16. Desquamation

The rage of the storm begins to rise severely with a loud sound, collecting all the specks of dust. The rigorous sound of the storm killed her eardrums and the specks of dust were filled in her eyes. Akshara could feel that her hands were holding something tightly. Karen reached her to help, for which he was ignored by her.
Akshara with a scared voice asked him, ”What do you want?”
Karen replied in a wolfish tone, “I want to help you” for which the reply from him.
Akshara had thrown an immense blow at his mind, “If you want to help me, and then stop following me. Just stay away from me.”
Karen replied in a sad tone, “Axe, stop yelling AWAY word at me. I wanted to help you.”
Akshara quoted one of the sayings which she remembered suddenly, “Wolf worried of its prey being drenched in rain.”
Karen stood silently while Akshara crushed Karen’s heart with her numerous sharp words of a dagger.
Karen silently mumbled to him; You are not my prey. You are my love-mate.
Suddenly, Akshara felt the seismic-rumbling under her feet. She lost her gravity in the instant shaking of the earth and was about to hit the ground a hard way. She thought she was going to break her nose.
Soon a wolfish figure appeared in front of her and caught her hand and makes her stand on her feet. Akshara had taken her hand immediately from the saviour by feeling the furs on the saviour's body. She could hardly see the face of her saviour but assumed it was Karen.
The tremor grows cruelly and the ground under feet started to pull inside. Karen from behind shouted to be careful on her steps.
Akshara was confused to hear his words from behind, “He was there with me now in the front by saving me but I can hear his voice comes from behind…how it could be like that, so weird. I think my ears are jammed.”
While clearing her ears, Akshara hopped a little to escape her falling. Akshara escaped each step but endure to travel further inside the palace.
When she was about to reach the unshaken part of the palace, a target missed fireball hit the alleyway of the entrance and Akshara finds no way to enter into the safest place. She thought she was helpless and had a deep breath and then decided to have a long jump to reach the palace. The safest place!
Akshara had a long jump, finally reached and hold on to the hanging pillar. She felt relief by taking a great leap and struggling to climb. A wolfish hand appeared in the middle of the mist and holds her hand to lift her from falling. She went inside the dusty mist to see the face of her saviour.
The entrance of the palace couldn’t stand strong by the multiple attacks of purple flames. The arch of the entrance which was above her heard started to tremble hardly and loosened its grip from the wall and targeted to reach the head of Akshara. The furred hand from behind snatched her and helped her to escape from such destruction.
Akshara cried, “Karen?”
Karen replied in a wolfish tone, “Axe. I got you. Don’t worry”
The falling arch hit the entrance and the entrance was shattered into pieces. Akshara felt touched by the act of Karen even though she hurt his feelings and she raised her hand which was about to touch his face, the earth quaked to shake the entire palace and it was drifted from the ground level to 100 feet high.
Akshara witnessed every scene from the hands of Karen and opened her eyes widely to see such a peel-off mask of the majestic palace.
Each and every part of the palace was started to peel off its skin of appearance of the majestic palace to the shabby shattered palace of the black, evil-looked, broken palace.
Karen carried her to get her a safe place and so he started marching forward, Akshara does not mind being carried as she was fixed her gaze at the revealing appearance of the palace.
The golden colour paint of the palace went away and it revealed its original true colour, Black. The door which was designed in the way that it wanted to look like entering heaven on purpose, now changed to the demolished door which leads the way to hell.
The statues of cute chubby cupids with wings were designed as the doorkeepers changed into a graveyard raven with evil eyes and large wings.
The glasses of windows were shattered into pieces and the water outlets were changed into the mouth of evil creatures. The scrubs, plants, trees, multi-coloured flowers were started to wither and changed into thorns, cactus, organ pipe cactus, saguaro, and leafless trees.
It seems that the entire palace itself hides its true identity of appearance by doing some makeups of the majestic fake look.
Akshara exclaimed, “Did I call this place safe before. How idiot I am!”
When the mist, storm, earthquake, peeling were gone out, Akshara cleared her vision and looked at it carefully to examine what causes the earthquake. She could see a giant dragon bursting purple flame to attack; the dragon was being attacked in return by a woman in black with the ball of fire.
Akshara wide opened her mouth and take her breath deeply by probing that the woman in black is her Godmother, Nicoria.
Akshara tried to ask Karen, “How does…why dragon…fireball…Nic…does… Karen”.
