7

April 

I scream as the pain of the bones breaking and reassembling themselves feels like it is tearing me apart. 

Digging my fingers which are shifting into claws into the muddy ground, I try to breathe through the agony while my wounds are being healed after getting ripped open while my skin changes, causing me to black out repeatedly. 

Finally, the pressure on my chest lifts, and I am able to breathe again. I shake myself, noticing that I am now standing on my four paws. My white fur moves in the wind as my wolf stands up fully. 

“Don’t worry, April,” her voice booms through my mind, making me wince as I’m still coping to adjust to the strange sensation of my wolf taking over. “I got them!” 

Even before I can make sense of what she said, she charges forward. I scream, the sound only resounding in her head as she rams the rogue who is about to bite into my mother’s throat as she is lying on the ground. 

The rogue gets catapulted against a tree with a yelp, getting the attention of the other rogues on me. 

They move awfully fast, and my wolf reacts quickly and turns to run away, getting them to follow her. I close my eyes with a sigh, glad about her bringing them away from my mother. 

“Thank you,” I whisper as she halts, turning back around to face our attacker. 

I hold my breath as the rogues growl threateningly before charging towards us at supernatural speed. All my preoccupations are for nothing as my wolf dodges the first two, and she collides with the third one on purpose. The rogue stumbles backwards, allowing her to jump him and sink her claws into his side to make him fall to the ground with a thud. “Behind you,” I shriek, making her turn around just in time to avoid a rogue snapping for her leg. 

As she dodges another attack, she bites the rogue in his throat, making him slump to the ground defeated. I can feel the metallic taste of his blood in my mouth together with my wolf, causing my stomach to turn. 

“Take deep breaths,” my wolf says calmly as she starts running after the rogues who are now trying to escape. “It’s over soon.” 

She catches up with them effortlessly, attacking one of them and ripping his throat as the other two standing manage to escape. 

“Damn it,” she cusses, and I feel her blood-lust swash through me as I take another deep breath to calm my racing heart. 

Running back to my mother, she gets me to shift back as we are standing right beside her. 

I stand there for a second, inspecting my hands with big eyes. “We did it!” My feeble whisper makes my wolf chuckle in my head, boasting about her skills proudly. 

‘Oh, yes. I was on fire. Now let’s get your mom out of here,’ she says, making me jerk up. 

Falling onto my knees, I caress my mother’s head gently, feeling her cold skin under my fingertips. “Mom!” 

Panicky, I check her wounds, seeing that she is severely injured and needs a doctor as soon as possible. 

‘We need to take her to a doctor fast, or she will die,’ my wolf tears me out of my thoughts as I spiral deeper and deeper, getting me back to reality. ‘I know that you are tired and still weak because of your shift, and this isn’t an easy situation for you, but you have to move. We can’t risk her death or the rogues coming back with reinforcements.’ 

I take a deep breath, lift up my mother from the dirty ground, and start walking through the forest to reach our car. She feels so heavy in my arms, and I fear that it might be too late as she seems to be totally not responsive. Swallowing a sob, I reposition her in my arms as she risks slipping from me once more and clench my teeth to walk further, my body feeling like I will collapse any moment. 

‘Just another bit,’ my wolf encourages me, making me push out air to gather a bit more force to make it to our car. 

As we finally reach our car, I check the soil on my feet for car parts or shattered glass before I lay down my mother gently. I walk to the car and my arms slump at the realization that it is completely totaled and that it will be impossible for us to use it to move further. “Fuck, what am I going to do?” 

I hold my hands against my temples and take a few deep breaths to make my desperation retreat back into my stomach just as it starts expanding into my chest. “Okay, April. One step at a time.” 

Crawling around the car wreck, I take out our bags and hastily search for clothes to put on for me and for my mother as well. Straightening up my spine, I walk into the middle of the street and look both ways, clicking my tongue. “Doesn’t seem like many cars pass here.” 

I remember what my mother told me about trying to get taken in by the packs in the closer vicinity, and decide to go for it. 

‘Can we shift one more time?’ I ask my wolf, and instead of getting an answer, my bones start shifting and breaking again. 

Crouching down in my wolf form, I pull my mother up to carry her on my back before standing carefully and shaking to make sure that she is lying on my back safely. 

I take off, running through the forest as the rain continues to pour down on us. 

I can’t even remember how long I have been running as my legs suddenly feel weak, my body feeling as if I was running out of energy. 

Just as I’m about to slow down and slump onto the ground, I hear a roaring of engines thundering through the trees. 

The sensation of hope that streams through me provides me with new energy to run directly into the way of the convoy of armored SUVs. 

The squealing of tires signals the emergency brakes being activated to get the heavy cars to come to a halt at the last moment before they would have crashed into me. 

“What the fuck?!” A bulky driver gets out of the second car, leaving me with no doubts about why these cars had to be so large. 

A small army of men follow him to see what is happening, and when they see me they distort their faces with disgust. 

“Rogue!” Growling shouts boom through the air as three men have already shifted and are stalking towards me. 

I lay down on the floor and bare my neck to show that I’m not here to fight but need help for my injured mother. 

They surround me slowly but as they continue snarling, my heart sinks, thinking that they don’t care about the injured woman on my back. Just as I sense them move to attack me, another door opens. 

“Wait!” A handsome man, who is even more muscular than the one I saw at first, jumps from the car. 

He reaches us with leisure steps, obviously conscious about the fact that we aren’t a threat to him. I clench my eyes closed, whimpering as I press myself even deeper into the soil. 

“Alpha Noah?” The bulky man asks, who must be his Beta. “What do you want us to do with them?” 

But Alpha Noah doesn’t respond to him and keeps his eyes fixed on me. He tilts his head, his deep voice vibrating through the air, making a shiver pass through me. 

“Shift!”