Chapter six

Standing up quickly, I shook the dirt and leaves from my fur and looked back at the wolves encircling me. Snarling back in warning to leave me alone, I walked backwards until I realised, I was trapped between the steep bank and the wolves in front of me, with no way to escape. A loud voice echoed throughout my head, and I realised that it was the largest wolf, who was now in front of me, speaking through the mind, that we werewolves all had. That's when I noticed that I no longer could hear the goings on with my pack, which I had learnt to block out. All I could hear was silence. 'What was going on?'

“Who are you? And what are you doing in our territory, you rogue!?” he snarled, snapping his jaws aggressively. “Do you know who I am? Who we are?”
“Sir, I am no rogue. I can promise you that! I am Libby Westwood. Daughter of Paul Westwood, who was the Gamma for the Eclipse Pack,” I growled back in response, not taking my eyes off this strange new wolf. “I was actually running for my life from my evil stepmother, stepsister and my stepmother's boyfriend. They wanted to kill me! Please, I beg you for asylum! I have nowhere to go! I can't go back there or I'll end up dead! I mean you or your pack no harm!”
“I am Beta Alistair! We don’t give asylum to trespassers anymore,” the large wolf snarled furiously. “Do you know what we do to intruders of our lands? We are the Midnight Sun Pack! We kill all those who pose a threat to us and our people, regardless of their rank or power!”
“Please, I can assure you, I am no threat to any of you,” I pleaded desperately, looking around at the other wolves. “If you won’t give me asylum here, let me return to the Eclipse pack, where I truly belong, where you will never see me again. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise I ran this far away from our boundary lines.”
“It’s too late to apologise now, Rogue,” the wolf snarled as she watched me lay down submittingly. “You’re here in our lands and now you must pay with your life!”
“Boss, wait! I sense that she is just a pup,” another wolf piped up suddenly. “Can you not smell her scent? Do you really want to kill a pup? Let’s give her a chance! She could be beneficial to our Pack. Pups are easily trained to follow a new Alpha!”
“It doesn’t matter if she is a pup or not!” the first wolf snarled back angrily, launching himself at the second smaller wolf who yelped out loudly in pain. “Don’t question my authority! We don’t know why this pup was sent! How do we know she isn't lying? She could be here to steal valuable secrets and information about us! She is a danger to us all!”

I closed my eyes sadly as the wolves began snarling and growling once more in agreement as they walked even closer towards me. I knew I was definitely outnumbered and there was no way I’d fight even one of these large wolves by myself, let alone ten. Mya was tiny by far in comparison and I’d be lucky if I could even take one of these wolves down by myself. I heard Mya whining submissively, desperately trying to make the advancing wolves change their minds, but to no avail. They had made their minds up. I was to die in this forest!

Taking a deep breath, I waited for the pain of their fangs sinking into my flesh but to my surprise, it didn’t come. Instead, another loud growl echoed throughout the forest and carefully, I opened my eyes to see another lone, silvery grey wolf walking slowly towards us. The brown wolves instantly stopped growling and lowered their heads, in a mark of respect and submission to this strange new wolf. Was this the Midnight Sun’s Alpha? I watched as the silvery wolf transformed into a beautiful tall, slender, woman with long brown hair and a gentle, kind face. She was wearing a long, white, floaty dress with high-leg slits on either side, showing off long, tanned, slender barefoot legs. The strange woman walked towards us before stopping near the largest wolf who had spoken to me. She carefully looked around at the scene in front of her before calmly uttering a single word.
“SHIFT!”

