Skinned

I could feel the ties from the pack being stretched to its demise as I ran further away from the territory.

It felt like an ache at the back of my mind, growing more and more as the distance grew. Instead of being submerged into the pain of detachment, all I could think was that it was the last blow of pain before breathing in the new air of freedom,

A new life with Killian, one without scornful eyes staking our backs.

I couldn’t find myself to feel ill of the losing connection with all the people back at the pack, because I never had one with them in the first place; I was never meant to stay there.

I didn’t need a pack, I had Killian.

That’s all I ever needed.

The wind started to grow colder as my wolf continued to race further up into the mountains. The hours of running had my wolf in heaving breaths, yet she wasn’t showing signs of slowing down.

She wore a snarl on her face as she kept her senses vigilant against danger. Her drive to find Killian was pumping her blood full of unbridled strength, she couldn’t find it in herself to give up.

The blow of the wind had turned more forceful as she reached a new height in the mountain, and she would stop at every high point to tip her nose and take a long whiff of the air to check for the smallest of hint that could indicate Killian.

The storm was already running at its full force. The wind whistled against my wolf’s ears as she speeded through the trees with the snow crunching beneath her paws.

But amidst the clamoring blow of the violent wind, she heard a chilling howl from the further East.

I knew that sound very well, its distorted sound shooting straight into my chest and knocking the breath out of my lungs.

Swiftly, my wolf released a growl and shifted her feet to a new direction, heading straight to the East with newfound fervor as she located the call.

Running against the direction of the fierce blizzard, it was almost impossible to gain a clear vision of the direction that she was running. Everything was a thick haze of white, wrapping around the trees and cutting off all angles of the horizon.

She had to rely fiercely on her sense of smell and hearing.

As my wolf ran deeper into the east, she began to hear the distant approach of an attacker, trailing right behind her.

Eli’s trackers.

She released a snarl, snout wrinkling as her ears drew back to her head in hostility.

My wolf slowed herself down, allowing the tracker to catch up, and I could feel her anticipation transpiring with the intent to kill.

She was baiting.

She did not attempt to look back as she played the role of the clueless werewolf. And it wasn’t long before she could feel the tracker just a breath away from her tail, already on the verge of making his attack.

The tracker made the lunge, and my wolf immediately flattened herself on the ground, planting her feet into the snow for a full stop before dropping my bad onto the ground.

The tracker toppled over the snow with a wince, and before he could scramble back up on his feet, my wolf pounced straight for his neck, sinking her teeth deep into his throat but not enough to kill him.

Every time the wolf struggled to free himself, she would jerk her head to threaten him.

My wolf tossed the tracker against the nearest tree. Once he pushed himself up on his feet, he shot me a warry look, whimpering as he shakily kept himself upright.

My wolf darted out her tongue and gave the tracker a snarl. Each forward step she made was a threat itself, forcing him to cower further back against the tree.

She didn’t want to kill him, but if he made another move to attack, she wasn’t going to think twice in doing so.

She just had to make sure he didn’t make that fucking mistake again.

My wolf fixed her posture, letting the threat of her gaze to weigh down on the tracker whose face was already grating the ground as he tried to lower himself further under her wrath.

The tracker yielded himself with a series of whimpers, and my wolf bit the air as her last warning before turning around to pick up the bag and making her run.

She could hear more trackers around the parameter, and she didn’t want to trigger them all at once. She couldn’t risk being hunted down by more of Eli’s subordinates, so she had to keep herself from sending off a howl for Killian.

Every time she’d hear a distant snarl, she would pick up her pace, making sure she’d keep the safe distance of being unnoticed.

After running for a short while, she came across a large cave. She slowly tipped her nose up, taking a cautious whiff of the place, and she immediately caught the scent that wafted all across the cave.

It easily flooded her senses, sending her to the compelling haze that she’d so greatly missed. It carried with it the echo of soothing nights and deep-seated fondness, both of which were brimming with familiarity.

A growl from behind my wolf sent jumping back and seeing a red and dark brown wolf, both of which were Eli’s trackers.

