Fair warning, this will be a bit confusing if you have not read Oracle of Wolves.
The wolf went deep into the forest and soon enough I began to see others following the same invisible trail as this one, I couldn't understand what they were going towards. Maybe it's some kind of werewolf thing?
That's what I thought until I saw people walking in the same way too. I guess they must not be people. Vampires, maybe?
I followed them until we all reached the mouth of a cave, that's where I refused to go in. I stood outside the cave and watched as wolf upon wolf began to fall, some as people some as animals. None of them quite touched each other, all landing just to the left or just to the right. Hair was falling off in patches and the were shaking uncontrollably. I wanted to reach out and help them but at the same time I was afraid.
One smaller wolf with grey hair landed about a foot away from my feet and I jumped back in surprise, I'd been too mesmerized by these poor creatures to notice that they were getting closer.
My mind began racing and I was trembling in fright when a sudden rush through the air knocked me off my feet. It was like a ripple in time or something because there was nothing else around me. I gained the courage to stand back up and go inside the cave, no more wolves were walking into it but they were everywhere.
I almost fell over a larger black wolf that was lying on the ground. Something came over me and I knelt down to get a closer look at it.
He was asleep like all the others but he looked half dead. Huge spots of his fur were missing and he was damp with sweat, I touched his snout and he whimpered. The sound almost seemed ridiculous coming from such a huge animal and it made my heart hurt upon hearing.
For some reason I couldn't get myself to get up and walk around, see the others. I just sat down next to him, being careful not to hurt any of the others near us. My hand began to stroke him and I hummed the French song I sang in the bakery earlier. His eyes closed. The moment was actually quite lovely until I heard a noise.
I looked around and saw a large altar in the center of the cave. There were two girls on it, one of them I recognized as Wyatt. A wolf stood up at the foot of it and shook herself off. I stood up and slowly took a step closer to her but stopped myself when she knelt over and started to change into a girl. It was Holly, the blond girl from earlier.
She immediately stood up and looked around, rushing over to another wolf not far away with dark brown fur streaked with lighter brown fur. She cooed over him and called for him to wake up, he did.
In fact all of them were slowly waking up, going outward from the altar. They all looked dazed and confused and... naked? Why are they all naked?
Then I looked down and saw the one I was with starting to wake up and realized that he'd be naked too. I pulled the sweater I was wearing over my head and stood up to wait. The black wolf stood on his shaky legs and started to change, I saw that he was Mike.
My face went red and I looked away to hand him the sweater to cover his parts. He smiled at me and took it willingly. Once he was covered I turned back and he pulled me in for a hug.
"You were supposed to stay at the house," he whispered to me.
"I'm sorry, I just saw this wolf going into the forest and I followed it because there was no one else in the house-"
"It's okay, I'm just glad you're safe."
"I'm glad you are."
___
We all went back to the pack house where I found myself running around, frantically trying to help everyone at once as I was the only one not effected by it all. I offered the idea of calling a human ambulance but Mike's father, Jack, quickly put that thought to rest.
"We would never be able to explain this many injuries. It's simply not possible."
I helped Holly first because she was the first one to get taken over by this disease, she was near death when what ever happened happened. I brought her a fresh ice pack every hour and kept her lying down, a matter she didn't like at all.
Other than her I paid extremely close attention to Mike, he wasn't too excited by my not letting him get up either. None of the children or the elderly were permitted to move around too much until I saw the sun come up, that's when I started to see some of them actually make progress.
The girl from earlier, Zoey, was my apprentice in all of this. I was hesitant to let her help, she was with Faye who apparently did this, but let her when a dozen people were calling out for help at once. She proved to be so much better at this than I.
By noon the next day almost everyone was up and running, people went back to their own homes to get rest when they were feeling well enough to walk, taking their loved ones with them. There was only about 20 people left in the house at 1. Mike and his family included.
There was just one thing I couldn't figure out how to help. Nova had a knife in her stomach.
She wouldn't let me touch it, not until she was sure that she and her mate- Tyler, who I still didn't trust nor wanted to be near anyway- were strong enough. I couldn't understand why she thought she needed both strong, what she needed was someone to sew her back up when it was out.
Mike didn't let me pull it out. I'm not complaining, it's not something I wanted to do in the least bit. He had his mother do it. I wasn't even in the room, I was in the one next to it with Mike and Zoey, but I could still hear her screaming.
To get my mind off of it I took the time to study Zoey. I was right about her blond hair but I would never have guessed her eyes would be so brilliant, one was blue and the other hazel. It was incredible. I also got a closer look at her necklace, a bronze chain with a celtic knot of some sort on it.
Mike was glaring at her the entire time, at this point the danger was over and I found myself sitting closer to the child than him. He didn't like it.
In fact he had wanted to kill her but I pleaded with him not to harm her, not mentioning what happened in the woods when Faye casted that spell on me.
Shaking those thoughts out of my head I leaned over to her and reached out to touch her necklace, wanting a closer look. She grasped it tightly in one hand and jumped away from me, making a strange growl noise in the process.
I backed up a bit, that didn't sound human or wolf-like.
What is she?
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