5

*Maddox POV*

It’s getting hard as shit to avoid all the rogues in the area. A full week since I last saw my dad and I am no closer to coming up with a way to live out here and get the justice I deserve. I have been running on only a few hours of sleep over the past few days and have nowhere to hide. At this rate, I may as well just lay out in the middle of a fucking field and let them kill me however they please.

The only thing keeping me from doing that is Lana. No matter how much I want to hate her for the sick fucking video she emailed me, I find I can’t. Every time I close my eyes and decide to just give in, I hear her voice, the sounds Kohen elicited from her once perfect lips, the vision of her on his lap. The way the light of the moon exposed her bare body enough to show me her nakedness. It reinvigorates me every time, making my anger for her grow and my hatred for Kohen even more deep-rooted. 

I am going to make sure he never gets to hear those noises from her again. If shit hadn’t gone down the way, it did. I might have let him live in peace with the woman I have craved. But now that he thrust his shit in my face and I have to live with the consequences of his actions, all bets are off. I will do anything to ensure he loses everything like I have. I just have to come up with a way to do it.

A howl breaks out of the bushes to my right, another to my left, and I can hear the wolves charging me from behind. I am outnumbered no matter what I do and with nowhere to go to hide; I know there is only one option remaining. Stand a fight, even if the odds are against me. I slow my pace, coming to a stop in a sparse part of the woods where the moonlight leaks through the trees and the ground is soft.

This is as good a place as any to die.

“You came to your senses and decided to just give up, then?” A lanky man struts forward, his skin dirty and his hair in dreads, knotted in a low ponytail with a piece of fabric. Rogues are known to be dirty, not as bad as the exiles, but exiles living long is rare so no one really has expectations for us. I shift into my human form, pulling out a pair of shorts from my bag. 

I am a formidable fighter in both wolf and human form, but with all the running and lack of food, my wolf is exhausted and needs to rest. I puff out my chest after pulling on my shorts, watching the band of merry ass rogues all take their human forms. Some put in the effort to pull on clothes, others not caring enough to even try.

There are five in total. All equally crazed in the eyes and dirty in the face. I sniff the air, trying to decipher what I am dealing with here. Thank fuck there are none of alpha blood in this hunting party. In fact, I don’t pick up a scent of ranking at all among them. The odds aren’t leaning in my favor, but they aren’t completely stacked against me either now. 

“You enjoy hunting exiles?” I ask, looking around, trying to buy myself time to formulate a plan. There are two smaller rogues near the man talking. A man and a woman, both gaunt and lanky. They should be my easiest targets.

“Gives us something to pass the time,” One of them shrugs, taking a small step toward me. 

“Exiles are criminals, love.” The woman says, A slight British accent when she speaks.

“Or wrongly accused.” I offer and she cackles. 

“Don’t make no difference to me. That bloody X on your face makes you a spot of fun.”

“Don’t taunt the prey, Mildred.” The guy that appears to be the leader says, clicking his tongue. “Wouldn’t want to scare the big guy away, now would we?”

“So you do just hunt exiles for fun, then?” I scoff, trying to wrap my head around a life where the only thing you live for is killing someone with less of an advantage.

“Yes, and no.” He shrugs. “Sometimes we turn the dead bodies in for a reward. These smaller packs don’t like the idea of criminals running loose. The bigger packs have nice, fancy borders and border patrols. But these smaller ones, well… Their borders get overrun from time to time. When exiles or the real nasty rogues want things.” 

My mind swirls back to the time when our smaller pack was riddled with attacks from rogues for no reason other than to take what they wanted. And when we fought back, they took nearly everyone’s lives with them. My anger grows and I grip onto it like it’s a lifeline. There is no talking my way out of this, and there is no escaping this without killing at least a few of them.

Unlike most of the warriors from the Ruby Star Pack my age, I have taken lives before. It’s not uncommon to take a life or several as werewolves, but with the peace that the pack has had for so long, there have been many who have never had to truly fight outside of their training. I am ready to do whatever the hell I need to in order to survive. All I can do now is hope it’s enough. 

They all take slow calculated steps closer, spreading themselves out around me, trying to keep me trapped, surrounded. I lunge for the woman first. In a fight of five versus one, there is no choice of being a gentleman. Not if I want to be a living one. She is quick, sidestepping me, but I manage to wrap my hands in her matted hair. She screams out in pain as I slam my fist into her face as another jumps on my back. 