All around me, the wolves, one by one, morphed back into their human counterparts, as so did I. In front of me now stood ten men who were exceedingly handsome and had muscular physiques worthy of a warrior, complete with intricate tribal tattoos splayed across their torsos. They were all topless and barefooted and wore black or grey joggers. The men all except for the first warrior continued to stare down at the floor in an eery silence. The mysterious woman continued to walk towards us while swaying her hips daintily and didn’t stop until she was right beside her Beta.
“What is the meaning of this Alistair?” she asked calmly, staring at him intently, before glancing over at me and smiling reassuringly. “What seems to be the trouble here? Explain!”
“This Rogue is trespassing on our lands, my Luna,” Alistair replied calmly. “We smelt her coming from a mile off and we came to intervene as she and her friends were approaching rather rapidly. The rest of them ran off when we arrived. Do you know what happened last time we let a stranger into our pack? I was about to deal with her for good as the Alpha has instructed, but you showed up and interrupted us.”
“You do realise that this Rogue is under the age of eighteen. She is essentially, a pup!” the woman replied coldly, her voice tainted with disdain. “You should know our laws better than anyone around here! It is one of our absolute laws. A pup must not be harmed, under any circumstance!”
“I did try to tell him, ma’am,” a voice blurted out, making me look up at a young man with a deep gash across his chest, that he wasn’t taking much notice of. “He told me not to question his authority.”
“Did Alistair do that to you?” the woman asked, pointing to his wound with a long thin finger. “Well? Don’t lie to me, Jenson.”
The young man shifted awkwardly on one foot then the other, clearly uncomfortable about getting the Beta into trouble. Gulping loudly, he looked quickly at Beta Alistair before looking back at the woman in white. “We may have had an altercation ma’am.”
“You are all dismissed. I suggest you go back to the packhouse and let me deal with this. Get yourselves cleaned up!” the woman ordered loudly, as she glared at her warriors in disgust. “And that means you too, Alistair!”

I watched as the men glanced over at me and the woman before turning away and running back into the dense undergrowth and out of sight. Only Alistair remained, glaring at me angrily before he too, eventually followed the rest of the pack and out of sight. Sighing and running her hand through her long brown hair, the woman looked at me and began to walk towards me. Seeing me shake with fear and hearing Mya growl in warning, she stopped and bent down on one knee, extending a dainty hand.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m Marii, by the way,” the lady whispered. “My husband is the Alpha for the Midnight Sun Pack, and I am his Luna. You are safe now pup! Please don’t be afraid!”

Sensing that Mya and I trusted her words, I watched as Marii stood up and came and sat down beside me, giving me a quick squeeze before smiling sympathetically. She looked at me gently before picking bits of leaves and twigs out of my hair and throwing them to the forest floor.

“Rough day, huh?” she asked kindly, looking at me sympathetically. “So, tell me, who are you and what or who were you running from? You weren’t running towards us for nothing. We can smell your fear for miles. You're a nervous wreck!”

Gulping nervously, I looked at Marii and began my story. " My name is Libby. I’m seventeen, nearly eighteen. Both my parents are dead. I come from the Eclipse Pack, but I doubt they’d care whether I came back or not. I expect they haven’t even noticed that I’ve gone. I was running away from my stepmother and her boyfriend, James. Oh, and my stepsister!”
“Why were you running away from them, Libby?” Marii asked softly, looking at me intently, her eyes full of concern. “I’m really sorry to hear about your parents. That sucks to have no real family. Don’t be afraid to pour your heart out to me. You can tell me everything. I promise you, you are safe now.”
“When my father died, my stepmother, Julianne, turned me into her slave. I had to do everything from cooking to laundry, the garden and paying all the bills,” I continued sadly, pausing as I felt my eyes beginning to prick with tears. “If I broke a rule or didn’t do something right, she or her boyfriend would beat me as a punishment. Today was the worst day ever though. James, he did the unthinkable…”
“Go on love,” Marii persuaded gently. “What happened? What did he do?”
“James was punishing me for answering back to Julianne. When she went to work this morning, he followed me into the garden shed and he raped me,” I sobbed, letting the tears that I tried so hard to hold back, finally spill as I sobbed my heart to this strange but nice woman. “He said he wanted to make me his special girl!”
“It’s okay, Libby,” Marii soothed softly, pulling me towards her and holding me tightly. “No one will ever hurt you like that again. Not while you are in my pack.”
"I'm not part of any pack though" I shrugged as I wiped my eyes. "My pack has forgotten about me and I don't think I'd be welcome here!"
"We will see about that!" Marii smiled gently as she hugged me some more. "Just sit here and take as much time as you need."