Their teeth were bared with an intent to kill, and she returned their threat with just as much tenacity by sending them a snarl.

My wolf made sure to keep them back by snapping the air, daring them to step closer. She slowly backed herself into the cave and kept her hind legs slightly bent in case she needed to jump away when they lunged.

Consumed in darkness, she kept her eyes watchful of their feet as she waited for their strike.

The red wolf decided to spring forward, and she angled herself away from his teeth, dropped the bag, and clamped her teeth onto his hackles to plant him harshly down onto the ground.

While she was distracted, the brown wolf jumped into land a harsh bite on my wolf’s left leg, forcing her to release her hold on the red wolf. With a pained cry, she turned around and bit at his face, forcing him to draw back with a wince.

My wolf fixed herself straight and released a snarl, before slowly backing herself deeper into the darkness of the cave.

It was two against one, and the two wolves in front of her looked as though they had been trained exactly to kill the hunted.

As the two wolves made their slow approach, my wolf froze as soon as her eyes flickered over to something from behind them.

Two glowing blue eyes glared right back at my wolf, penetrating right through me.

It was Killian.

I felt like my heart leaped out of my chest, the influence of his presence crashing down on me violently as his name continuously clamored into my head.

And suddenly, Eli’s subordinates decided to draw in to make the attack.

I didn’t have time to react, leaving me to brace for the impact with a wince, but the damage didn’t get to land.

A series of horrific cries met my ears, followed by the painful sound of bones being snapped before everything fell into an eerie silence.

Looking down, my wolf noticed her that front feet were spattered with blood.

She lifted her head and saw those eyes at a distance.

My wolf couldn’t find herself to move, as if his gaze alone pinned her exactly onto the ground where she stood.

He was the type of beast that you couldn’t find yourself to outrun, held frozen by the weight of his cold-cutting menace as if your demise fell immediately right into his command.

He gradually drew closer, his deep growls increasing as he took one step over the other. Despite the thick air of havoc that surrounded him, my wolf refused to tuck her tail between her legs.

But I felt the fear cave into me as soon as Killian’s wolf stood in his full height.

And when he came close enough for my wolf to see, I was greeted by the embodiment of brute strength and ferocity.

Killian’s wild had a hulking figure as he stood up on both of his feet. His teeth and claws were deathly sharp, he had a snarl that was enough to send any prey’s blood to run cold, and I immediately feared the idea that Killian was far too gone behind the frenzied blue eyes staring back at me.

My wolf released a wince, trying to coax her other half out of his fevered rage, but all she got was a deeply distorted growl that was devoid of any fondness.

She couldn’t break through the barrier of Killian’s primal instinct, his drive directed only to paving his path with the onslaught.

And I felt my heart sink when he extended his claws in an intent to harm. He lunged over at my wolf with a growl, and she immediately let herself tumble to the ground to circumvent his damage.

She ran for the exit, pumping her wounded leg desperately as she tried to outrun Killian’s wolf.

But she couldn’t.

Killian’s claw sunk painfully into her side and she was violently hurled against the cave walls.

My wolf cried out, and when Killian’s wolf caged her between his legs, dipping his head low and close to her eyes, she swiped her claw over his cheek in alarm.

He drew back slightly as if the ugly red line that ran across his face wasn’t much of an inconvenience. His eyes glowed brighter, snout pulling back with a new craze to his anger.

He was so devoid of familiarity, his expression like a cutting-edge of unbridled chaos. And when he leaned down to release a deep, bone-chilling roar onto my wolf, she recoiled and howled out in despair as she was forced under the chokehold of his rage.

The pain had her surrendering every bit of her control, and I was forced to shift right under Killian as my wolf’s howl turned into my grieving cry.

I weakly lifted my hands to helplessly push them against his chest. I could feel my heart tearing itself out, my entire body trembling beneath the pain of our bond being ripped apart. I couldn’t withstand his hostility—his rejection.

“Killian!” I sobbed out, unable to do anything but close my eyes and avoid the hatred that lit his eyes ablaze, “Please, please... It’s me, it’s me...”

