Chapter 11 - The great escape.

IT TOOK A COUPLE OF DAYS, but Lena quickly figured out exactly how she was going to escape and get her things on the way out. She really felt awfully guilty about Rebecca and what might happen to her when Alaric found out Lena was gone, but she couldn’t think about it anymore. She needed to get out of here as fast as possible.

Lena’s heart was racing as she put Rebecca to bed and switched off the light. She was just about to close the door when Rebecca called her back to ask something. The little girl looked awfully sad as Lena switched on the light and it broke her heart all over again!

“You won’t leave me, will you?” It felt like a stab right to her heart as Lena lied to Rebecca. She made sure not to actually make any promises she didn’t intend to keep and simply told her that she would never leave her. It wasn’t entirely a lie, was it? Rebecca would be in her thoughts for the rest of her life, but she couldn’t physically stay. When the little one finally seemed convinced, Lena switched off the light and wondered if Rebecca suspected anything.

Maybe she shouldn’t try and escape tonight … What if Rebecca suspected something and told Alaric and they were waiting for her escape? Lena shook her head as she made her way to her room. The last night guard would be checking in on her in half an hour. As soon as he was on the other side of the passage, she was going to grab her bag from Alaric’s office and make her way out through his window.

It was the only option she had because, from there, it was a straight shot over the small clearing and into the dark forest beyond. Once she was in the forest, she could cast a spell to hide her scent from the wolves and she would make her way to the river. She wasn’t entirely sure if she would make it to the river in time, since she couldn’t remember how far away it was. She knew they were pretty close to her old home, which gave her a fair indication of which way to go.

Her door opened and she quickly shut her eyes, trying to keep her breathing as calm as possible. She knew that the wolf would hear her fast heartrate and alert Alaric if he suspected anything so she forced herself to calm down. She yawned loudly while the guard seemed to be staring at her for longer than normal and he frowned when she opened her eyes, glared at him for a moment and then turned her back on him.

She pretended to yawn again, but in fact she was taking a deep breath so she could calm down more and she pretended to fall asleep. He stood there for another minute or so before leaving and when she heard his footsteps going past the doctor’s rooms, she knew she was in the clear. Quickly jumping out of bed, she pulled on her shoes and rushed to the door, opening it carefully so as not to wake anyone. She checked the passage and rushed out of her room, carefully closing the door on her way out.

She counted her steps as she made her way to Alaric’s office and listened against the door for only a moment before rushing inside. The guard’s footsteps came back her way and she stood against the other side of the door, holding her breath in the hopes that he hadn’t seen her! The last thing she needed right now was for that idiot to catch her in Alaric’s office!

The moment she heard her room door open down the hall she knew she was in trouble! She hadn’t packed her bed like she planned to do and the guard would know she was gone the moment he opened the door! She realized she hadn’t convinced him that she was asleep because he only came back when he thought she wasn’t sleeping yet! Dammit! She should have been more careful! Now there was no turning back, and seconds later she heard the guard’s howl echo down the passage!

Her eyes scanned Alaric’s office in a hurry and she noticed her leather bag packed away on one of the shelves. She opened it, knowing she didn’t have the time to look for anything if something was missing. Breathing a sigh of relief, she quickly closed the strap after seeing that both the grimoire and the athame were in her bag along with some of the medicine her mother packed for her all those years ago.

More footsteps joined the guard in the passage and Lena cringed as she opened the window carefully. She was halfway through when she heard Alaric’s voice near the office door and she jumped. It no longer mattered if they knew she had escaped! They would soon find her scent and she had to get to the damn forest! She looked to her left and right and started to run. She had just reached the forest when she heard the wolves outside the house and her heart raced as her hands moved in a circular motion to draw the protection spell.

Saying the words over and over, she closed her eyes and breathed in, feeling the spell run through every vein in her body. It burned like hellfire, but it was the only way she could think of hiding her scent from them. As soon as she felt it rushing past her feet and into the ground, she started running in the direction of the river.

The spell would hide even her tracks in the mud. Her father taught it to her when she was very little. It was meant to hide her from her mother when she had been naughty, but she never used it. She actually thought he was just teasing her until she saw one of the warriors doing it during the days of the war.

Branches were hitting her in the face while she ran and they brought her back from her memories of the past. She wasn’t going to take a boat like her people did. She started saying the bubble spell as soon as her feet hit the water and by the time her head was under water, a bubble had formed around her nose and mouth. It would last her just long enough that she could make her way up the river without anybody seeing her. Or so she had hoped.

ALARIC WAS FURIOUS, PANTING as he reached the edge of the forest and her scent was gone! She couldn’t be more than a couple of meters ahead of them, but there were no tracks and no scent to follow. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to feel her through their bond.

As soon as he felt her presence, he sprinted ahead. He knew he would never be able to explain how the hell he had tracked her, but he didn’t care. It would be worse to explain that he let her get away! He reached the river and there was no sign of her, making him wonder if their mate bond had led him astray, but something told him she had been there.

His eyes scanned the water carefully but there was no sign of her. Closing his eyes, he tried the bond again, and again, it felt as if she was there. She had to be there! He watched the water surface to see if it moved in any strange way, but there was nothing. He looked at the water reflecting his own image back at him while Lena was under the water looking at his beautiful face.

Lena had just popped her head under the water when she heard their heavy paws hitting the ground behind her. She couldn’t dare move or they would see the ripples in the water. Her heart was racing, but the sound of the nearby waterfall drowned it out enough that she knew the wolves wouldn’t hear it, and even if they did, the water would distort the sound. She could see the fury in Alaric’s eyes and her heart again went out to Rebecca as Alaric turned and ran.

Lena waited patiently as the rest of the wolves left the bank of the river and she slowly started to make her way up the river. At first, she wasn’t going to go back home, but then she realized that they would probably never look there for her. Why would she go back there? The place where it all started … The place where these monsters started to kill her people …

She saw the jetty through the water just as the last of the air in the bubble made it’s way into her lungs and she climbed out onto it sputtering and fighting for air. She had made it back home. After years of being away, she finally made it back home! Lying on the jetty, she looked up at the stars and tears started to roll down the sides of her face. She was bone tired, and she was alone. The only one of her coven left in the entire world.

She didn’t know if the beasts actually killed each and every blood witch or if some of them had been lucky enough to find somewhere to hide, but she knew that all the members of her coven had been killed. After catching her breath for a while, she got up and recast the protection spell. She wasn’t going to take any chances. Somehow, Alaric found her even after she cast the first spell, and she didn’t want them to find her ever again.