River & Christian: Amber Eyes Series 5

Chapter Three

-River POV- 

“AAH!” I scream as my ankle twists stopping me in my tracks. 

‘You need to shift River!’ Ariel shouts. 

“But it’s going to take too long!” I say limping and leaning against a tree. The rain pours down and the wind blows violently. I am wet and completely covered in mud.  

‘We are far enough, we have time.’ She says. 

I have been running for five days. 

-Flashback- 

-Five days ago- 

‘Hold it in River.’ Ariel warns me as I sit on the ground waiting. 

‘I am... I have been holding it in for hours now!’ I say angrily. 

(Don’t cry... don’t let them see what you know.) That is what I keep telling myself. 

They lied to me. They manipulated me. I hate them. 

My hands tremble in anger and my breathing turns into small sobs because of the sadness I feel.  

‘Hold it in.’ Ariel says. 

I am about to snap at her but I hear my door lock open. 

‘Act normal River.’ She says. 

I take a deep breath and get up. I fix my clothes. A white baggy dress that ends on my knees with short sleeves. Standard clothing they give us.  

“Rise and shine sweet girl.” Dan says. 

I give him a forced smile.  

“Come.” He says.  

I walk following him while two guards walk behind me. 

“If all goes well, this might be the last procedure for you.” He says. 

“Dan... what exactly is this last procedure?” I ask. 

“I can’t tell you that and it’s not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t know. I am not a scientist. I am just the head of security here.” He says as we continue to walk. 

He then stops at the sealed door that leads to the medical room. He takes his key card out and swipes it. The door opens and he takes a step forward. 

“Dan?” I say softly without moving. 

“Yea.” He says turning around.  

“You lied to me.” I say. 

His eyes immediately widened in realization. 

‘My turn.’ Ariel says as she takes control of my body.  

In swift movements, she swipes the card from Dan's hand and then kicks him. He flies back and slides through the ground. The guards quickly try to get their weapons out but Ariel immediately elbows one of them on the face. She turns to the other one and with the bottom palm of her hand, she hits him on the chin. He stumbles backward holding his mouth.  

Ariel turns to the door where Dan is at. She closes it and punched the lock system, jamming it and locking him in. She turns back to the guards. She runs and kicks one of them. He falls to the ground and hits his head completely knocked out. She quickly takes the taser that he was carrying and then runs to the other guard. She tases him on the stomach. He falls kneeling on the ground. She then punches him on the back of the neck and he falls unconscious. 

Now she starts running.  

“We need to create a distraction.” She says. 

‘The security room.’ I say. 

She runs until we get to it. She takes Dan’s keycard and swipes it on the lock. The door opens and we are met with a guard who looks at us surprised. Ariel rushes him and kicks him on the crotch. He doubles down and she kicks him again on the face this time. He falls unconscious. 

She starts pushing all the buttons and opening every single cell. From the cameras, we can see those that were prisoners coming out. Many of them were angry.  

“Let’s go.” She says and we dash out.  

‘Please, let’s avoid the vamps.’ I say. 

Humans are easy enough to deal with even without any training but to fight a vampire or a werewolf, you need training. And we have none. 

Ariel stops when we reach two corridors.  

I know that there are three entrances. One through the Manor but taking that leads us through the house where the vampire lord lives. There is another one all the way on the other side from where we came from and going back is stupid. There is another one that leads directly outside. It’s an emergency evacuation tunnel.  

As we stand there, an alarm starts blaring up. 

‘I remember. It’s the right tunnel.’ I shout and she runs in that direction. 

‘Seriously, they were stupid to leave evacuation maps on the walls.’ I say. 

There was one in front of my cell and all I did was look at it. It was the only entertaining measure I had besides singing and walking in circles. Of course, I never had any intention of using it. 

We hear guards running our way, so we quickly hide. We go through a door and it looks like it’s a storage room. The guards go past us. Seems like all their attention is on the prisoners we let out. 

When they are gone, we head out and start running again.  

‘Can you smell it, Ariel!?’ I ask. 

“Yes!”  

We can smell the outside. This excites us and prompts us to run faster. As we run, we can see a door at the end getting closer.  

I can sense a guard but at this point, we don’t care. With our speed, we rush past the guard and hit the metal door opening it. It opens with a huge thud outward and we keep running. We are still on concrete but we are outside. The light of the sun blinds us but we don’t stop. We make it to the edge where there is a chain-link fence but that does not stop us. As Ariel runs, she uses the momentum to jump and goes over the fence. We clumsily land on all fours.  

‘That was rough.’ I say. 

“Sorry, I am not used to this.” She says. 

I am distracted as I feel the grass under our feet.  

‘This feels so good.’ I say.  

Ariel runs into the forest. All the scents hit me and I am overwhelmed but excited and so is she. We continue running without stopping which sucks because all I want to do is stop and take everything in. 