It felt like the very core of me was being ripped out of my chest, images of Killian were running through my mind as a tragic reminder of what I had lost.

The sound of his voice softening at the mention of my name,

His soothing touch running over my skin,

The way his eyes looked at me with the tenderness that I’ve been deprived of all my life.

My desperate cries reverberated through the cave, carrying all the weight of my pain as I turned my head away from his wolf’s face.

“Killian, it’s me—please,” I sobbed, ”Don’t forget me, please, please..."

Soft whimpers began to meet my ears, and I let out a shaky breath and opened my eyes to look back at the beast that hovered above me.

His pupils were blown, and they were gazing right at my neck where Killian had left his mark. He took in a lung full of air, picking up the shift of my altered scent brought by the thriving pup that I was carrying. As if the fog of tenacity had dissipated from his mind, I looked back and recognized the turmoil clouding over his eyes.

My trembling hands slowly went up to run across his pitch-black fur and stopped either side of his face, and when those glowing blue eyes slowly darted up to regard me, my expression changed into one that gave out my plea.

“I need him back,” I said softly, in between my shaky breaths, “Please, bring him back to me.”

His ears drew back with another whimper, features softening into one that resembled Killian’s.

As if a switch had been flipped, Killian’s wolf swiftly drew back with a pained wince, he crawled farther away from me and landed back down on the ground on all fours.

He was shifting back, and it was going to be more painful and agonizingly slow.

I watched as he struggled with the snap of his reorienting bones, and I was frozen in place as his body twisted and turned in different directions as he endured the pain of his change.

Killian’s wolf left horrid claw marks on the ground as he tore at his skin helplessly, and I felt my heart wrench when he pulled his head back to release a sound that merged a terrifying snarl and a scream that belonged to Killian.

With one last painful tug of a bone, Killian fell back on the ground in a fetal position with his back facing me.

I scrambled up on my feet and immediately ran over to him.

Carefully, I flipped him onto his back before circling my arms around him and lifting him to cradle him close to my chest.

I shakily wiped the dirt off his face with my hand, and I felt an inward ache in my chest as soon as I took in his weary features.

“Killian?” I whispered, my eyes soft as I looked down at him longingly.

I brushed his hair away from his forehead and slowly dragged my hand down to his wounded cheek, delicately running my thumb over his bottom lip.

My mouth parted as he slowly opened his eyes and lifted them to look at me, and the dazed expression on his face was slowly consumed by grim as everything that occurred started to dawn on him.

Killian’s eyes slowly watered with tears as he struggled with his words, and his trembling hand slowly came up to rest on my cheek as he looked up at me like he couldn’t believe I was there.

I leaned my face into his calloused palm to savor his touch, and my eyebrows pulled together into a frown when I saw a tear slide down his cheek.

“You should’ve stayed with the pack,” he managed to say.

“You know I can’t do that,” I said softly and placed my hand over his on my cheek, “I’ll always choose you.”

The pain in his features deepened, “You’ll never be safe with me.”

“Then we’re gonna have to look out for one another.” I gave him a small reassuring smile as my fingers delicately traced along with the cut of his jaw, “I love you, Killian.”

His lower lip quivered, searching my face for any doubt in my words. And when he couldn’t find any, he held onto me like I was his lifeline—like he was afraid he’d lose me again.

“I love you, Valerie,” he whispered, his words tender against my ear. I had been aching to hear them again for so long that it knocked the air right out of my lungs, and I immediately found myself hanging onto it like a promise.

The contentment that swelled in my chest was enough to tell me that I didn’t belong anywhere else but with him.

When I couldn’t find my place in the pack, I found one right beside his. From the consuming fondness of his presence down to the way he simply looked at me, the things that I thought I couldn’t have were right in his hands, and it took me an awful amount of time to realize that.

After enduring my pack’s disdain and cutting down the bonds that tied me down to their will, It didn’t feel like I committed a dreadful mistake,

Because Killian was everything right in my life full of wrongs.

I was chaos fated to another chaos, and we were each other’s control.

End