reached the border. By the scent of blood nearby, someone had already entered our territory—and if they weren't dead yet, they soon would be.
My wolf slowly approached the figure on the ground and nudged it with my snout to get a better look. It was a female on the brink of death, lying in a pool of blood at my feet. She couldn't be a werewolf because she wasn't healing, but she didn't smell like a human either.
The howls of her pursuers were drawing closer, so I let out a loud, vengeful roar to signal that they were not to set foot on my land. Silence dominated their side of the border, except for one wolf howling frantically as he continued the pursuit—the Alpha of the Crescent Moon pack, Nathaniel Waller, a maniac I had always loathed.
I didn't know what to do with the woman yet, but when my Beta and the guards arrived, I sent a message through the link: 'Stand ready and kill anyone who steps inside our border. No prisoners. But do not touch the female; she is mine.'
With my wolves positioned to kill and aware that the female was now beyond their reach, I shifted back into my human form and approached her. Her face was a mess of blood and dirt—in fact, her entire body was a wreck of blood and grime. Her leg was mangled; though no bones seemed broken, the flesh was in tatters. I considered that she might be beyond saving and that it might be better to leave her there to die, or throw her back to the other side and let them finish it.
But then Nathaniel arrived, snarling at me in his wolf form, challenging my power. He then shifted into his human form and rushed toward the woman, but his warriors shifted one by one and held him back within their border. I smirked. Was this useless, broken female really that important to him?
I knelt closer to her leg, where the wound was worst, and began to lick it. My Alpha venom could trigger healing if she were a wolf, and to my surprise, that's exactly what happened. Nathaniel snarled insanely, trying to break free and lung at us, but my wolves surrounded us protectively.
I scooped the wolf's body from the ground and smiled at Nathaniel, turning back toward the pack house escorted by my men. The wolf opened her eyes weakly for a moment. They were a deep amber, like warm honey melting in her irises—it was unique. Snapping out of my daze, I smiled and told her: 'What an unlucky little wolf you are, escaping the hands of a madman only to fall into the hands of a savage.