Chapter 15: A predator

Chapter 15

ISABELLA POV

I slipped out the back door and was instantly swallowed by the night. What the fuck? It was barely morning when I ran from home.

The darkness was my enemy. I used to stumble over roots, my human eyes straining to see even a few feet in front of me while the wolves mocked my clumsiness.

But now? The world was painted in shades of colors. I could see the individual veins on the leaves of the towering oaks.

I could see the heat rising from a rabbit burrowing fifty yards away. Every muscle in my body felt like it was made of liquid steel.

I drank the potion quickly, slashing the remaining onto my body as I headed to the Eastern border Miss Sabrina had said.

If that voice…that voice was anything linked to that monster then surely it’s trying to manipulate me into getting killed.

You’re such an idiot, the voice vibrated against my skull. I could feel it’s impatience. They are closing in.

Behind me, the woods erupted in a chorus of howls. They were coming all around me. I heard the heavy thud of paws. Large paws.

“Isabella! Stop!”

Aleric. He wasn’t in his wolf form yet. He must have separated from them, hiding himself for my escape.

I didn’t stop, pushing harder. My feet barely touched the forest floor. I felt like a shadow cutting through the moonlight.

“I can smell you, Isabella!” Aleric roared, and then I heard the sickening crunch of bones shifting.

He was shifting mid-run.

A massive, brown-furred wolf burst through the brush to my left. He was beautiful and terrifying, his Alpha-eyes glowing with a desperate light.

He lunged, trying to pin me to the ground, not to kill me, but to stop me.

I didn’t even think. I shifted on my broken ankle, my body spinning with a speed that defied physics.

I didn’t just dodge him, I watched him move in slow motion. I saw the way his fur rippled, the way his claws unsheathed.

I landed five feet away, crouching low, my fingers digging into the dirt.

The brown wolf skidded to a halt, his paws kicking up mud. He paused there, frozen, staring at me.

He looked at my legs standing strong, no crutches in sight. He looked at my face, and I knew he could see the ring of crimson in my eyes.

He shifted back instantly, whining a low, pained sound in his throat. He didn’t understand.

To him, I was that mutt he had to tolerate but to me, he was just a boy standing in the way of my survival.

“I have to go, Aleric,” I whispered. He growled a warning, taking a step forward, before shifting back to human form.

“Why, Isabella?” Aleric’s voice was ragged, his chest heaving as he stood in the moonlight.

He didn’t care that he was bare and exposed, his only focus was on me.

“Your leg… your eyes… what did that forest do to you?”

“You wouldn’t understand” I muttered, feeling the mark on my neck flare.

“Just let me go aleric….It’s best for everyone…I wouldn’t cause trouble. You all didn’t want me before so it’s….it’s better I just leave now.”

Aleric took another step, his face twisting with a mix of grief and horror. “I never hated you, Isabella”

“Oh please!” I let out a sharp, hysterical laugh that sounded far too cold to be mine. “Don’t lie to me now aleric…You had already shown much hatred to lie now…” I pause breathing head.

“Look just let me go, please.”

He is wasting your time, the voice in my head growled, deeper and more predatory than before.

The Tracker is minutes out. His delaying you. Don’t trust him. Kill him now!

“I’m sorry, Isabella…i can’t I can’t…”Alriec reached out, his hand inches from my shoulder as he talks but I side stepped him, slamming him into the tree next to us.

“Fuck you, alriec.” The crack of his bone snapping was a sound I felt more than I heard.

I broke the hand I was holding him to the tree. He slumped against the rough bark of the oak, his face contorting as he clutched his dangling, mangled wrist with a groan.

My eyes moved to the bone now visible with blood leaking out “Oh my God,” I gasped, the cold power in my veins suddenly replaced by a sickening wave of horror.

I released him as if his skin had turned to molten lava, stumbling back until my shoulders hit another tree. “Aleric… I… I didn’t mean to… I’m so sorry!”

I looked at my hands. They were trembling now, but they felt lethal. I had barely put any effort into that shove, yet I had crushed the bone of a future Alpha like it was made of soft wood.

Aleric panted, sweat beaded on his forehead as his wolf-healing began to kick in, his body shaking from the shock.

He looked up at me, but the grief in his eyes was gone. It was replaced by a pure, shivering terror.

I didn’t see when his hand reach out to the bandage on my neck, ripping it out and eyes almost bulge out.

He looked at me the way the pack looked at the monsters in the stories. “What are you?” he wheezed.

A predator, the voice in my head answered, purring with satisfaction. “I didn’t mean it,” I whispered, my voice cracking.

I wanted to reach out, to help him, but every time I moved, the mark on my neck thrummed with a dark, jealous energy that warned me to stay away.

The woods erupted. The howling was no longer in the distance—it was right on top of us.

“There! Over by the old oak!” The Tracker’s voice boomed.

I saw the flash of gray and brown fur through the trees. My father. The Alpha. The Tracker. They were coming, and they would see Aleric broken hand bleeding with me.

They wouldn’t see an accident; they would see a monster attacking their heir. “Run,” Aleric whispered, his eyes darting to the approaching shadows.

Despite what I’d just done to him, despite the pain, he looked at me with one last shred of desperation.

“Isabella, run! If they see this, they’ll kill you where you stand!”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I turned and bolted.

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