The Alpha’s Desire 3(12)

 

 

 

I needed another photo of decaying wood and peeling paint as much as I needed a hole in my head. Although, a hole to stop the constant buzz in my brain, my imaginings of the splendor of the royal island, my fears and worst case scenarios of meeting such people, especially such people I was related to... that hole would be welcome right about now. Even a nap would do, just to give my over-active brain a break, along with my nerves.

 

 

 

With that thought, I heard a sudden, rather unexplainable noise come from Riker just seconds before something large and dark struck his side of the vehicle from seemingly out of nowhere. The horrid sound of crunching metal ripped through my head as the world outside the car started to spin. My hands scrambled for purchase, though with my seatbelt on, I remained in some sort of suspension while the car tumbled, that slow, unreal occurrence that happens during accidents, though later we all say that it happened so fast.

 

 

 

Metal crunched again once we’d come to a stop. The car hit something hard, rolled back, and we were hit by the car again. My door seemed to push in toward me as the vehicle rocked. I felt a second of searing pain in my leg before another hit to the vehicle spun us another way. We were upside down, and now spinning like a top. My head hit my window and turned my world black.

 

 

 

The next time I opened my eyes, I was blinking against not only the sunlight and pain, but the haze over my surroundings, the dense fog that I couldn’t seem to clear from my vision. I peered through that grey, trying to desperately to make out the grunts and cries of pain around me. There were the distinct sounds of a whole scramble of motion, many feet moving, bodies slamming together. When I attempted to instinctively curl up, to protect myself from whatever commotion was taking place, a fight obviously, my legs screamed, and caused a blinding pain to shoot from below my knee up through my hip, making me nauseous as it entered my stomach.

 

 

 

As I teetered in and out of consciousness, I became aware of the smell of burnt rubber on pavement, topped only by the metallic smell of blood that I could only assume was my own, given the wetness covering my head. My own shaky hand rose to my forehead as I tried in vain to regulate my breathing, to stop the flames that seared the insides of my lungs. The noise, the jumble of things hitting together, and growls, coupled with the distinctive tearing of claws and teeth into animal hide. This sound I’d only come to know in the past few days, but I would never forget or fail to recognize it again.

 

 

 

When the haze started to clear, my vision righting itself despite the thumping of my head, my first sight was of my blood-covered fingers proving the wetness on my face, seeping into my hair, was from my own injury. Not a real surprise given the unbelievable headache I had going, but the sight of one’s own blood is never a comforting thing.

 

 

 

Opening my mouth, wanting to scream, the iron taste dripped onto my tongue and made me gag. Rolling to prevent it from getting to my throat, again there was the sting, sharp and burning, that resonated from my leg, and left me to drop my face back to the warm pavement along with my hand that had been blocking my view. The sight there now before me... different place, different time, yet still the same fight, the attack of original werewolves against mine... made me instantly weary and incensed to see.

 

 

 

Cars overturned, crunched into unshapely metal, jagged edges void of paint, littered the road, as did bloody bodies of overgrown wolves. Panic forced me up onto my elbows, regardless of the searing discomfort of this effort, to look for my Lex. What I saw at first was the pool of blood, which like a river had formed under the bodies and had begun to flow toward me, toward my own imprint of vital plasma seeping into the dirt.

 

 

 

The bodies were strewn like a protective semi-circle around me, though I could only assume they’d died either protecting me or trying to get to me. Just beyond that, I recognized Lex, Vivian, and Riker, all in wolf form. Distinctive markings on their fur, a crest of black just below their hunched shoulders, a magic marking I could only assume, set them apart from the other wolves they stood in a standoff against.

 

 

 

I’d noticed this mark last night, and now, here, in my pain and panic-frazzled mind, I somehow remembered that I’d forgotten to ask about it. Didn’t matter now, but still my rattled brain thought on it more than was appropriate as my rising panic stole my ability to regulate my breathing. My vision grew fuzzy again. Regardless, the sight of my wolf protectors was grim.

 

 

 

Whether from the car accident, obviously on purpose, or from the ongoing battle, they were in sad shape. Blood soaked their fur. Gashes grew more and more gaping, unsightly as they moved. Through the ferocious growling, the three wolves leapt in unison at their predators, and so the tangle of wolves, the gnashing, the biting, the growling, continued.