After a few minutes, Ariel stops.  

“I don’t think they are after us yet. We should shift. We will run faster.” She says. 

‘Are you sure? Can we?’ 

She nods. “Yes, I’m sure we can.” 

‘Okay. Let’s do it.’ I say. 

She kneels down and starts the transformation. I still feel so much pain because I am not used to it. It takes us a few minutes to complete the shift. Once we are done, it feels magical. Our first shift outside in the middle of nature. I want to cry. But we can’t get distracted. 

Suddenly, a bluebird lands right in front of us. I look at it curiously since it stares at us. Ariel puts a paw out and tries to touch it but it takes flying. It flies in circles around us and lands in front of us again.  

‘Do birds usually act like this?’ I ask Ariel. 

‘... I don’t know.’ 

The bird flies around us again and this time it lands on a tree. It looks at us as if waiting. Ariel walks towards it and the bird flies a bit further but stops as if it’s waiting for us. 

‘Does it want us to follow it?’ I ask. 

‘It feels.... right.’ Ariel says as if in a trance. 

Ariel runs following after the bird that is now obviously leading us. She runs faster than we have ever run before.  

‘We are free!’ She shouts. 

-End of flashback- 

We have been running ever since, following the bird. At some point, we stopped and grief took me. I cried for Miles. For the only real friend, I ever had. But then it only took the enemy one hour to find our trail. They have been hunting us ever since. We haven’t been able to sleep more than an hour each day and we only have had one meal and only because we found it on the way. 

‘Poor bunny.’ I whisper as I remember. 

‘We had to.’ Ariel says. 

‘I know.’ 

The bird stops with us every time we stop. It’s weird but we have been able to keep away from the enemy so far. 

I close my eyes and start to shift. It still hurts but it’s a bit less than before. After a few minutes, we are in our wolf form and we run. 

We make it another hour and thankfully, the rain has stopped. Our once clean and hinted with golden color strands of fur are now dark brown. We are a muddy mess. 

‘Damn! They are closer than I thought!’ Ariel says panicking and she is right. I can hear them behind us. 

I can tell that she is exhausted but she doesn't slow down. The bird then starts flying in circles making us stop and just like that, the bird flies up away and disappears. 

Ariel panics and starts running again but suddenly, there is a shadow in front of us. We stop, sliding through the mud. The vampire in front of us hisses at us. Ariel steadies herself and lunges at the vampire. With his speed, he slaps us and we go flying into a tree.  Ariel gives small whines and she is gone. The pain made her go back into my head and now it’s me who is in control.  

I also whimper in pain but try to get up. I look up and now there are three of them. They are lower-rank vampires but I am no match for them. My side hurts and my ankle is sore. 

One of the vampire's steps forwards smelling the air. “Could we have a taste of her first?” 

“No!” The one in charge says but I can see that my scent is also affecting him.  

“Come with us willingly and we won’t hurt you.” One of them says. 

(I will not! I will not go back!) 

I growl at them and they all now stand in a battle stance and hiss at me. I see that they also have a hard time standing on this mud. I make a movement as if I am going to pounce on them and they do the same but I stop and they stagger forward. I take that moment and slip through them. I run as fast as I can but they quickly run after me. Vampires tend to be faster but in wolf form, we can match their speed.  

As I run, we pass by a creek and that is when I start getting another scent. But I can’t pay much attention to it since I am running for my life.  

Suddenly, my ankle gives out. I fall on the ground and with the momentum I have, I can’t stop. I slide face-first on the mud. When I try to get up, something weights me down. I glance back and one of the vampires has his foot on my back, pushing me down. He leans down and grabs my paw and arm backward. He yanks it and breaks it. I scream. Ariel's whines echo through the forest. I yelp uncontrollably.  

“That will stop you from running.” He says. 

He leans down to pick me up but a deep guttural growl stops him. We both look in front of us where there is a hill that slopes up. A big white wolf with muddy paws stands there with glowing blue eyes.  

He stalks towards us menacingly. The aura that he emanates scares all of us. The vampire on top of me weighs me down more and I whimper feeling the pain in my arm. My body can’t take it and it starts shifting. 

“This isn't your business... Alpha!” The vampire says.  

My eyes widen.  

‘Alpha? Is that what I am feeling?’ I ask Ariel. 

‘Yes.’ Ariel says. 

His aura is surreal. I have never felt anything so oppressive in my life. 

The Alpha doesn't stop. He continues to walk towards us. 

The vampire puts a hand on the back of my neck. “Come any closer and I will kill her.” 

The Alpha flinches and stops.  

(I am sure he has orders not to kill me. But the Alpha doesn’t know that.) 

I growl lowly and thrash under the vampire. This distracts the vampire and the Alpha lunges at him. He takes him from off of me. I slowly sit up and look back to catch a glimpse of the vampire’s head flying off.