STRANGE CREATURES

EVANORA’S POV: 

It was funny how the strangest of places could bring you a sense of peace you never knew that you lacked.

With the light breeze blowing through the forest and the sweet chirping of birds, I sang to my heart’s fulfillment a melody that I knew too well. Afterall, my mum had drilled these lyrics into me while growing. 

As the music poured out straight from my soul, my chest felt heavy. Maybe because everything about this particular song reminded me of my dead mother. Her face. Her voice. Her laughter. Her last words to me. 

‘My brave little girl, Evanora. My angel.’

She’d died when I was just 16 and that was all it took to break the last fragment of my life that still made sense. I believe that was when I had my first taste of this harsh reality. I was forced to work multiple jobs, pay endless bills and dedicate every last shred of my existence to just surviving.

Sighing softly, I reached out to the locket on my neck that was a fond reminder of the life I shared with my mother. She’d gifted it to me when I turned 16, a few days before she passed away. It was all I had left of her. 

A stray tear fell from my eyes and I quickly wiped it off with an eye roll. Why was I being so pathetic? This was supposed to be a good day - a great day, infact. I wouldn’t let distant memories ruin that for me.

Afterall, just about 24 hours earlier, I was summoned by the Giovanni Dynasty. The freaking royal family! In the city I lived in, the Giovanni Dynasty were the ones who really called the shots. They owned most of the properties, chains of industries and political influences. 

They were the definition of spitting power.

And maybe that was exactly why I’d been reeling with a thousand questions when the guards from the Giovanni castle had burst into my small coffee shop, stating that King Demetrius Giovanni was requesting my ‘urgent’ presence.

It hadn’t been an invitation, it was a command, and one thing you learn from these streets is that when the Giovanni Dynasty calls, you don’t dare say no.

However, not one moment through my trip to the castle had I stopped wondering on what King Giovanni could possibly want from a small town girl like me. Did he want me to serve him some coffee?

I rolled my eyes at my own silly thought. 

When I’d gotten to the castle, he had been absent and I was given a room to wait around till his arrival. That was last night, and I’d decided to take a stroll through the whole place this morning, which was what brought me down to these tranquil woods.

The flowers were gorgeous, almost as immaculately beautiful as all the lovely people I’d seen in the castle. Regardless of their ghastly pale skin, they had all been remarkably beautiful - almost in a way that didn’t seem natural. 

My thoughts were briefly interrupted by a quick rustling in the woods and I stopped singing, snapping my gaze to it’s source. 

But the whole place was quiet, and just when I was about to return to my music, a figure moved with the speed of lightening through the dark corners.

My heart picked up it’s pace and I shot up from my spot seated on the rock. 

“W-who’s there?” I whispered out, feeling the slight trembling of my fingers. “Show yourself!”

There was silence.

Stone-cold silence.

And that was when it hit me; a strong alluring scent that filled up my lungs in a way that had my heart skipping a beat. That was weird. There was no way something could smell so damn good out here.

However, it only intensified and quickened a desperate need in my heart to find it’s source, like an addict in search for it’s fix. I spun around, trying to trace this…strange scent and make sense to why it brought this rush of excitement to my body and goosebumps up my skin.

When my eyes caught the quick movement in the bushes again, I was just about to call out to it before a hand forcefully grabbed me, pushing down large fingers over my mouth right before any sound could escape.

“Make a sound, sweet heart, and I’ll do the honors of ripping out your throat.” The man with a very foul stench grated into my ears.

Every nerve in my body froze and my heart crashed painfully to the ground, sending a horrifying wave of panic through me. What the hell was going on?

I began fighting against his iron-like hold on me, kicking my legs and fruitlessly trying to wiggle myself out of his grip. But this man didn’t budge, it was like going up against a man with the strength of a hundred men. 

My eyes stung with tears.

“Let me go, you bastard! I have no money if that’s what you’re after. Just let me go!” I screamed into his cold hand, although it came out more like muffled sounds. 

The incredibly strong man laughed manically into my ears and squeezed down his arm around me even tighter, in a way that caused excruciating pain to wrack my body and my lungs to constrict, restricting my breathing.

“Let you go? Oh no, not all, darling. For the rest of us, you’d be better off dead.” He cooed and bile rose up my throat when I felt his tongue trail down my neck, almost like…he was tasting it?

