CHAPTER 1

Lola pulled in harsh, ragged breath after harsh, ragged breath. Her legs were tired and rubbery but she pushed herself to keep going. To try and get away from the horror of what happened in her village. It took less than an hour. That was all. In less than an hour, her entire world had been shattered so thoroughly, she would never be able to fit the broken pieces back together. She could hardly believe how quickly it all happened. The acrid smell of the burning bodies still filled her nostrils and the little bit of food she had in her stomach kept wanting to eject itself in spectacular fashion. That wasn’t the worst of it though. Not by a long shot. The worst were the images she kept seeing inside her head. They played on a constant loop as she ran. She saw the painful, horrifying deaths of childhood friends she’d grown up with. Saw adults she’d known her whole life slaughtered or burned alive. As heartless as it sounded, those deaths were easy to handle compared to what those animals did to her parents. Those images were the real threat to her sanity. They were the ones that almost completely unraveled her. Run Lola! That had been her father. He had screamed that as loudly as he could, doing so when fire chewed at his skin and body. One of his arms had been missing and looked as if something had ripped it right out of its socket. An entire section of his cheek was also gone, bitten away by a creature with extremely sharp teeth. There were other injuries he had, worse injuries, and each one had been given before they set him on fire. She felt the tears now but didn’t want to cry. She couldn’t afford to cry. Not right now anyway. They were still coming for her. She could feel them back there, a dark presence full of murderous intent. Their bloodlust was almost tangible. An oppressive wave against her back. “I can smell your fear, bitch!” Thankfully, the voice was still behind her but he wasn’t far enough back. “We’re coming to eat your heart.” She remembered the faces of those murderers, all five of them. She managed to hide herself but still saw them as they rampaged through her village. Three had been females, each one wearing shredded clothing that barely left anything at all to the imagination. One’s clothing had been torn so badly that her breasts were covered only by a thin strip of cloth straining to fulfill its mission. The other two had been males, one short and sort of hunched over; the other tall and lean, his frame almost gaunt. His eyes had been filled with a manic glee at the murder he’d caused and it was clear he was their leader. On top of that, each one had been covered in blood, gore, and all manner of filth. Every so often, when the light would hit them just right, their eyes glowed with an amber shine just like an animal’s. That meant only one thing. Werewolves. "No, no, no," she wailed to herself. This couldn’t be. What about the treaty? And why were a bunch of werewolves here, in her town of Gloucester? Her village was deep in the heart of the human country of Alcroft. No werewolf should be this far inside the country. Were they trying to start some kind of war? She wasn’t sure. Eventually, when the werewolves were distracted with their mayhem, she made a break for the forest. She ran with everything she had, vowing to burn the faces of those monsters into her memory for the rest of her life. One day, she told herself. One day she would come for them. She would come for the monsters that had slaughtered her family. Her friends. Her entire life. She didn’t know when or how, but she pledged to herself that each one would be dead by her own hands. "I’ll kill you all," she whispered to herself, brushing hot tears from her face. She wasn’t sure how long she spent running, only that by the time she was forced to stop, she could barely catch her breath and her throat felt raw. And dry. She didn’t have any water handy so she gulped down whatever spit she had to try and soothe the pain there. The werewolves were still behind her, not letting up. It would be a hard task to try and lose them, not with their enhanced senses anyway. Most of the children in Alcroft’s villages, towns, and cities were taught the lore on werewolves. At the time, Lola barely paid any attention and elected to goof off in school with her friends, thinking there was no way they would need to know all that information. If a werewolf ever made it as far as Gloucester, then they were suicidal because the King’s soldiers would wipe them out. And yet here she was, running for her life because a wild pack of werewolves were hellbent on killing her. 'What’s the lore, what’s the lore, what’s the bloody damned lore!' Lola screamed in her head. Werewolves heal, she thought to herself, trying to force her fear-addled brain to cooperate with her. Werewolves have the ability to regenerate most wounds. "That’s great but not what I’m looking for," she told herself. "Now come on, brain, give me something!" Werewolves mostly track by scent. That’s mildly more useful, she thought to herself. What can I do with that? The answer came to her suddenly after running past a muddy puddle. If she could cover her scent, they wouldn’t be able to track her as easily. She backtracked to the puddle and threw herself into it as quietly as she could. In seconds, she had a layer of mud and gunk spread all over her entire body. It was cold and having it caked on her so thickly leached the warmth right out of her body. She started shivering almost instantly but a few minutes of running all out warmed her up a little bit. She was still cold but it wasn’t as bad. “You’re only making this worse for yourself, you stupid bitch,” one of them called, his voice a loud bellow. “When we catch up to you, and we will catch up to you, I will be cutting bits off you and eating them while you watch.” She tried to ignore him, tried to focus on getting as far away as possible, but his voice tore through everything she tried to throw up to push it away. “I can’t smell her no more, Drake,” one of the werewolves said. The voice was far away but still loud enough to where she could faintly hear it. “Hey, me either,” another one said, this one a female. “It’s disappeared.” She wasn’t sure how far away she was but if she could still hear them it meant they were still too close. The problem, however, was that her body was starting to give up on her. The rabbit-skin boots she wore felt soaked in blood now. Her pants were ripped in several spots and she could feel gashes and cuts burning as she ran. The coldness of the mud caked to her body made her muscles want to seize up every few seconds. She stumbled and tripped more often and her eyes kept wanting to lose focus. The forest around her got blurry and hard to make out and the fact that it was night and dark didn’t make it any easier. The moon hanging in the sky gave her a little bit of light to see by but the thick branches of the trees blocked a lot of it. "Keep…" she huffed. "Going…Keep…Going." But she couldn’t. She tried so hard to listen to her inner commands and the promise she made to get revenge, but no matter how much she pushed herself, she couldn’t do it. There was nothing left to give. Her body finally failed her and the only thing left to do was to try and find some sort of hiding spot and hope the wolves would somehow not find her. Her legs gave out and she fell to the ground. Behind her, she heard the werewolves still coming for her. They weren’t being quiet either. In fact, they made it a point to stomp and crash through the woods as loudly as possible. Part of the mind games, she was sure, meant to scare her even more. She hated herself knowing that their scare tactics were working so effectively. Eventually, she managed to crawl forward and eventually found a fallen tree with just enough of a gap underneath for her to hide under. More cuts and scratches were flayed into her skin when she did but she didn’t care. She physically couldn’t run anymore. This tree was her best option for staying hidden and staying alive. She thought about praying but told herself it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Gods were fickle beings. What’s the point? she asked herself. It was a depressing question but it was also a realistic one. Her fate wouldn’t rest on some god to rescue her. She was almost certain that within the next ten or even five minutes, the werewolves would find her, do unspeakable things to her, and then kill her. She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to witness what was about to come next. “I see you.” Lola’s blood went ice cold.