A Wolf Scorned by Taylor Spratt

Amira

Tonight was the night of destiny, the Moon of Mating. AKA the night Lucky and I would blow this popsicle stand.

My wolf had remained quiet since leaving the pack room. I paced my bedroom floor trying not to let my nerves get the better of me.

I then turned to face my bed and scanned the sheets. My flowing, white ceremonial gown laid flat on the bed, right beside it laid my escape supplies. Three bottles of water, two pounds of dried meats, four potatoes, and last, but certainly not least, the taser I'd stolen from a sleeping Beta three months ago.

I dusted my hands off and turned to face Lucky's cage.

“Okay, okay, baby, are you all ready to go?” I opened his cage and he hopped out to perch on my fingers. He was the cutest little bluebird in all the world and his features shone bright under the overhead light.

I rested Lucky on the bed, away from my clothes and he gingerly hopped onto the sheets, chirping with excitement.

“It’s not play time yet. But don’t worry. Soon you’ll be able to play out in the open whenever you want.”

I shoved the food and taser into my small backpack and pulled the gown from the bed and put it on. Next came the make-up, earrings, and silver ceremonial necklace we were all instructed to wear tonight. That way if anyone saw me roaming the halls, they’d assume I was on my way to the ceremony.

“Knock, knock,” a voice sang from outside my door and I jumped.

Crap, it was Riley.

“Hello? Is anyone home?” She gave a real knock this time and I opened the door, with an unnaturally wide smile plastered on my face.

“Riley, what’s up?

“Gee, I don’t know. Only the biggest night of our lives? Hurry and get ready. I wanna walk over with my bestie.” Her eyes shifted to where Lucky now quietly sat on the bed and she blew him a kiss. “Hello, Sweetums, you miss Aunty Riley?”

“Come on, put your pet away and let’s get going.” Riley grabbed hold of my hand and tugged me closer to the door.

I had to think fast. I couldn’t go with her but I also couldn’t let her know my plans.

“Lucky isn’t just my pet, Riley. He’s more like my child, you know that. Shame on you,” I said in my most overly dramatic voice while pouting up at Riley.

“Well, then put your baby back in his cage so his mommy can go meet her mate and get her groove on.” Her eyes blinked like morse code as she tilted her head to look at me like I was crazy.

“Well-I. I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“He’s sick. Poor thing has been throwing up all over the place,” I said and she raised a curious brow as if she were trying to decide whether she believed me or not.

“Riley, are you coming?” Four girls pooled near my door waiting for Riley. They were the snobby, spoiled daughters of other Betas and Riley’s other friends.

Riley glanced at them then back at me.

“You should go with them. I’ll be right behind you.” I directed her towards the other girls.

“You sure?” Riley gripped both my hands and her brow fell with concern. It was like she knew something was up but didn’t know what.

“I’ll be there before you know it. Trust me.”

She nodded, finally giving into my request, and slowly disappeared down the tunnel with the other girls. I waited for a moment to watch her leave.

Since my mom died, she was the only person in the world I had left and now I was leaving her without even saying goodbye.

A cold somberness settled in my belly but I had to ignore it. Riley would forgive me one day. I had to believe that.

I scooped Lucky off the bed and gently put him to rest in the bust area of my gown.

Showing her first signs of life in hours, Wolfy growled, seeming to take exception to the presence of another living thing in what she perceived as her territory.

“Eat birdy,” Wolfy said.

“No, I’m not eating Lucky. And I’m not letting you eat him either.

“Want eat birdy!”

“I’ll shift and let you eat a deer or something when we're outside, geez!”

I’d known Wolfy for a day but I could already tell we weren’t going to get along. At least she hadn’t tried to force me to shift again yet.

I grabbed my backpack and slipped it on. Kissing my room goodbye for the last time, I closed the door and entered the tunnel.

As I walked the path, I passed small clusters of polished and poised she-wolves. Their nails were done, hair styled to perfection. They looked nothing like me. They all looked like they put in actual effort and then some.

“Oh my Goddess!” a cute blond girl gave an animated squeal while chatting with her two friends. “I just know Sam Anderson will be my mate. I saw it in a dream last night, I’m telling you.”

“You can have Sam, just as long as I get his brother Tormon,” her brunette friend replied, just as bubbly. Poor thing was looking off into space with dreamy eyes. All she dreamed about was her future life, mated with five little pups of her own I bet. Maybe I could have enjoyed dreams like that had I been in her shoes.