Rest of us? Was he a crazy man? What was he speaking of?

The tears fell now, quickly doubling by the second and my vision blurred. Was this how I die? In the woods? At the hands of a mad man? All alone? 

My sobs came harder and as he crushed me further with his strength, I closed my eyes and kissed the life I lived good bye.

“Get away from the lady.” A new voice growled in a low threatening manner, and just like the time with the scent, tingles ran up my body with bubbles of sensual excitement.

I dared to open up my eyes in that moment, gazing straight at this new man and for a second, the world went still. 

The first thing that captivated me were his stormy blue eyes that seemed to pierce into my soul, holding my gaze, like he could see parts of me no one could. 

He was devastatingly dark and handsome, standing over there in just his pants, with midnight black hair, perfectly toned skin that accentuated his chiseled jaw and well-defined abs. 

The man was a Greek god and any female with working hormones would sell her soul over to the devil just to have this gorgeous stranger touch her.

My dirty thoughts were interrupted by the grating laughter of my captor. He tightened his hold and pulled up my neck closer to him, until I felt the sharp graze of his teeth.

What? What the hell was going on!

“Who knew the wolf could play prince charming too? Too bad the damsel is too late for saving.” A second after that, he sank his teeth into my neck without warning and the most gruesome pain enveloped my consciousness.

An ugly scream tore out of my throat, followed by the free-fall of endless tears, especially when he only dug deeper. That was when I realized that this man wasn’t just biting, he was drawing blood out of me. I could feel my life and energy being sucked out of me.

However, my mind was too occupied by the mind-numbing torture I’d been introduced to, to fully absorb the oddity of the moment - the fact that this crazy dude had dug his ‘fangs’ into me and was currently having the pleasure of killing me slowly by sucking my blood. 

That wasn’t normal - not at all!

Yet, not even the absurdity of the moment prepared me for the cracking of bones that took place infront of me, before the dark stranger was engulfed in a skin of fur and in his place was a gigantic black wolf, furiously charging towards us. 

I screamed! 

With everything in my lungs, I screamed into the air and birds quickly took flight at the horrifying sound. What the hell was going on? Who were these people? This had to be a nightmare! I was seeing things. I had to be! Because there was no darn way that…that man had just turned into a wolf.

Right? 

In a blink, my captor was flung away from me and my body dropped to the ground with a thud. My hands quickly went to my neck and the sore spot was covered in thick blood, which coated my fingers. 

My hands trembled. Infact, my whole body shook both from fear and the overwhelming ache that throbbed every part of me. God, what was going on? What the actual fuck was going on?

My thoughts were broken by the bone-quaking growl that the wolf, or man, or wolf man, gave out before he dived straight at my captor. 

However, much to my surprise, the awful man’s eyes glowed red while dark veins protruded on his face as he bared his fangs at the wolf.

They both charged at each other but with just one swipe of it’s enormous claws, the wolf tore into the man’s flesh and went straight for his neck with his powerful jaws. 

Right before my eyes, the wolf man ripped into him mercilessly and even at the extremity, my captor still struggled against the attack. They were both soaked in blood, quickly soiling the beautiful flowers and upsetting the peace of the forest with their beastly growls and cracking of bones.

No.

No, none of these could be real.

But the blood on my fingers contradicted that. The pain in my neck felt as real.  Too real infact.

Maybe I had a concussion. I just needed to get out of here. Get the hell away from these strange creatures.

With that, I pulled myself into a standing position and although I staggered briefly due to the wave of nausea that hit my bones, I pushed myself to keep walking. 

At some point as I moved through the woods, I stopped walking and went full-on sprinting with the last strength in me. Tears clouded my vision and my heart raced, ringing louder and louder within me. 

Almost as loud as the growl that followed steadily behind me.

This only made me push myself further, regardless of the exhaustion that weighed on me. That was until I tripped over a branch, causing me to fall and roll painfully down the ground into a ditch.

The impact was heavy and I groaned as my body ached, especially at the rips and sharp sticks that pierced at me. When I tried moving to stand, I was engulfed with fatigue and the impact of the blood I lost hit sharply.

My vision blurred and darkness called out to me.

The last I remember were the tears that rolled down my cheeks and the face of the gigantic black wolf with golden eyes. 

This was it. 

This was how I die.