Blood of the Wolf- Excerpt

[KaitlynKay]

This is an excerpt from a story I was working on in 2008.  I'm believe it is classified PG13 . . . but if it isn't and someone lets me know, I am more than happy to remove it.

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The Wolf moved through the night with little more than a rustle, rushing through his wooded territory with haste and fury. His thirst heated the night and the wood was aflame around him, blazing in his wake as he howled his pain. Sorrow drove him mad as his paws beat the soil beneath them, propelling him further into the darkness.

“Aooooo- Ahooooooo . . .” His brothers and sisters cried out around him, unseen but always heard, their spirits always near. They made his head hurt, their voices crawling in his mind, pulling at the pieces of his brain. He feared his skull would crack if he did not find silence.

Gone, they were all gone, he could not reach them. They had slipped from his grasp while he was asleep, content, unwary. Now there was nothing, they were nothing. Nothing but torn and broken bodies, strewn across rock and soil . He had done nothing, he could do nothing.

“Aoo-oo-ooo-oooo . . . .” His own cry broke through the night painfully, warning others of his presence, heralding his advance into nothingness. There was no returning now, even he could see that the way behind was gone, and all there was before him was emptiness.

He could see it, them, their flesh ripped away, their bones shattered, their bodies strewn across the Sacred Place – the one place they should have been safe, the one place the Laws protected. Four small, bloody bodies, one large shattered carcass. They had taken her fur, her body. They had extinguished their lights, their small, flickering lights. His stars and his moon, all gone. They had taken his hope, even his life, his mate and his legacy, gone from him all at once. The sky that was his to gaze upon had gone black and bleak, and now only a storm loomed overhead, ready to devour him.

“Aoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-” he could feel the flames threatening to singe his fur, to bite at his flesh, as the others cried out for him. Their sympathy only drove him further into the abyss. How could they know, understand, his pain? He was not their moon, and they still had their stars. They had not lost their legacy. It was his, him, and he was alone.

He could still feel blood on his snout from where he had nuzzled them all, hoping, praying to the Father of all wolves that one would move, just one would breath, just one would not be broken. Maybe him? Maybe her. But no there was no mercy, no hope.

“Aooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” his sorrow drove him mad, the smell of their blood on his fur threatened to destroy, the taste of it on his snout, strong and sharp, made his stomach roil. He was falling, unable to catch himself, unable to hold on, his body twisting and turning.

And then he was free of it, his hands and knees hit the ground and he was wolf no more. Flesh had pushed away fur, fingernails had replaced claws. He had broken free of the fire and the forest, and now his naked body shook in the light of the moon.  She was full in her glory, but empty in her gaze. His head fell so that he would not see her ghostly eyes upon him in the reflection of the silver lake water, and he felt human tears roll hot down his eyes. Sorrow weighed him down, pulled him under, he could drown here, wanted to drown here, in his pain.

“A-HAAAAAAAAA!” Even his scream was human as he threw his head back and proclaimed his sorrow to the skies, and even it cracked and broke under the weight of his broken heart. His sobs racked his body and quaked in the darkness, shaking the earth and rippling the pristine water before him. And like the ripples his sorrow reached out and extinguished the fire that was his fury, the flames that were his rage.

Silence fell around him, and he felt as if he had been buried, left to die beneath the earth, beneath the bodies of his wife and children. He was alone now, and there was no returning what had been lost to him.