The Lycan King's Muse

Run. Run! My wolf keeps screaming for me to run faster. The woods around me blur into green and grey lines. The sky is one big blue river on top of me. I rely on my sensitive smell to navigate my paws through the trees. The forest's earthy smell assaults me from every direction. I do not know where I am going to go. All I know now is that I have to run faster, even faster than the most powerful wolf in my pack. Several feet behind me, chasing me on my hills, are three wolves. Two brown ones, which I know are Beta Marcel and Beta Fray. And between them is the biggest black wolf in our pack, Alpha Mason. Their eyes seem to burn me from behind, especially Alpha Mason. He is furious because I am running away from our pack. But I have to. I have to do what’s right for me. My heart is beating hard, to the point I can hear the drumming beats in my ear. I don’t even know if I am still breathing. There are fireflies on the periphery of my vision. That’s probably my body’s way of telling me I am losing oxygen. That after two hours of constant running, I need to stop to refill my burning lungs. But I won’t stop. I won’t. The current world we live in is in a lack of fertile female werewolves. Other packs have resorted to the despicable thing of kidnapping female humans as the pack’s breeding machines. Alpha Mason, however, is still adamant to keep our pack’s honor. Besides, out of the dozen females in our pack, there are still four fertile females, including me. And the pack’s healer, which is also me, has been working intensively to increase the chances for all females to give birth to at least one other female. Because of our scarcity, female werewolves in our pack get to choose their mates. I have chosen my mate long before and Alpha Mason had been chosen by another female werewolf too. But Alpha Mason’s mate and my mate died during the war with vampires. The logical thing to do would be for me to mate Alpha Mason for the sake of the werewolf lineage, right? But I can’t. Because there is a soul brewing inside my belly. A tiny bud of life that I only knew existed the day the war was announced. I didn’t want my mate to worry about us, so I told myself I’d tell him once he gets back. He never returns. Now, all that is left of him in my life is this soul growing inside me. So, I must keep my baby safe at all costs. Alpha Mason is a good ruler. But he is controlling, and he is possessive. He has told the pack repeatedly that only his bloodline can rule. I know that if he finds out I am pregnant from another wolf, he will for.ce me to abort my baby. There is no doubt in my mind that my baby will not survive Alpha Mason’s rule. So, when Alpha Mason came knocking on my door just the day after our mates have been buried, I ran and has been running ever since. Alpha Mason immediately chases after me with wrath clear in his eyes. Running from a male is considered an act of rejection. And in Alpha Mason’s world, no one can ever reject him. In his mind, I am already his. The fireflies in my vision increases and my lungs feel like they have been lit up with fire. In a normal condition, I can run much longer in my wolf form despite not being athletic. But since I am conceiving… my oxygen and blood sugar is lower, and I get tired easily. I need to stop to make sure my baby keeps receiving enough oxygen. But I can’t risk getting caught by Alpha Mason. In a swift motion, out of the blue, I take a sharp right turn and jump from the cliff to the river below. It is not a short jump. It is long and scary. But it is worth it. Because when my body hits the water hard, the wolves chasing me can only stare from above the cliff. They didn’t think I’d jump just like that. Alpha Mason growls at me in anger. I know he is going to jump in the water next. But their few seconds of hesitation save me because I quickly swim to the shore and run into the forest below the cliff. I for.ce my paws to keep moving, especially when I hear water splashing behind me. I only need to run deeper into the woods until they lose my scent. But as I run for my life, I suddenly smell a strange musk scent among the usual earthy, misty scent of the forest. Before my eyes could find the source of the smell, my feet step on something and my body tumbles hard to the forest floor. I whimper as my body hurls. But quickly, I can regain my balance as I turn my body to see what stopped me from running. My breath is scanty. My muscles are sore. At the same time, my eyes focus on the man sitting underneath an oak tree. “Urghh!” he cries out to his leg that I just stepped upon. When he turns his face to me, he is snarling. Yet when we lock eyes… No… it can’t be… “Mate,” he hisses. “Great.” I look at him wide-eye. He doesn’t seem pleasantly surprised to find his mate when everyone knows that having a fated mate is a one in a million chance. Instead, he looks bothered. Well, I can’t say that I am pleasantly surprised either. The last thing I want is to find a second chance mate. Especially now, when I am being chased by three powerful wolves. It could not have been the worst timing. What if Alpha Mason senses our bond? He will rip this guy apart. My eyes travel from his dark hair to his toes. He has a deep gash wound on his chest. Blood is still gushing from his open wound, down to his arm. They pool beneath him on the forest floor. His clothes are ripped apart, revealing half of his torso, which is amazingly sculpted with muscles. I wonder how big he is when he stands. As of now, he is sitting with his back leaning on the tree. He looks pale, especially at his lips. The way his eyes are looking at me seems to be slightly out of focus, too. The healer in me realizes instantly that he has lost so much blood and is in an anemic condition. Something clicks shut in my mind. I blink at the same time my wolf howls, ‘Mate! Mate! Mate!’ It feels like a string has attached itself to our chests at both ends. But the string is loose. Something feels wrong in this mate bond… somehow. The bond, however, allows me to experience some of his pain. He is hurting physically. Mentally, however… I couldn’t feel anything, which is weird. With my previous mate, I could feel whenever he was feeling scared, sad, or happy. Sometimes he blocked his feelings from me, but the bond was stronger than any of us and so emotions slipped through most of the time. But this man… seems empty. He seems hollow inside. I am sure if someone gets a wound that big, he would at least fear for his life. Yet… there’s nothing with him. He looks around as if he is trying to find something. When he couldn’t find whatever that is, he stares back at me, “Are you lost, werewolf girl?”