Chapter 2: Borders Pack Territory

“Sabar! Let her in!” a male voice boomed from the woods. It came from nowhere and everywhere, all at once.

My ears rang and my head swayed. I struggled to stay on my feet.

~How many are out there?~

~Let me in? To where?~

I couldn’t tell if this voice was helpful or another tormentor.

The door groaned open, and a tall man with black hair and a black goatee stepped through the door to meet me. “Who are you?”

I thought hard. ~Valerie,~ something inside me whispered. An echo of my own voice rose through me with the answer that I couldn’t reach.

“Valerie,” I mechanically recalled, the word rough on my dry tongue.

“Well, Valerie,” he said dryly. “You look like warmed-over hell.”

I assumed this was Sabar since he was, indeed, letting me in.

“You need to go get washed up down in the creek.” He pointed through the trees to where I could faintly hear the slow sloshing of water.

He slipped out of his cloak and tossed it to me.

I stared at it. It was far bigger than the one I had.

“We’ll have to get rid of that one.” He nodded toward what I was wearing. “It reeks of blood. That’ll draw wolves for miles.”

“W-what do I do with it?” I looked at him helplessly as I slipped out of it.

His gaze flicked down my figure, assessing the damage to my nightgown. It was so thick with blood and mud that even I could hardly tell it had once been white.

“I’ll get rid of it.” He held his hand out for it. When I hesitated, he urged, “Let me go find you something clean to wear.”

“Oh. Okay.” I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to cover all the blood and the dress that was matted to me.

“I should warn you though. The Mating Moon will be here in a few days, so I’d suggest you cover yourself well.”

~Mating Moon…~

He acted like I should’ve known what that meant.

I didn’t.

But I could tell Sabar was sincere. I hesitantly took the proffered cloak and stepped behind a tree. Holding the cloak tight around me like a giant blanket, I handed him the ruined nightdress.

He took it and pointed to the creek.

***

While I washed, I heard Sabar’s name called by that familiar voice. I jerked upward, covering myself as I tried to see who was coming in.

I heard the groaning of the door and knew he opened it for the muddy man.

~The one who’d pushed me in this direction.~

“Where is she?”

“Washing up at the creek,” Sabar said. “Give her some time. She’s scared as hell.”

Whoever it was must’ve nodded, because I heard no response.

I quickly scrubbed myself with a spongy rock. Pushing off the debris, I saw a long streak over my stomach and swished water over it to reveal the deep slash crossing diagonally over my belly.

~I don’t remember getting that.~

Both of my arms were mottled with scrapes and bruises. I was a mess.

“Hey,” said a hushed voice.

I covered myself and ducked into the water.

True to his word, Sabar had returned. He kept his back to me and stepped one leg into the water, offering me a garment.

Though what he offered me was a grossly oversized dress.

“Was the closest thing I could get from one of the elders in camp.” He nodded through the trees in the direction of glimmering firelight.

~Camp.~

The orange glow drew me like a moth.

~A fire.~ I wanted to be somewhere warm…

I greedily took the dress.

He waited along the bank with his back to me.

I scurried to finish washing up and pulled on the dress and cloak.

I circled around to peer at Sabar from beneath the oversized hood. I held it tightly closed in an effort to hide myself from the world.

Although Sabar seemed to be looking everywhere but at me.

I was thankful. Gashed and slashed and bruised beyond what might ever heal, I was ashamed to be seen.

~Whatever had happened to me… I’d clearly been through hell.~

“Go through the trees,” Sabar pointed. “And in the distance at the edge of the camp is an old hut which belonged to Widower Tom. He passed away last year. No one resides in it now. Take it.”

I nodded, clinging to the fabric covering me. “T-thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Wasn’t my doing to bring you here. You may very well regret that you were driven here, one day.”

I looked at him. His cryptic words unsettled me.

“Go,” he nodded toward the camp.

Camp was a collection of wooden buildings in a lopsided circle around a central fire. Despite my apprehension, I was vastly relieved when I entered the rough-hewn hut at the far edge of camp. It was more of a shack, really, sparsely furnished with a chair, small table, fireplace, and sagging cot. But there was also a bit of boar cooking over a flame.

It sizzled on a spit over a small, spitting fire.

I swallowed my hunger and looked around, worried that I was intruding.

“No one lives here?” I called after Sabar.

“No one lives there,” he tossed over his shoulder.

I slid on my knees near the fire and yanked the meat off the spit in such a hurry that I burned my hands. I hissed through my teeth but couldn’t stop.

The squirrel had only been enough to take the edge off the pain in my stomach.

I needily crammed the food in my mouth, crooning in bliss as it hit my tongue.

It was nice that someone had bothered to make sure I’d have something to eat. I was too grateful and exhausted to question who had done it.

I checked the door and found that it was sturdy, heavy, and had a thick slide-down bolt that blocked it from intruders. I struggled to move it but eventually locked the door.

I wasn’t completely sure what I’d been running from, and I wasn’t wholly sure that whoever it was, wasn’t here.

That fear was still burrowed deep in my psyche.

~I need to remember. ~

~Who was it? What happened? ~

My memories were like the shards of a broken pot that I couldn’t fit back together. It should all be right there for me to rebuild.

~But it’s not…~

***

The next morning, I opened the door and found a bundle of clothes on my stoop. I tugged them inside and undid the strings holding them, highly grateful. I was touched by their kindness.

I spent the next hour with my hand on the door handle, wanting to go out and thank them.

But I remembered what Sabar had said about the Mating Moon.

I eyed one worn dress. It was too tight for me to wear. Making my decision, I began determinedly tearing it into thick strips. I went to work binding my body, wrapping pieces around my breasts and tying them tight. I made my bust as flat as I could.

Then I moved on to my stomach, wrapping my waist with the fabric until I could put on one of the bigger dresses and appear thicker and more shapeless in the hopes of avoiding drawing attention. Pulling the cloak over the baggy dress would help further obscure my figure. Perhaps even conceal I was female, from a distance.

I braided my blonde hair and let it fall down my back under the cloak. I knotted another strip around it to cover my hair even under the drawn-up hood.

I had gone from being alone and running to surrounded by wolves I didn’t know.

I knew they were what I was. I could smell it, feel it. I understood we were all wolves. That was something written on my soul in irrevocable paint.

It felt like it should be the string I could follow to remember more, but every time I tried, pain pulsed in my head. And there was a howling in my mind. A sound which emerged from deep inside me but didn’t rise from my throat.

~A part of me.~

I cracked the door of the hut, listening until I was sure no one was close. Then I peered out.

I could see movement all through the camp. But there was a path from this hut that ran along the back of the others.

I watched awhile, until I was sure it was unoccupied.

Then I scurried to the back of the first hut. Crouching in the shade of it, I listened to conversations from the center of the camp.

“Do you smell that?” a male said.

“Oh, I smell it,” another male agreed.

“It’s that female, from yesterday,” a deep voice rumbled.

One of them drew a long breath. “She smells amazing.”

“Yes,” another one drawled. I heard a motion as though he was turning around. “She smells…close.”

I ducked my head. Grimacing, I realized they were talking about me.

“Just the smell of her is doing wild things to me,” another one moaned.

“To all of us, I think,” another said.

I leaned around the edge of the hut to see them.

I had expected to see two males, but there were three, all similar builds with black hair. Two of them were engaged in conversation as I’d suspected. Another one was looking directly at me, his brows lowered over fierce green eyes as he met my gaze.

My heart froze.