Karen wanted to help to fight the dragon to stop the destruction. So, he decided to leave Akshara in a safe place. Before she could hint her talk, Karen took her inside the broken shattered palace and left her in the corner of the staircase and told her in a warning tone,
“Axe, Stay Here. Don’t come out. At any cost, don’t come out. I am begging you to do this favour for me… Will you?”
Akshara nodded and Karen fled to help others.
Akshara thought to herself, "Who would wander out when the entire palace was being attacked by a dragon. My werewolf friend had gone to fight back the dragon. I will be killed in their attacks. Why could not it be a T.V show of fantasy creatures? But, I am involved directly. I can feel the pain all over my body. So, I am not dreaming"
Akshara shut her ears with her hands and tightly closed her eyes and buried her head in between her knees. She could hear the bursting of some of the palace walls and her face was washed out in her tears.
On the other side, Nicoria was busy preparing fireballs to attack Nora. Nora, who was producing breath-taking purple flames towards Nicoria, ragged with her anger and attacked in a fiery way.
Karen took the big piece of shattered wall and throws it at Nora to stop her from attacking the palace with the least damage. Nora was knocked out and fell into the zone of Nicoria’s palace, before she comes to her consciousness and was about to take her next move, a massive giant werewolf with blood-red eyes attacked Nora with its claws randomly.
Nora threw the werewolf away from her and blood-red eyes werewolf looked at another and gave a signal. The werewolf, who was waiting for the orders, was standing by the pillar ready to attack. Once the signal came, it leads other werewolves and it started attacking Nora more fiercely.
Nora hardly gets rid of all the werewolves and flew away a little to take the bigger move, by the time Nicoria threw a massive ball of fire at her.
The continuous attack made her exhausted and she decided to retreat from her attack to bring her escorts. One of the wings Nora was damaged hardly and she could barely manage to fly away with one wing.
After the attacks were over, everyone comes inside the palace and gathered in the living area. Nicoria stands in the middle and looked at everyone.
Nicoria’s red smoky eyes rolled over the living area and saw the pack of werewolves standing in front of her. Everyone lowered their heads and bow at Nicoria. Nicoria had an evil look with a cunning smirk in the corner of her lips.
All the werewolves wailed, “All hail the Queen”
The chores of wolfish sound get the consciousness of Akshara who was hiding in a corner of the staircase. She slowly removed her hands from her ears and opened her eyes.
Akshara placed her hands on the floor gently to crawl to see who was hailing whom. She thought she could not open her eyes even more widely anymore to see the scene of shock.
She stood up with the support of holding on to the railing of the staircase and started counting with her eyes, “One, two, three, four, five, six…oh my god”
Out of six, she could identify one like Karen. Who are the rest?
Akshara started scanning each and everyone’s wolfish figure to find who could be they were in human form. She could not find by scanning and her eyes moved on to the black womanly figure and sighed to herself,
‘Why the hell everyone changed in this Bluemoon night and even this palace too changed its form both exterior and interior. Oh my god, wait… Am I too changed? Can it be a curse?’
Akshara self-checked at her hands; it was normal as before but with wounds. She then touched her face, she felt acute pain in her forehead and her fingers were wet with her blood. Oh, I am bleeding.
The pain of an unhealed wound in her forehead forced her to think, “I don’t change since everyone has changed. Are they normal or Am I abnormal? Is it the out-comings of the effect of Bluemoon?”
Soon, the bright rays of Bluemoon started to gloom and the sky was ready to clear sweeping the shades of night. The werewolf with red eyes started a howl and was followed by everyone. When the dawn came around, the werewolves begin to become humans.
The one who stood in the middle with red eyes took human form as Alabruz Redclaws.
The one who stands with him changed to Yadivah Redclaws.
The werewolf on his right changed to Karen Redclaws.
The other three stood behind them changed to Nuraz Wintergreen, Deniza Wintergreen, and finally Azile Wintergreen.
After their transformation, Akshara expected and glanced at her godmother too will change. Nothing happened. A bird that looked like a scary parrot now changed its appearance to pitch-black plumage of raven with a dagger-like beak. A pet bird of Nicoria changed from parrot to raven when resting on the shoulders of Nicoria.
When Nicoria turned back to look at Akshara with her red smoky eyes, panic gulped the consciousness of Akshara while Karen rushed to Akshara and she fainted in the arms of Karen.
Upcoming:
The pack of six warrior werewolves
A Black-Witch Queen
A human girl.
What would be her master plot to escape?