#####Chapter3: A Narrow Escape

“Whichever kind is here must watch out very carefully!” A voice echoed out of the darkest side of the woods, hitting me very heavily after the gunshot. “The hunters are around. No enemy will be spared!”

Growls, snarls and feet-stomps.

They made a scene in the darkest of the woods, closer to me. I heard bangs on bangs, feet hushing with quick steps and the sound of hands pulling the trigger to bring some unseen beings down.

Another gunshot.

A rustling noise of wolves running up and down hit the ground. From the stomping rush of the claws of unseen wolves to their snarls, continuous and grinding to the ears.

Nervously, I tiptoed away from the spot I was, but I didn't move so far.

But, I was farther from safety than I was, from the deadliest danger which already was before me. “What have I done to deserve this untimely death coming to take my life…” I muttered those words to myself, now feeling I was the only one who understood my current state.

I flinched.

As I turned back, my right foot lifted to cross a very deep, rocky side, the glaring eyes of one of them caught me clearly. “I can see a wolf Queen… here…! A little crown is even carefully worn around her forehead!”

“Catch her!” Another one screamed, hopping towards me. “Kenneth, try to tie her down!”

And, suddenly a power rose inside of me and I felt just the same way I did, when the Moon Goddess was with me, stronger than just a she-wolf—but a prophesied Luna.

The Moon Goddess was present again, but I didn't feel her closeness yet. I just knew she was back, and around, here for me.

Very swiftly, the particular rogue close to me, Kenneth, raised his gun, holding a spear in the other hand. “So, you don't even have strength. Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Why do you think it's safe here when you know Finn, your trusted safety-man has always been a coward?”

“...hhh.” I had the strength to attack, but I was held backwards by the strange hands of the Moon Goddess.

“Will you speak up?” Kenneth charged, watching me with his eyes which burned with an inconsiderate anger. “If you won't say a word, I will have to break your head in pieces…!”

“Hold on!” The other rogue called out, waving from a distance. He was already hurting towards us when another gunshot was heard. “Kenneth, I got that hybrid down, just now!”

He seemed to have killed another—a hybrid.

The rogues here were definitely enemies of such beings, different from them. He had shot one of the struggling hybrids out in the woods.

“Nice shot!” Kenneth returned, growling with a hot sigh, of which smelt unpleasant to my nose.

After a few moments, the other rogues from afar was almost a feet here, before he could near me, and as Kenneth tucked his finger around the trigger, the lightning struck him from nowhere and he fell down flat, the bullet rushing away from the hole.

“Ahh… Ah!” Kenneth groaned, as he hit his back on a jagged rock, his spinal cord almost breaking into pieces. “Thad, won't you…”

It was then I heard the name.

The other rogue was Thad.

But, this nearly deceased one, Kenneth, couldn't make up a sentence of his statement when Thad, the other rogue, went on his heels, his hands raised akimbo, rushing away swiftly for his dear life.

I chattered, my eyes tracing Thad as he fled like a poor, powerless being. “How fast you rogues run…!”

“One…” Kenneth muttered, struggling to make other words out of his divinely battered, wounded mouth. “One is…”

I realized his hands pointed to another side of the woods, and I knew he was going to die. But then, I saw a shadow of another wolf, trying to approach me and reach space—where I was, with Kenneth, who was already leaving the world by my hands—with the aid of the Moon Goddess.

“Who is that ‘one’?” I said, a strange smile appearing on my chin. “Is he part of you two?”

“A…” Kenneth slurred back, holding onto an already hewn piece of the rock to support himself. “A Beta from…”

“Beta?” I echoed.

I was shocked.

When the shadow formed into a face, it stood right there, watching both of us in the danger scene. My heart was burning and I nearly thought of picking up the gun to shoot the stranger Beta down to death.

Calmly but commandingly at the same time, the Beta called out, almost very close to me. “Lara, the Alpha King has sent me to you…”

I was vexed.

Beta Jonathan.

That wicked, heartless, unfaithful and wandering wolf Beta stared into my eyes and saw a strange strength in me.

“Move close to her if you dare!” Another wolf threatened Jonathan, tying him unawares. “You will tell me why an uncertain wolfsbane was poured into your liquor… How empty and unreasonable your life is!”

The next thing I saw was Jonathan's knees on the ground. And, then the two were shadows again.

“So, you fear too?” I questioned, my eyes moved from the other side back to Kenneth, a sick, half-dead, and helpless rogue. “What a great shame, you stark enemy of peace!”

Kenneth's sighs pressed on as he held his belly stiffly. Maybe he was trying to survive the pain. I wouldn't want him to escape by the way, so I picked up his gun from the ground.

Escape?

He mustn't.

This is where Kenneth's life must end—right here and now. I was conscious and confident of myself, bolder than just a she-wolf, now feeling the Luna that I would be.

“Raise your head!” I ordered.

Kenneth struggled to do as I had said, and as I saw his badly lightning-struck, red forehead raised a bit, I pulled the trigger.

“Don't shoot!” A strange voice, very similar to that of the wolf that tied Jonathan down, echoed out of the dark, hitting me with inward silence.

I already pulled the trigger.

What else then?