“Where are we?” I asked Ben, staying pretty far back from the edge of the hole.
“It’s a quarry,” Ben said. “I thought it would be best to get away from as many life plants and animals, etc. as possible.”
Back in the forest, I spent a few hours recharging the staff. It was so hard to tell whether or not it was fully charged when I had no idea how much power I had used up. I really wished there was a little battery gauge on the staff, like there is on my phone, where I could see how much of its power was gone, and how much I had left. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t the case.
I couldn’t believe what I was looking at, and I didn’t know what to do about it either.Sam was standing in the back yard, wearing only the shorts he had on when he’d just shifted back into his human form, throwing pebbles at my window, trying to get my attention.
I did dream of Sam that night. I awoke as the sun was rising, remembering only that my dream had consisted of the two of us together, in bed, but I couldn’t remember the details. I fully expected to open my eyes and find him gone, but he was still there.He wasn’t asleep either. I glanced at the clock and saw it wasn’t even 7:00, so it was quite early for
The next few days were full of me spending time in the forest, trying to build up my powers so that they were as strong as possible while the rest of the pack was out in the community trying to build support for our endeavor against Verina. Sam didn’t come back to my room at all, and I hardly saw him. I spent a little time with Ben and Joshua, and our relationships continued to strengthen, but neither of them took me as far as Sam had. Still, kissing them, spending time with them, getting to know them all better made me more and more confused and nowhere close to making a decision about an Alpha.
My eyes scanned the back yard as I tried to understand what I was looking at. I saw my four pack members standing closest to the porch, but they weren’t the only wolves that had come to help us face off against Verina. Across the yard, there were dozens of other wolves, some standing by themselves, others in small packs, all of them looking up at Grandma and I where we stood on the porch, all of them appearing to pledge their allegiance to our cause.
Caught in Verina’s dark stare, I was helpless, even with the staff pulsating its power through my grip. She laughed that horrific cackle, and I didn’t move, only continued to stand there, a million thoughts flooding my mind as I pondered what I could do. I had more wolves on my side than she did, but that meant nothing if her powers were stronger than mine.As
Sam’s teeth made contact with the hem of Verina’s long black cloak pulling her down slightly, back toward the ground, as the ball of fire hit him squarely in the side, near his right haunch. He yelped and let go of her, falling to the ground. I didn’t have my powers ready in time to prevent it, but I did send a wave of what I hoped was healing light in his direction. Her flames didn’t last long as the white light left my hand and extinguished them. Sam fell to the ground in a heap. I wanted to see if he was okay, but I couldn’t at the moment. Verina was still coming my direction, Sam’s attempt at distracting her doing little to stop her.
The pain from the wolf attacking me was overwhelming. My head was swimming as I tried to stay conscious. I’d never been in so much pain in my entire life. Thoughts of doing anything else, of trying to stand up or use my powers to help me, were far from the forefront of my mind as all I could think about was the excruciating pain of the bites and gashes from his claws.