Meanwhile...
The crescent moon hung low in the velvety sky, casting an eerie glow through the canopy of the trees. The warm summer’s night was far from silent as Alexis strolled through the forest, her siblings of sorts walking at a much slower pace a few meters to the right. An owl hooted from far above and bugs chirped all around. The teenagers conversed loudly, but not so loud that with their super-human hearing they couldn’t hear the scurry of vermin in the undergrowth or trickle of the stream three kilometres away, and not so loud that Alexis couldn’t hear their thoughts, conscious or not.
Daine’s tangled auburn hair needed a wash and a cut but Raven didn’t care as he bent down and kissed her on the cheek.
“What was that for?” she murmured with a dazed smile.
“Being so darn sexy.” He wrapped his thickly muscled arm around her tiny waist, she leaned her head against him, barely up to his shoulder. An oddly perfect couple.
Vivi was blatantly gazing goo-goo eyed at Shayne, and every time their eyes would meet a blush would spread across his childish cheeks and he’d bashfully avert his round grey eyes. Alexis shook her head, grinning ever so slightly to herself. Vivi had always had boyfriends, but now she was really in love, she didn’t seem to know how to handle the situation. And Shayne – he was a year younger and still thought cooties could land him a trip to the hospital.
“You orrigh’, Alexis?” Raven called with the ghost of an Australian accent.
Alexis nodded, keeping her eyes forward.
“Headache?” Daine inquired, rising his thick eyebrows.
Again, Alexis nodded.
“Hey, everyone,” Daine stage-whispered. “Think a little quieter; you’re giving Lexxiee a headache.”
If anything, his words had the opposite effect. Her family’s thoughts still poured relentlessly into Alexis’ mind, now bursting with sympathy for her. It was annoying enough hearing all of them in wolf form, but in human form too? It was maddening.
“How come Jasmine and Kammal made us go for a walk?” Shayne whined. “Do they think we’re fat or something? ‘Cause Vivi sure ain’t fat.”
Vivian giggled and the two exchanged shy glances.
“They told us to sell you for some magic beans,” Daine told him, his expression serious.
“Are you calling me a cow?”
A wide grin stretched across Daine’s face, his straight square teeth sparkling in the moonlight. “If you wanna put it that way; yes.”
“Jaz and Kammal wanted the house to themselves,” said Vivi.
Shayne’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What for?”
“So they can do it, you moron,” Raven snapped.
Shayne’s frown deepened. “Do what?”
Vivi giggled as Daine smacked his own forehead with the palm of his large hand. “Are you really that naive?”
“What! I don’t get-” Realization dawned on his round, childish face. “Ohhh… do it.”
“Now he gets it.”
“They’re having sex, aren’t they?” Shayne pulled a face. “Ew.”
“On the couch…” Vivi winked.
“On the kitchen bench…” Raven added, glancing at Daine as she recalled some memory that Alexis didn’t want to know about.
“On your bed,” Daine teased.
“Stop it!” Shayne cried, covering his tiny ears. “I’ll never be able to get the images out of my head!”
Daine cracked up laughing just as Alexis’s ankle caught on something cold and hard. “Woah!” As she fell her black cargo pants caught on a stick and tore loudly. Her arms flung out instinctively to catch herself and she landed on her forearms in a sticky puddle that gleamed red in the moonlight.
“OMG, Alexis?” Vivi called.
Her heart throbbing in her ears, Alexis slowly turned her head to see what she’d tripped on. It couldn’t have been-… it was. A pale blue-ish arm stood out against the dark forest floor like a star in the night sky. Terror filled in her gut as she traced it up to the shoulder to find that the arm was disconnected from its body. Bile rose in the back of her throat, but Alexis swallowed it down.
“Guys…” she called shakily. They were already picking their way over through the trees.
