Chapter 24

I barely slept trying to process everything. My brain just wouldn’t shut off. The sun was starting to come up so I started walking around the castle waiting for everyone to wake up. My bags were already packed and I left a letter for Tiberius explaining everything I was keeping an eye on back at the palace and how I already told my guards to report to him and Celia with anything they found. I have no idea how long I’m going to be gone or if this will be quick. I found gray and Aster in a garden and they both have a reassuring smile.

“Don’t worry princess, we will be back before you know it.” Gray said. He was dressed in his regal guard attire. Still representing where he came from with a proud stance. “Are you ready Immyria? You will still be able to reach me with the crystal I gave you.” She finished and I shook my head. She opened the portal with ease and gave gray a kiss. We both walked over to the portal and I took a deep breath and gray out a hand on my shoulder. I’ve never traveled by portal so I’m assuming the hand was to comfort me. I stepped through and was face to face with an intense this forest.

The portal disappeared once gray stepped through, and even he was left expressionless at the view. “We need to go through the forest line to get to the first village. From there we can ask for a portal straight to the main castle.” Gray said. He briefly looked at me and looked at all our surroundings. I nodded and took another deep breath. I smelled something. It smelled like a wildfire, but there was no smoke. “Do you smell that?” I asked absently. Gray looked at me, “it smells like a normal forest to me” he said and shrugged his shoulders. “I smell a fire I think” I said in response. We both looked around but neither of us could find any smoke or even a campfire. I decided to start walking to the forest and begin the walk to the first village.

We walked for most of the day and we still weren’t through the forest. I was starting to feel very uneasy in here. There isn’t too much light, but gray was able to produce a light that followed over us from a spell he created a few years ago. Gray didn’t seem to be unsettled but I could swear I’ve heard something stalking us for the past mile or so we’ve been walking. But I haven’t seen anything to warrant this feeling. We decided to make camp by a couple trees we could easily make hammocks from to sleep. Gray made a fire and went to hunt for some dinner. While he was gone I made myself at home in the hammock. I closed my eye to focus on my breathing. My anxiety was getting to be too much. I focused on my breathing and I heard a twig snap. Immediately I got out of the hammock and pulled the dagger from my pocket while crouching in the direction of the twig.

“Peace princess,” a voice said. It was deep and very unsettling. “Come into the light” I said immediately. “I will not. The light hurts too much. Focus on the shadows. Picture light and you will see me.” The voice said. I didn’t trust him. It was definitely a male voice, so I moved closer to the fire. “Wrong choice little one. The closer you are to that the harder it will be to see.” He finished and I heard another twig snap and I launched my body to the tree behind me so my back was covered. “Stop there! Don’t come closer!” I yelled to where the new sounds were coming from. “It’s just me princess.” Grays voice was a relief to hear. “Okay, okay I’m sorry come back” I felt sorry but with the other person there too I had to be careful.

“Why are you in such high alert?” Gray asked after putting the rabbit he caught down. Slowly pulling a sword from his side and a throwing dagger on his other hand. “There’s someone over there through the trees. They refuse to come to the light,” was all I could say. He walked closer to the spot with a torch to see if we could find where he was and who he was. “There’s no one here princess” was all he said when he came back. “That’s impossible I only took my eyes off the area once and that was to tell you to stop where you were! He has to be there!” I was raising my voice and my anger was rising with everything going on. Then I was hit with a smell that made me almost puke. Gray raised his weapons in my direction and I followed his stare, turning around there were glowing eyes starting to show up. The smell was far worse facing it directly but there were so many eyes watching us.

“Well well, what do we have here jarred?” A voice said slowly coming into the light. It was a werewolf. And judging from the eyes it was a rogue. Which also means everyone here with him were also rogues and we were definitely in for a fight we couldn’t win. I started looking around us to try to get a bearing on how many there were and if we had a way out. They had us surrounded almost entirely so gray and I went back to back to make sure we couldn’t be taken by surprise. Then another wolf came into the light and started talking, “Not too sure Carter. Looks to me like two people who don’t know their way around or where they are. And maybe one we could have some fun with,” I’m assuming that wolf was Jared. They were both brown wolves and they looked like they hadn’t had a bath in over a month. Their coats were matted. Another wolf stepped forward and started talking, “I think we should take the girl back to the pack, and leave the man disemboweled right there in the ground” another chimed in right after “But what if we take them both back and do a hunt for the male?!” They all started nipping and growling towards us. Gary noticed an opening through them and whispered for us to make a run for it at the first chance. We just needed a distraction.

This was a long shot but I took it, “Well now you can’t exactly take me back if I’m hurt now can you? I’d have to walk with you. And I’m not sure if I want to do that.” I said. A black wolf came through the crowd and all the other wolves became quiet. I watched as the wolf walked to the front of them and turned into a human body. He wasn’t bad looking, physically very built, he was completely naked, and he was filthy from head to toe. He walked to the fire and said, “And what exactly do you take us for sweetheart? We are rogues. Already shunned from where once belonged. Unwanted by pretty much everyone. Why wouldn’t we take you where we want however we want? We don’t exactly care about the condition you’re in. So long as we get to have our fun.” He stopped talking and stared at me. Slowly taking steps towards me.

“But if you come willingly we’ll take it easier in you and we might not kill you quite yet. We aren’t that desperate for blood at the moment.” He held his hand out for me.

I must be absolutely crazy to do this but I took his hand while still gripping my dagger in my other hand. “Oh sweetheart”, he looked at my hand that held the dagger and continued, “You won’t need that. I promise we’ll all take very good care of you.” He finished and started taking my hand. I had to be fast. I had to be quick. I nudged gray, I grabbed the wolf’s hand and pulled him closer to me while swiping at his neck with my dagger, he stumbled back clutching at his neck which was bleeding. It wouldn’t be long until he bled out, I pushed gray forward and said “RUN”. We ran and we could hear the wolves behind us howl. One yelled “Get them both alive!” We had to run like we never did before and we had no idea where we were going.