Chapter 2 The wrong side of the territory
Eloise
It was dark. So dark that I couldn't see my hands. I tried to walk out of the darkness but found out I couldn't. It was like my hands and legs were chained to something, but I couldn't see what.
I shut my eyes tight, praying this was just a nightmare, but when I opened my eyes, the darkness was still here. Panic surged in me, I frantically pulled at the restraints. But the harder I pulled, the tighter it seemed to become.
I called the only person I knew would come to save me no matter what.
“Mae!” I screamed but got no response.
“Maevyth!!” I screamed louder.
“Mae!!!”
No matter how loud I screamed my sister's name, she didn't come. I refused to accept it. Mae always came for me. She came when Father decided to punish me for sneaking out, and took the blame. My sister always came.
But this time, it seems she wasn't coming. I sunk to the floor and sobbed.
As my knees hit the ground, it seemed to shift beneath me and I began falling into nothing. The wind here was so thick that it muffled my screams.
The restraints were still holding tightly as I continued to fall. A figure materialized from the darkness, shroud in gold. I couldn't make out the person's face or gender, but I knew they were there. I could almost feel them smiling at me.
“Welcome.” they said, their voice neither masculine nor feminine. It was like nothing of this world.
Just as I was about to ask them for help, my body hit a hard surface and everything went black again.
.
.
.
I was sleeping in the clouds.
It was the first thing I thought of as I felt the softness of the thing beneath me. It was so unlike the hard wooden bed in my room. This thing was softer than Maevyth bed. Maybe she got a new bed.
I opened my eyes and immediately shut it back as the light pierced through my head, sprouting a headache. I blinked, slowly adjusting my gaze to the brightness in the room.
I dragged my gaze across the room, a chilling realization settling in me. This wasn't Mae's room, it wasn't my room either.
Memories of how my eighteenth birthday went slowly filtered into my mind. The tension in the sitting area, Mae's strange behavior, her last words, and the pain–
My heart swelled with panic and I tried to get out of bed. But the more I crawled, the larger the bed seemed to be.
“Oh good! You're awake.” I flinched at the sound, my eyes darted around searching for the source.
A girl stood by the door, her eyes fixed on me. She looked strange and wore strange looking clothes. I've never seen anything like it. Pounding sounds, like an earthquake, echoed through the place as she moved closer to me.
I grabbed the sheets tightly and hoped the ground didn't open up. The sounds stopped when she reached the edge of the bed and sat on it. I wrapped my arms around my knees tightly and scooted away from her.
“Don’t be scared. I don't bite.” she chuckled.
I simply stared at her. I saw her face clearly up close. Her lips were glittering with something, her face were of different colors. Her lips were moving like she was eating something without swallowing. Maybe she was chewing hard beef.
“How are you feeling now?”
I pinned my gaze on her lips as it kept moving.
“What's your name?”
I didn't know whether to answer her or continue ignoring her. This was the first person I was seeing aside from my family. I didn't know how to reply to her.
“...No one out there is your friend. They're all enemies waiting to strike you the minute you let your guard down…”
Mae's words filtered into my mind. I didn't realize how true that was until I saw her attack me. I swallowed back the anger and forced the words out.
“Eloise.” I said, almost inaudible. But the strange girl seemed to hear me anyway.
“Oh, you can talk. That's great. Wow…uhm…my name is Tina. Actually, Thomasina, but it's not the 80s anymore, nobody uses that…”
I watched as she continued talking and giggling. She might look strange, but it didn't seem like she would hurt me. My body began to relax.
“I'm sorry, I've been babbling non-stop.” she laughed. “So Eloise, how did you get to the Thornwood border? Were you chased by a Hollowborn?” her face turned serious as she said the last word.
The only word I understood was Thornwood. It was where all the werewolves lived. I've studied the map of Thornwood several times with Mae in the library that I had every place committed to memory.
“Hollo..gons?” I didn't know what that meant. It only seems to confuse the strange girl. Or Tina.
“Hollowborns. Byron found you running in the woods near the border of Thornwood. You fell unconscious the second he caught you so he brought you here. That was three days ago.” she explained.
Everything she said just made me more confused. The last thing I remembered before I fell unconscious was unimaginable pain. I certainly didn't remember running in the woods in my human form. And I was unconscious for three days?
“Do you not remember any of that?” I shook my head slightly.
“Oh Holy Grail! This is bad.” she gasped.
Just when I wanted to ask what she meant, the door flew open and another person stepped in. This one, too, wore strange clothes, almost similar to the girl's own. But unlike her, his face wasn't painted in weird colours, it was set in a stoic expression.
Tina stood up abruptly at his entry, looking alarmed.
“My Lord, she just wok–”
“Save the explanation, Thomasina. The High Lords want to see the girl.” the man said in a gruff voice.
I tried not to flinch at how harsh he sounded, just like Father. Tina nodded and glanced at me with sympathetic eyes. She stretched her hand out to me for me to grab onto.
I didn't understand what was going on, but the look on the man's face prompted me to obey. I wondered if he was the Christopher my family wanted to give me away to. Maybe they finally did when I lost consciousness.
Tina pulled me from the bed. Her hand was surprisingly firm despite her delicate stature. She's definitely had some training. Maybe she was a female guard. Mae had told me those existed in Ferndall, the capital of Thornwood.
The three of us walked out of the huge room with the scary man in the front. As we passed through the hallways, I saw more people, some walking around with weapons hung over their bodies.
Each person we passed by halted and bowed. I read that bows are for very important people. Maybe Christopher was an Alpha, or a Beta, or someone else important.
I kept my head low the entire time and tried not to attract attention to myself. It seems to be working as they barely glanced at me
We finally stopped in front of two huge doors. The man, or Christopher, pushed the doors opened. I gasped as I saw the number of people inside.
They all turned to me with varying expressions on their faces. Some were curious, some were irritated, others didn't show any concerns.
I dragged my gaze across the room, committing each of their faces to memory. I didn't notice Tina had left my hand until I saw her fall to her knees, her head lowered.
Only then did I raise my head and saw three men sitting on what looked like thrones. The one in the middle had hair as dark as the night, the other two had golden hair and silver hair respectively.
I was suddenly shoved from the back and forced into a kneeling position. I snarled furiously and glared at the person who pushed me. It was the man who came with Tina and me.
The man with the dark hair was the first one to speak.
“Three days ago, you were found in the woods of Thornwood borders by Lord Byron Wesley of the Shadowborn, during a Hollowborn hunt. You were brought to the Dragon Keep, where we discovered that you weren't our kind. Explain yourself.”
I kept my gaze focused on the ground and tried to make sense of what he said. My sister's teaching and the knowledge I acquired from our library seem to evade me.
The entire place went silent, their gazes on me. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to disappear.
“What are you?” The man with the golden hair asked.
That question, I knew the answer to. And if they were asking me these, it means my parents didn't bring me here. The man behind me was definitely not Christopher. But if I told them the truth, maybe they would take me back to Thornwood.
“A werewolf.” I said as loud as I could muster.
Collective gasps broke out around me. Gasps of shock and disdain. I dragged my gaze around, confused by their reaction.
I blinked as the realization dawned on me. Dragon Keep. The memory of when I came across a book about Dragons rushed into my mind.
“...dragons are egoistic creatures who think they're better than everyone. They hunt our kind for sport. They're monsters, Eloise…” Mae had told me that day.
And I had just foolishly proclaimed my nature to them. I didn't need them to spell it out for me. From the looks of the three men on the thrones, I already knew I was dead.