I neared the turn off that forked in the direction of the southwest mines exit. I made the left, looking around to make certain that no one was watching me go in the opposite direction of the pack room. This tunnel was one of the darkest in the hole and it was also off limits because it led to the outside.

Charging forward through the dimly lit tunnel I was hit with the scent of greenery and the slightest whiff of fresh air.

Close, I was getting closer to the opening of the Hole!

I glanced at my watch and the face read ‘6:15.’

The sound of people shuffling closer caught my attention and I stiffened. They were early. The gate guard shift change shouldn’t have been for another fifteen minutes.

I caught the scent of them. About twenty feet ahead of me, around the corner, were two he-wolves, any one of whom would bring my plans - and my life - to an end if they saw me here.

I rested my hand on the wall of the tunnel and ran forward through the dark, letting my palm scrape against the wall until…. found it.

The wall gave way to an inlet about three feet across and four feet deep. The tunnels were swimming with these things, they were used for drainage during floods.

I shoved myself into the inlet and, as my nose touched the dirt, I prayed not to get caught.

The crunch of footsteps slowed and it was replaced by a sniffing sound.

“Do you smell that?” a rough, gruff voice said,. Whoever it belonged to must have been big and mean. Just big enough to rip me in two.

“No, I don’t think so,” another voice replied, and for the first time in seconds I could take a breath.

“Smells like lilacs or maybe daisies?” the voice continued and I ground my teeth together.

Riley’s perfume. A little must have rubbed off on me.

The crunch of feet hitting the soil grew louder as they grew closer to my hiding place.

Well it was worth a try. If I died, at least I would go out chasing my dreams.

“Daisies? Really? Looks like you're missing your girlfriend so much it’s gone to your brain, you knucklehead. We’d better get you back to her before you really start to hallucinate.”

They continued away, the sounds of the men walking sending a wave of relief washing through me. I slid from the inlet, shifted to the balls of my feet, and tip-toed another twenty feet.

By this time, the air was fresher and cooler than I’d ever experienced. It was like a dream. I took a deep inhale and water sprang to my mouth.

Around the bend, I saw a beam of light a shade more orange than normal. Was that sunlight?

Careful not to be discovered, I stretched my head around the bend and took a look.

My eyes gaped wide and my jaw dropped to the floor. A steep incline, like a ramp, led upwards, opening up to a sky filled with clouds and bright sunshine, lay ahead.

This was the first and only time I’d ever seen the opening to the outside. It was about ten feet across and it was thirty feet from the mouth of the cave to the outside.

There was just one gigantic problem standing in the way. Two guards sat at the gate on wooden chairs. They spoke to one another with gangly sounding voices filled with giggles and hiccups.

Just as I hoped. They’d recently come from the pack room and they were drunk as skunks off holiday drinking.

“Samson, what you going to- going to do after your shift is over?” the red-headed guard asked the brunette in a gurgly sounding voice.

“Probably swing by the pack room again. Hit on some of the chicks that didn’t get mated. Probably get my whistle wet, you know? Girls who don’t get mated are always easy pickings." The brunette made a squeezing gesture with his hands as if he were imagining holding a pair of breasts.

“You know it, man!” The redhead gave him a hearty slap on the back and they both laughed.

Great, they were drunk and distracted. They were the real easy pickings here.

I held my hands around my lips to channel my voice. Then making my voice as deep and dopey sounding as I could, I said, “This is Beta Bradley. You men are needed in the pack room, stat!”

The redhead legit fell over on his side and the brunette jumped to attention giving a military style salute.

“Beta Bradley, sir. What about the gate? We’re not supposed to leave our post until the next shift change.”

“Are you questioning me, pup?” I roared in a voice that even sacred myself.

“No, no sir, never. We’re coming.” The redhead scraped himself off the floor and they both nervously catapulted themselves forward, coming dangerously close to the bend I was hiding behind.

“Stop right there, men!” I demanded. “Have you been drinking? I can smell the rum from here!”

“Yes, sir, and we’re very sorry. We won’t do it again. We promise.” I could see the tears welling up in the brunette’s eyes as he quivered.

“Stay right there for a few seconds as I go ahead. The last thing I want is your boozy stink on me tarnishing my reputation.”

“Yes, sir!” they both replied. Trying not to laugh I spun around and ran to hide in the same inlet I hid in earlier.

