Chapter 11
I ran- I ran as fast and as far as I could without shifting and letting Trixy take over. I was still faster than a human but slower than an Alpha and by my counting I only had three minutes of running before they were unleashed and sent after us.
All of the girls scattered, running in different directions and exploring various edges of the forest. I tried to see what was in front of me or hear anything that would take me to the nearest road but I couldn’t- I couldn’t even hear the other girls so I just ran. My bare feet were cut on rocks and sticks poked into my heel but the worst was the thorns from the veining branches that stabbed into the soles of my feet and wrapped around my ankles; I hissed as part of my skin was cut off and left behind. Branches on trees and wild grown bushes slapped me in the face when I ran through them.
The moon was my only source of light but covered by the red shadow it did little to help show me a path through the forest. With every drop of blood that stained the leaves, I left more for the alphas to smell. It would be child’s play for them to find us when we left so much of our scent behind. The earthy aroma and damp smell of the grass from rain that had poured before we arrived would normally calm me. My soul would heal from a walk or a run in these woods if I wasn’t about to be chased and stripped of my freedom. It wasn’t exactly a serene promenade.
I froze for a second- one second to long- when one loud slam against the gong let us know that it was time and the Alpha’s had officially been released. They would walk at first, laugh to themselves as they sniffed us out and once they caught the scent of the girl they wanted, they would go for the attack and they would run until they caught her.
I was trying to touch as little as possible to leave behind less of a scent but the blood trail from my feet would more than give me away. If an alpha caught my scent and I was the girl he wanted to claim, there was little I could do to sway him.
I groaned when I missed to duck for a branch and it nicked my lip.
“Fuck,” i touched the blood with my fingers and saw the perfect crimson color melting into the creases on my finger.
I should’ve left when I had the chance. It was an idea I’d had for a year leading up to today; I would go to the chalice ritual, let them rank me and degrade me and then, when they put the blindfold on and loaded me into the truck I was going to wait until they’d driven for a while before I jumped out. They wouldn’t care that they were one girl down, they probably wouldn’t even have noticed my absence. I should’ve made a run for it, it was too late now and all I could do in this moment was hope that the Alpha’s hunted the other girls and left me be.
“Trixy, come on!”
I could feel her getting tired and it was understandable, the timing just sucked.
“I need a break, and food” she growled.
Food, I can find you food. I ran down the declining leaf covered grass and continued to a clearing. My feet were now mostly covered in blood and left traces the size of footsteps but if I could find a doe for Trixy then she could eat and we could continue. Maybe if she had the strength, we could run away from here before we were caught.
“You dream to big” she snidely remarked but I rolled my eyes and ignored her.
I stopped and I waited, knowing that this was the last thing one wanted to do during the Hunt. The alphas wouldn’t stop, they wouldn’t sympathize with your starving wolf or your injured body. They would see prey and jump, and I would be finished. But it wasn’t over until they found me; until then I had a shot. Until then, I could still win. Seeing what they did to Liv simply because the could was motivation enough to keep running. If they could do that in a room full of people, what could they do in a room with one of us alone? I wondered what had happened with Iliana and the king. They had been alone, with no witnesses or spectators. Just them. And she walked out…different.
he Alpha’s
