Chapter 5

Two days ago…

With all his strength, he ran towards the house through another path so that the brutal mob would not see him. When he got there, half of the house was on fire, and he discovered that the doors and windows were bolted in, allowing no room for escape.

There were two buckets of water at the back door leading to what was probably a kitchen and a blanket at the shed opposite the house. He grabbed the blanket hurriedly and soaked it in water, then drenched himself head to toe in the ice-cold water.

With all the strength he could muster, he broke down the door with his strength, thankful that it did not hit the frightened little girl who hid in a corner of the kitchen. The fire was already advancing into the kitchen and had singed the edges of the girl’s clothes and hair.

Her hair had started to burn at the tips, so he threw the wet blanket on her to quench the fire. He wrapped her in it and hurried out of the house. He was happy the people were distracted by the burning flames and had not paid any attention to the noise he made when he broke the door and ran to the woods.

When he got to the clearing, he set down the trembling girl and unwrapped her from the blanket. She kept coughing uncontrollably, so he gave her some herbs to calm her down and then treated the wounds the fire had caused.

Thankfully, she had not been severely hurt by the fire. He led her to a shed that contained some hot water and bathing oils. He was grateful she had not been badly injured, or else he would have had to assist her in bathing, which would have been very uncomfortable for them both. He had also dropped a shirt of his for her to wear.

After a few minutes, she reappeared wearing his shirt, which looked like she was as clad in a sack but, in effect, did well to protect her from the cold. He made her sit by the fire while he redressed her wounds; he then gave her a bowl of soup, which he had heated when she had been bathing alongside some fresh meat. He watched her as she devoured the meal in front of her.

When she looked and saw the look of what could only be pity in his eyes, she looked away in embarrassment but did not stop her pace of eating. He observed that she was probably starved. He could see all too well that she lacked nutrition; her body was way too thin, and when he had carried her earlier, she had weighed nothing.

“Would you like some more?” he asked when he noticed she had finished the bowl he had placed in her front.

“Yes,” she said, avoiding his eyes. There was only one portion left, and he was yet to eat, but he reasoned it would be better if she had it instead.

When dusk approached, he washed himself and put on his regular clothes, then took a walk back to the outskirts of the Dark Moon pack.

From a distance, he could see Raya charged at the house, screaming her guts out. The crowd was watching with joy as she screamed and thrashed. They threw stones and sticks at her, masking her body in bruises and deep cuts.

He was frozen for a second and torn between going to her rescue, but then the mob was a crowd of so many people with weapons, and he had none. If he did so, there was a chance that they were both going to die. She would never get the chance to see her sister again, and the poor girl would be in the woods all by herself.

She was too fragile and naive to survive the wilds. It would only be a matter of time before she became prey for the other species that came to oppress the wolves at night. She would not know how to mask her scent in the middle of the night.

Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. From his visits to the village, he knew that the other species often came to the pack to oppress werewolves. They would raid the people’s homes and cart away valuable items. Since he did not have his old merchant’s disguise, which a lot of people knew well, he ran towards them and screamed: “Thieves! They have come again to rob the village.”

The people scattered in different directions. Running to save their property and to transfer their wicked aggression towards thieves that did not exist. When they had scattered, he rushed towards her and pulled her up.

“Let’s run away now. It’s only a matter of time before they realize it is a false alarm,” he said with urgency in his voice.

His heart broke as he beheld her closely; her blue eyes spoke of the death of her soul. He could read in them that she had succumbed to her fate and was already on the verge of giving up. In fact, she seemed to have come to peace with the knowledge that she was to die. He wanted to hold her and assure he that better times were ahead, that all was not lost, but they had to race against time, so he pulled her and ran with her.

She followed him to the woods; they were running for their lives as the people had realized it was a decoy to help her escape.

The angry mob had continued to chase them relentlessly. When they reached a part of the woods where the road was forked in two the mob had lost sight of them as they were unsure what path to take. Furious, the mob had set the whole bush ablaze without care that lives might be wasted for their stupid cause.

Just as he grabbed her to run, she fainted.