Chapter 4: Captured
Rhys’s P.O.V
Doonra was a small village located in the valley of the middle Himalayas, just outside of Shiwalik. This is as far as I could get using my personal chopper, the rest, we’ll have to trek on foot. Behind it, the thin pebbled road began its twisting ascend upwards to the snowy mountains that stretched for miles and ended in the far higher ranges of the Greater Himalayas.
The densely snowy lands of the mountain that’ll lead to our destination started about 10 Kilometers north of this village. It was there that the spies were killed. It’s already been eighteen hours since the annihilation and judging by the dark snow clouds overhead, it had snowed overnight. I highly doubt we would find any trace of the attacker's scent or their bodies.
I, Zyane and four other fighters sat in a small tea shop, pretending to be hikers while we tried to get as much information out of these unsuspecting humans as we could. We had warm clothes on, but it wasn't helping much. We needed high insulating thermos for the trek upwards and we didn’t seem to have them in our trunks. Winters in Jever have never been this severe.
Our wolves kept us warm but we were desert wolves. Our fur built to prevent heat not cold. So it was needless to say that we were highly....uncomfortable in this new environment. Maybe we wouldn’t feel the cold as much once we started hiking.
"We should head out," Zyane said, sitting next to me on the small wooden bench, a cup of blistering hot tea in hand. “Sun’s coming up; we need to cover a few miles at the least before the snowstorm hits."
"You're right. Tell them to prepare. We leave in ten minutes." I said pointing towards the fighters who were admiring a few young women in colorful mekhlas. The people here hardly wore more than a thin sweater and looked perfectly comfortable in them, while we had four layers of woolens on and were still shivering.
We gathered all our belongings and stood up. Just as we were about to leave, a light feminine voice stopped us in our tracks.
"Are you going up the hills, Sahib (sir)?" Asked the voice. We all turned in unison to look at the girl who had spoken.
She was young, around 16 or 17years. Her long dark brown hair was braided into two tight plaits on either side of her head and she wore a light green sweater with white embroidered flowers and the skirt of her mekhla was a light brown with flower patterns. Her scarf covered her neck and ears. But the most remarkable feature about her was her eye. It had a cat-like golden gleam to it. In any other situation I would’ve called her a shifter, but the cold was numbing her scent so I couldn’t tell. Mostly, she appeared human.
"Yes. We thought we might as well cover some ground before nightfall," I replied to her with the truth.
"Be careful though. There's a storm coming." She nodded towards the darkening sky and left after bidding us goodbye.
What was that all about? I decided not to read too much into it, she might be just a village girl expressing concern for travelers. But that was when I noticed then that Zyane had gone very, very still beside me. I followed his line of sight to find him looking at the retreating figure of the village girl like he was obsessed with her. His eyes devoured her every movement like he was scared she’d disappear forever. At first I thought it had to do with her unnatural eyes, but when he wouldn’t even look away after a full five minutes of staring, it clicked.
"Damnit! You can't be serious!" I hissed out low enough so only he could hear.
"Huh? What?" he looked like he had just been broken out of a trance.
"We. Need. To. Leave." I gritted out each word, trying to make him see reason. "She's human, Zyane. She'll weaken the pack".
Suddenly, his expression turned to anger. "Everything is not about power, Rhys!"But he didn't do anything else. Instead he left to join the fighters, leaving me confused and irritated.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I whisper hissed at him once more as we started walking on the trail. "A human will weaken our pack and that is something I-"
"Exactly, Rhys!" Zyane gritted out. "You can't accept that. It's always what you think. It's always what you say! She’s my mate Rhys. I’ve been searching for her all my life and I’ve finally found her. I didn’t fight your orders because we are on a mission, but after this is done, I’m coming back for her."
His eyes had gone golden, his wolf coming to the surface. Zyane had never complained before. But now because of some silly, weak human girl, he was fighting with his Alpha!
He took deep breaths in calming himself and faced me again. "I really, really wish that you get a mate who will make your entire world fall apart. Who'll make you eat the words that you so dearly value. I wish that your mate is a hell lot stronger than you."
Zyane strode ahead again. I smirked. He was pissed off. Fine. I'll give him a few moments with his bitch. Anything more and I'll kill her myself. Our pack was the strongest for a reason. We were all purebreds. There hasn’t been a wolf-human paring in my pack for almost a century. There was no way I was about to change that now. Besides, she was just one potential mate, one of many. Zyane could have his pick later.
We went further than we planned to. The sky had been clear, although it had still been cloudy and I and Zyane needed to vent out our frustrations. I knew Zyane by heart. He might be pissed at me enough to want to kill me but he'd still take a bullet for me. And then we would spar and he would be reminded...very bloodily... of all the reasons why I was the Alpha.
The snow was still hard, that meant that it had snowed just last night. Looking up, I saw that storm clouds had gathered, turning the evening sky blood red. Great. A blizzard was coming.
"Sir, we should stop for the night, let the storm pass over." Slade, one of the fighters, told me.
"Just a little further, Slade. I think I see a place ahead where we can camp easily, let’s get to that point first." I told Slade and continued on walking. I knew I was being irrational because we had been walking non-stop since morning, but the fight with Zyane had really put me on edge.
I even saw Zyane look concerned, but he knew better than to question me. So we kept moving forward. Our bags held tightly on our back and the snow making crunching noises beneath our feet. It was exactly two kilometers from that point that the blizzard hit. Hard. And I realized that we might be werewolves but we were no match for Mother Nature.
It was cold. So, so cold. My face was frozen, a layer of ice forming over my skin. My hands and legs wouldn't work. There was nothing to hold on to. I could hear my pack members scream. I could feel their pain through the bond. But I couldn't see them, there was snow everywhere and the winds were violent.
I tried to yell but my voice was drowned out by the sound of the raging blizzard. I don't know how long I sat hunched over the snow, but it was long enough that I was buried a good 3feet under it. It took a while as I stayed put in the snow and counted every slow second that passed by before I could no longer hear any other sound, the world outside sounded too quite, so assuming that the blizzard was over, I pushed myself up with as much strength I could master.
After a while, when I could open my eyes a bit, I saw a body lying unconscious a few feet away from me. Zyane!
I tried looking for the fighters but they were nowhere to be found. I knew they weren't dead. But they were unconscious and I was completely alone in this place. I was trying to get up from underneath the snow when I heard a shot. And a few moments later I felt something prick my shoulder. I was too numb from the cold to realize that it was a bullet. That I had just been shot. The pain didn't register.
It was only when the snow started turning red and blackness danced in my vision that I realized that I was the bleeding. I fell back on the snow face first. I was about to pass out when something in front of me caught my attention.
The sun was just setting in the horizon, indicating that the blizzard had lasted for almost an hour, only the slightest bit of golden orange sun rays remained as darkness overtook the world. The snow sparkled in the twilight in front of my eyes.
But that was not what caught my attention. Just a little further ahead, stood the same village girl with the cat-like eyes, a gun in her right arm. And just behind her, as white as the snow on the ground, stood a wolf with unusual blue eyes.
The last thought I had before passing out was that I had found it. Or rather...he had found me.
The White Wolf.