Chapter 3: Learning to Hide

I gasped and ducked behind the hut. Circling to the other corner, I hitched my skirt and rushed to the next hut, then the next, watching warily behind me to ensure I wasn’t pursued.

“Where were you?” I heard a female saying.

“At Martha’s,” another female said. “Getting some advice.”

I looked in the direction she’d come from. Behind her was an aged, weathered hut, a bit tilted as if it belonged to someone older.

~Someone wise. That’s where I need to go.~

I slipped from between the buildings and skirted around to the front of what seemed like Martha’s hut. But claws biting into my shoulder whipped me around. Someone snarled at me.

I ducked my head, automatically cowering from the abrupt assault. My back was violently shoved against the trunk of a tree.

“What are ~you~ doing here?” It was a female, her face contorted with anger.

“I was just here to talk to—” I gestured to Martha’s hut.

“No,” she snapped, cutting me off. She pressed her forearm across my neck.

I felt for the rags hiding my body, worried that she had jolted my head cover or my clothes loose. I tried to hold them in place.

She used her other hand to smooth brown hair back from her face. “In this camp.”

“I was chased here.”

“Well, buttercup. You came to the wrong place.” She jammed her elbow into my throat, pushing hard.

I choked, abandoning holding my clothes to clutch and fight against her.

~Why does she want to hurt me? What have I done?~

I desperately clawed to get her off my airway.

“What the hell is going on here!” a barking voice cut across the camp.

I couldn’t turn my head to look. I was entirely focused on that sharp elbow pushing in on my airway.

Suddenly, the brunette woman was pulled from my view. I gasped for air as she was lifted completely off her feet and spun around.

“What are you doing!” a male roared, towering over the woman.

“She shouldn’t be here! We don’t know her.”

“We didn’t know you, when you came here, yet I didn’t try to strangle you.” His green eyes flashed. A nearly identical male came to his side.

Someone stepped between me and the commotion. He had that same smooth black hair.

~He’s one of the three. Why are they doing this?~

She sputtered, backing from his rage.

“I w-wouldn’t h-have actually h-hurt her,” the woman said, retreating.

The green-eyed male caught her by the front of her shirt and hauled her up to his nose. “You don’t ~ever~ touch her. Do you understand me? She’s under our protection.”

His wrath made my heart leap into my throat. The power he exuded had flashes of a far uglier man ripping into my mind. One who laughed cruelly at me. I couldn’t quite see his face, but I knew he was responsible for the blood that haunted me.

~How?~

But the female’s voice intruded into my tortured memories.

“Yours? But you’ve never—I…Why ~her~?” She nearly whined the last words.

“You know why.” He shoved her backward.

I sensed their eyes about to turn to me. In a panic, I looked around for somewhere to hide.

I was yanked sideways by a withered hand gripping my sleeve. An old woman guided me into the hut. The door was closed quickly and quietly.

I was breathing heavily. I slid down the wall and covered my face, sobbing into my hands.

“The Mating Moon will be here in a matter of days. You need to stay away from the aggressive ones.”

“How do I know which they are?”

The old woman laughed coldly. “Oh, you’ll know.”

I nodded into my hands. Crying harder.

Her tone softened as she explained. “It’s the unmated males.”

I made a noise to indicate I understood and worked to stop crying.

“Who are you, my dear?” The woman tipped sideways to peer at me in the dark hut.

“Valerie.”

“Well, dear, it seems you’ve caught the attention of the Faber boys.”

“Faber?”

“Victor, Chase, and Huntley. They are some of the fiercest of the Borders Pack. It appears they’ve set their gaze on you.”

“Why?” I clutched my cloak.

“I’m unsure. But what one boy desires, all three of them will get.”

“I don’t know them.” I pulled my knees to my chest.

The woman scoffed. “You think that matters among wolves? Where have you been, sweet?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed, sickened by that knowledge. “I can’t remember.”

She crouched next to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Well, my girl, you’re going to have to be cautious with these males. Especially this close to the Mating Moon.”

“What is the-the Mating Moon?” I asked.

The old woman blinked. “When the pink moon rises it drives the males wild with desire. Calm ones can turn aggressive. Quiet ones can rage with lust. They’re just as likely to kill as mate with you.”

I gave her a wide-eyed look.

“It is a wild time, when no wolf is tame,” she continued. “The hormones of us females charge up and though you can’t feel it, if you were to change into your wolf, males would be summoned from miles around, sense lost to lust.”

“How do I know when it’s close?”

“The pink moon and the males. They become almost pure animal. Their wolves run rampant and the human part of them gets very little say in it. They’re as likely to kill you as mate you.”

It was hard to breathe.

“So, what do I do?”

“Stay in your hut and barricade it,” she warned. The look in her eyes told me the gravity of her words. “If you were to be taken with pup from being bred, it would be much harder for you to choose a mate of your own. You won’t have a protector. One would likely be chosen for you by our alpha.”

My stomach sank. But something, some tremor of something else, crawled through me. A tiny hint of fury rose in me, shouting that I would never be forced to do anything.

~Not by any alpha.~

Though the words were still my voice they felt far away, like a part of me I no longer knew.

~Someone stronger. Someone unafraid.~

***

As the voices outside died down, the woman introduced herself as Martha. She fetched a cup of tea and offered it to me. The warm cup heated my fingers and unwound my nerves a fraction. But an almost foul steam wafted up from the dark liquid, thick with wood and fetid herbs.

“Thank you.” I worked to hide my grimace.

Martha tapped the top of the wooden cup. “This is so you’re not gotten with pups after Mating Moon night if you’re not officially mated.”

“It’ll keep me from carrying?” I asked in shock, unaware there was such a thing.

~The alpha allows this?~

Martha nodded solemnly, putting a finger to her lips. “Never tell the males we do this. They’d kill me.”

I didn’t have words. My head ached with everything she said. But I didn’t want to die under the Mating Moon. I sipped the tea; it tasted worse than it smelled. I gulped down the rest to be done with it.

I stayed with Martha a bit longer. Sufficiently warned that I didn’t dare let my guard down, I was ready to get back to my hut.

~And never leave again.~

She peered through the crack in her door until she was satisfied that the vicious female and the Faber brothers were nowhere to be seen.

I scrambled out the door, stumbling and catching myself as awkwardly as a new baby deer. I rushed along the narrow path circling the back of the huts, but stopped when I heard the booming voice of the alpha rising over the crowd.

This male exuded power, his every word radiated violence and challenge.

I dared to peek around the hut and saw him standing atop a log, declaring to the crowd his orders.

“There will be mating, not just breeding under this Mating Moon. Even Alana and Katy should be mated, if they are to be bred.” He gestured to two females.

I recognized one of them as the vicious female that had attacked me. Though now, without the rage contorting her face, she appeared far prettier. But to me, she would forever be ugly.

I promised myself that she wouldn’t catch me alone again. Though I still didn’t fully understand what had incited her fury.

“If you desire a female in this pack, you will mate her under this moon, or someone else will. It is more than I, your alpha, commanding it. It is the legacy of our pack that commands it. Pups will continue our lines and keep our pack alive.”

“Here! Here!” There were shouts of encouragement at that.

The assembled pack roared in approval, agreeing with his declaration.

My heart dropped to my toes.

~Every female?~