Chapter 2: Leaving everything behind

The night was turned into a bloody nightmare, with my people fighting very hard to survive. Our dead littered the floor of the ballroom like rubbish on the streets, yet more rogues kept coming. It was an attack on a large scale. It's like something that has been planned for many nights. How didn't we see this coming?

I was tired, wounded, and barely holding my own, and the only thing keeping me going was Zach fighting beside me. Between the two of us, we have managed to kill a lot of rogues, but that barely made a dent in their numbers.

My father and a few of our warriors were back at the Pack defending it. The rogue planned their attack so well that they attacked us on two fronts. I kept in touch with my father through our link; he is fighting hard, just as we are. But I could hear his strength depleting.

The warriors fought to keep the rogues away from where Mum and the others were sheltered. We also needed to protect the vulnerable members of the Pack: the elderly, the cubs, and the pregnant she-wolves.

Here in this room, we aren't faring better either.

"You have to leave now!" Zach screamed into our link as we faced off against another group of wolves. I retaliated, shouting, "I am not leaving you!"

"You have to. Please! We can't both die here. Our Pack needs a reason to survive, and you are that reason."

I wanted to argue that I was not more important than anyone else in the Pack, but my father's voice intruded into the link. "He is right; love, you must escape."

"But..." I still tried to argue as my heart grew heavy at the thought of abandoning my family.

"You have to go now, Fallon. We still have the numbers to hold them off," Dale, Zach's father and our Pack's beta. And even though his tone was pleading, it was laced with authority, letting me know he was giving me an order.

Everyone felt my agreement in my silence. Another warrior made his way to Zach to take his place while I withdrew. Inside, I began to weep as my wolf made her way towards the exit. Zach and the warrior did their best to keep the rogue from pursuing me. When I got outside, there were a few of them attacking my people out here.

I was about to join the foray again when Zach leaped in front of me and took on the rogue who was my target. "Keep going!" he yelled as he fought with the rogue. I heeded his words and kept on moving. Soon, I took off into the forest, running with no idea where I was going. My wolf was bleeding from all the gashes she sustained during the fight, but she kept on. Our family wants us to survive, and that is what we will do.

I stopped abruptly in the forest when I felt a terror in the link, followed by intense sorrow, and soon, it was all I could feel. Something terrible had happened.

"Don't stop, Fallon," Zach whispered through the link. His voice was weak, which alarmed me. "Are you alright, Zach?" I asked worriedly, wondering if he was the reason for the intense sorrow and great sadness I felt through the pack link.

"I love you, Fallon," I heard him say before our link disconnected.

"No!!!!" I screamed in my mind while my wolf howled loudly into the night. Her pain and mine merge to create the loudest hurl in history. Losing Zach felt like losing a part of me, and yet the universe was not done dealing me a cruel hand.

I tried to contact my father through the link but got no response from my mum, Dale, and the others. I have been severed from the Pack. I have never felt so lonely as I did at that moment, and the pain and grief that followed brought my wolf to her knees. I wanted to shift to lie there on the forest floor until death came for me, but that would be doing their sacrifice a disservice. They wanted me to survive, and that was what I would do.

I heard a twig snap in the distance behind me, and I immediately became alert. The scent carried by the wind was rotten. Rogues. They have followed me into the forest. It won't take the time to map out my location. For now, the forest is riddled with the scents of every wolf that has run through it, but soon, they will be able to figure out which one is mine.

I have to keep moving.

I took off running through our Pack's forest. The idea is to keep going North until I have lost the rogues.

As I was heavily injured, it didn't take long for me to lose my speed. I became tired, hungry, and worn out. I was dying to rest, but I couldn't risk it. Even though I couldn't hear the rogues behind me, I knew they were still after me.

I don't know how far I ran before my strength gave out, and I collapsed on the ground. I was seeing spots and barely had the strength to keep my eyes open, but I didn't want to give up. I tried to stand several times, but my wolf was all spent and very weak.

"Come on, Frost. We need to keep moving," I tried to encourage my wolf. She tried to do as I requested, but when she got back on her feet, I felt her legs tremble before she collapsed back to the ground, and darkness claimed us both.

I don't know how long I was out, but when I came around, I heard voices speaking above me. I held still, wanting to know if they were foes or friends. I couldn't smell anything rotten, which ruled out them being rogues. But their scent was one I didn't recognize. This was a pack we weren't familiar with. I wondered how far north I wandered.

"Do you think it is dead?" I heard one of them ask.

"I don't know. Maybe you should check it out," another said.

"Why me?" The first voice retorted

"Well, you are worried about whether it is dead."

"Yeah, well, she is huge. She is almost as huge as the Alpha, which means she is an alpha, too. Do you think we can take her if she is dangerous?"

"I don't think she will be taking anything. Look at how injured it is."

"Maybe we should call it in," the first voice suggested.

"Or we just kill it. You know how Alpha is about strangers trespassing into our territories."

"Yes. But I don't think it meant to trespass." There was compassion in the tone of the first voice. Remaining still hasn't helped me figure out who these clowns are, and if they think that I am going to let them kill me after everything I have been through, they have another thing coming.

With all the strength we had left, Frost and I got to our feet and smirked when the two guys talking about us jumped back in fright at the sight of us on our feet.