I snarl, releasing her and reaching up to grab his neck. He is slight in physique, weighing nearly nothing compared to my alpha sized body as I grip his nape and yank him hard off me. His nails tear through the flesh of my back as though my flesh were merely a soft cheese. The pain causes me to hiss as the smell of my blood dances through the air. 

The others don’t wait for me to handle him one on one as they all leap toward me at the simultaneously. I sprint forward through their small crowd, their claws digging into my skin as I drag them along for a few steps, then abruptly drop to my knees. All but one stumbles over the others, falling and releasing me as I take the leader to my right and tuck his head swiftly into my hands, and yank as hard as I can to the right. 

His head snaps, his body going slack as I drop him and ready myself for the next one to attack. The she-wolf shrieks and hisses at me angrily before jumping into my chest, claws slashing wildly as the other transforms into wolf form. They grip onto my legs and ankles, finally drawing a cry from my lips as I stumble to my knee.

My wolf comes alive inside of me, his thirst for blood becoming my own as I grab her, exposing her neck and bare my teeth. They sink into her flesh with ease. The copper tastes of her blood hitting my tongue and letting loose the feral part of me I once locked away.

I can feel her pulse with every burst of blood spilling into my mouth and down my cheeks. I want nothing more than to make it stop. For her blood to run cold. She shrieks and squirms in my hold, trying to escape my death grip. I bite down as hard as I can as someone bites into my neck. Her throat crunches under my jaws, and I toss her to the side, letting her bleed out on the moss riddled ground.

Two down, three more to go.

I reach back, searching for the one moving up my back. My thumb finds the eyes of the asshole biting into the muscle of my neck and I press in. The wetness of the tear duct, growing as the wolf whimpers but clings for dear life. My other fingers find his floppy ear and I use it as leverage to thrust my thumb deeper until the tension gives way and my thumb slides in with ease.

His hold on my neck loosens, and he tries to pull away, but I yank with all my might, throwing my body forward as he soars through the air. He lands roughly on the ground, a whimper tumbling from him as he bounces. I turn my attention to my left calf muscle, which has been obliterated as the wolf there works on tearing my leg to shreds. I focus my energy on getting him off it by shifting into my wolf.

My brown fur stands on its ends as I growl down at the much smaller wolves who now face me. My left hind leg dangles behind me but my other three stand firm as I launch forward and tear into the one who tries to flee. He exposes his throat, the number one mistake in any fight for your life, and I seize the opportunity to latch on and shake him from side to side as his breathing turns into a gurgling cry as he drowns in his own blood. 

My eyes scan for the last one, who is nowhere to be seen, three dead bodies and one limping away, before shifting into his human form, holding his eye. I’d chase him if I had the energy or strength to do so, but my body needs whatever reserves I have left to heal my torn muscles and blood loss. I drag myself to where my bag was left behind and shift back into my human form, pushing myself up against the base of a mossy tree. 

Pain filled groans break from my lips unbidden, but with no one to hear my cries, what’s the point of stopping them, anyway? I pull out the herbs for my face. Only a week’s worth of them left and my scar would have possibly been far less worse and much less noticeable. But my leg needs these medicinal herbs more now. Who the hell knows what kinds of diseases these mangy ass mutts carried out in the wild?

“Gaaah! Fuck,” I grunt, pressing them into the gaping wound and hoping I am doing this shit right. My leg sears as though it is sitting in a flame and my back and neck aches from the claw marks and bites that slowly seep my blood. Five against one wasn’t great odds, but I survived my first rogue encounter as an exile. Now I just have to survive the injuries that came along with it.

I hear more howls in the distance and my lungs seize up, my eyes scanning the forest silhouette, waiting for more to step out and finish me. I can already feel my wolf curling up, it’s ability to help me with the pain slowly shriveling away as he rests to heal what he can of me. My eyes play tricks on me as I blink them hard, trying to get them to remain open and alert. But it seems impossible as they ache, and my body shuts down.

I try to remind myself of what I need to live for and I can’t seem to conjure up the reason. I have a father who loves me, a woman I want… but my brain tells me that those things aren’t important. Shit, they sound downright exhausting as my eyes slowly slide shut as the figure of a woman comes rushing toward me. I throw my hands out, swiping at the air as my eyes close. My breathing ragged and shallow. 

Shit, is this what death feels like? A calm descending of darkness where nothing matters, only letting go? If it is… I welcome it. The solitude quickly erases the pain of the life I have been stuck trying to survive… but maybe this mystery woman will end it for me, give me the peace my wolf and body ache for, my justice be damned…