Alexis staggered to her feet. Beside the arm was a large rotting log, over which Alexis had the full view of two human bodies, bloody and mangled, hollow on the insides. It was as though someone had gutted them like a fish. Large camping packs lay a few meters away, slashed and blood-spattered, their contents spilling everywhere. The packaged food had not been touched, nor had their valuable possessions, it seemed, as Alexis noticed a watch gleaming on the other wrist.
“Shayne, don’t look.” Raven shoved her brother back and reached for Daine’s hand.
“You too, Vivi,” Alexis said, but she knew her best friend wouldn’t listen.
“O… M… G…” Vivi breathed, her hand flying to cover her mouth.
“Hey, I wanna see,” Shayne grunted, wrestling with Daine’s right arm to try and get past.
“That was not a bear,” said Daine, his voice husky.
Shayne managed to duck around Daine. “What wasn’t-? Holy cow.” He spun around and retched into the bushes.
“Gross,” Raven muttered.
A blood-curdling scream split the stony silence. Alexis whipped around to look at Vivi, standing thinner than the spindly trees surrounding her, arm outstretched to point ahead. Three lean wolves emerged, blood-stained muzzles twitching.
“You killed them,” Alexis whispered. She stepped forward and found a stronger voice, “You ate them.” Alexis vaguely registered Shayne throwing up again. “Freakin’ cannibals!”
The wolf in the front reared onto his hind legs, his grey fur retracting and his figure blurring and reforming into that of a man. His long tangle of red hair fell down to his pale, scrawny shoulders, in desperate need of washing. He smiled, not without malice, to reveal rotten crooked teeth.
“Welcome to my world, sweetheart.”
Daine charged at the red headed man, his muscles visibly tense and flexing in the pale light of the moon. “You sick, twisted freak,” he growled, shoving the man roughly. “It’s not like I can report you to the police, but I’m sure Kammal would want a word with you-”
“Oh, you’ll find your alpha is quite tied up at the moment,” the man grinned. The wolves behind him barked in laughter.
“What did you do to him?” Daine demanded. “What did you do to him!”
“He’s alive… for now,” the man assured him, casually removing Daine’s pan sized hands from his shoulders. “But I’d be rather careful if I were you. All of you have a choice, between life and death. If you join my pack, you will live. If you refuse, you will die. It’s quite simple.”
“Why do you want us in your pack, but?” Raven asked, holding her little brother tightly by the wrist.
The man’s eyes flashed with amusement. He took pleasure in answering. “Because my pack – my way of life – is the path to enlightenment. It would be wasteful not to encourage other shape-shifters to follow me.”
“He’s a nut job,” Alexis clarified for everybody.
“Well, no shit, Sherlock,” Daine shouted. “Get the hell off this territory or, god help me, I will rip you apart!”
The man took a step back, holding his hand up like a stop sign as adrenaline pumped through his veins. “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” he said, the clogs turning quickly in his brain. “Your alpha’s with some of my men, if you touch me he will die.”
“He’s lying.” Alexis winced as she probed his mind.
The man – Malik, as she found out – stared at her unblinkingly, and she noticed a complete lack of eyelashes - they’d all been plucked out. “Do you really want to take that risk, little girl?”
“You’re talking out your ass. There’s only three of you – and a few younger ones sleeping in a farm barn to the south.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
Alexis grinned darkly. “I know everything.”
“Impossible,” he snapped, impatience growing. “Tell me how you know!”
“Don’t talk to her,” Daine growled, a snide grin tugging at his lips. “Don’t even look at her.”
Malik’s yellowy eyes flicked to Daine, beginning to doubt himself.
“Get the hell off this territory,” Daine repeated slowly. “And never come back. ‘Cause I swear if you do, you’re a dead man.”
Malik took a step back, then another, and another. He turned around and morphed back into wolf-form before running off into the forest.
I’ll be back, his thoughts were screaming. When my pack is bigger and stronger, I will be back. I’ll kill the girl and I will own this territory. Mental images rose in his mind of Alexis’s freckled face splattered with blood, her blue eyes iced over, staring unseeingly up at Malik’s grinning face.