The men shuffled past me without the slightest clue I was even there and as they left, I could practically hear the hallelujah chorus raining down from the heavens.

Hook, line and sinker. I won.

Leaving my hiding place, I sprinted for the opening as fast as my legs would take me. I could almost feel the clean fresh air on my skin as I came around the bend.

The outside light that funneled into the cave hit my eyes with a burst so bright my eyes squinted, unaccustomed to the intensity. My foot was inches from the platform when my body unexpectedly crashed into what felt like a brick wall. Toppling over, I fell flat on my ass.

What the hell?

Rubbing my head I glanced upward to see none other than, “Syrus?”

The beautiful he-wolf I’d met yesterday stared down at me. He was so gorgeous that as I scanned the perfection of his face and gargantuan physique, I almost forgot to be pissed that he was blocking my one way out.

“Hello, earth to space? Wolf trying to escape here. Do you mind?” I rose off the ground and patted the dirt from my ass.

Syrus’s expression was a far cry from the jovial kind smile he wore last time we met. Now his expression appeared stoney and quite a bit more threatening than I’d expected.

“Guards, someone is trying to escape!” Syrus sounded the alarm, his voice so loud and shocking it was like a glass had hit a wall in my mind.

“What are you doing? Have you lost it?” I gripped his arm and sunk my nails down as deep as I could.

“Hurry before she gets away,” he continued, determined to have the guards hear him.

“You traitor!” I slapped him square in his traitorous face and he grabbed my arm, holding it tight so I couldn’t run.

Both guards ran back so fast you’d think they’d flown and when their eyes landed on me a part of me died.

“Well, well, what do we have here? A runaway?” The redhead shot me a creepy smile as he scanned my body from head to toe. “Well, if it isn’t Beta Bradley 2.0”.

The brunette, seeming at a loss for words, merely gawked at me, balling his fists and looking half ready to beat me up for tricking him.

“Nice try, little wolf, but nobody leaves the hole. Your life belongs to Alpha Logan now and forever,” Syrus said before releasing my hand to thrust me in the direction of the fuming guards.

I shook my head vigorously, unable to believe that Syrus could do this to me. I barely knew the man but I genuinely thought he was decent.

Before the guards could touch me, I shifted on my heels and made a desperate break for the exit. My feet hit the platform and I made four good steps towards freedom before a calloused hand yanked me by the ankle and I fell flat on my face.

Lucky fell from my bust on impact and flapped his wings twice as he rolled over the platform.

I screamed, terrified at the thought of one of the guards hurting Lucky to spite me.

But instead, frightened from the sound of the yelling guards, Lucky took off, flying clear through the exit and out into the open world.

Leaving me behind…

“Lucky, come back. Please, don’t leave me!” I cried stretching my arm out as far as I could while being dragged back into the depths of my unending nightmare.

Bile rose in the back of my throat as a sadness like I’d never known ate me alive. I was happy for Lucky, but he was one of the only things keeping me sane down here. One of the few things keeping me from falling over the edge. He wasn’t just my pet. He was my baby.

The brunette guard lifted me up, pinning my hands behind my back as I struggled in his arms.

“Let go of me, you brute,” I spat in his face. “Nobody owns me.”

“You’ll pay for that, bitch,” he said, hugging me tighter to him.” You’d better hope you get mated high tonight or you’ll be slaughtered for trying to leave.”

“You’d better just kill me now. That would be better than staying one more night in the hole.”

He took a long pause as if considering the idea. He then said, “Whether or not you die is for the Alpha to decide, now come.”

He turned and started away from the exit, pulling me along.

“Wait. Wait.” I jerked my head to where Syrus stood by the exit. “That he-wolf, he’s an intruder. He’s from the surface world. He told me so himself, I swear.”

Both guards turned to look at Syrus.

“I’m a hole shifter, same as anyone else. If you doubt my words, take me to Alpha Logan and ask him yourself.” Syrus cut his eyes at me as if he were offended by the accusation.

“Why you dirty, lying asshole!” I lunged at Syrus but the guard yanked me back.

“Love you too, Toots. Have fun at the mating ceremony.” Syrus waved goodbye with a satisfied grin on his face as the guards took me, dragging me back into the dark tunnel.

No matter how much I begged, they refused to let me go.

I’ll never forgive you for this, Syrus. Not till the day I die. And If you thought this was over then you’ve never met a she-wolf like me.