The Lycan's Runaway Bride

Ruby   My heart pounds as I run through the dark forest.   With each step, my feet burn even more as I stumble over jutting tree roots, sharp stones, and prickly pine needles.   My heels broke long ago on the forest floor, and I tossed them to the ground, preferring to run barefoot in my wedding gown.   I’m not even eighteen yet, still a high school student, but I’ve been forced into a marriage to a man who I haven’t even met, and I don’t even know why.   The Lycan King.   When the King’s men came to me two weeks ago and told me that I would be married to the King, I was completely distraught.   From the start, I knew that I couldn’t leave my sister to go marry Lycan Atwood.   My sister. My sweet, innocent younger sister Tamara who barely possesses any wolf traits, save for a mild ability to see in darkness and barely hear sounds at further distances than normal humans. I’ve always protected her -- she relies on me to work to take care of her, since her lack of wolf abilities makes it impossible for her to survive on her own in this world and the humans will never accept her -- and now I know I must protect her more than ever… because just as soon as I was told I would be marrying the Lycan King, I saw a vision of Tamara covered in blood, lying dead next to a werewolf who was standing upright.   I couldn’t make out the face of the man in my vision, but I knew he was a werewolf. In the distance, like a soft echo, I can hear a voice refer to the man as the King.   “What will happen to me when you leave?” my sister asked, tears streaming down her round cheeks. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”   “Don’t worry,” I said, keeping my vision to myself and holding Tamara tightly in my arms as I stroked her curly hair. “I’ll come up with a plan.”   She looked up at me with her big, brown eyes. She was younger than me and didn’t remember our parents, but I did. She had our mother’s eyes.   “What sort of plan?” she asked.   I looked down at the floor of our tiny woodland house and bit my lip, scheming.   Then, I had an idea.   “We’ll meet in the tunnels, under the village. You know where the abandoned house is on the edge of the forest?”   Tamara nodded, wiping her tears away with her sleeve.   “When they take me away, I want you to go there. Bring whatever food and supplies you can find and stay in the tunnels until I find you.”   “What if you don’t find me?”   “I will find you.”   Why would he want me, anyway? A common high school girl, no stunning beauty, a hybrid with no wolf form, only the scent of a wolf and scattered visions of the future that I can barely even control without excruciating migraines and weakness.   I remember when my high school teacher told me that, in the world of werewolves, a wolf must find their mate no later than their eighteenth birthday before they are doomed to go insane and die alone, mateless, childless. She said that, when the time was right, my wolf would appear and recognize my mate -- so long as it happens before my eighteenth birthday.   She said that I would know when my wolf appears and that it would be obvious when my wolf chooses a mate.   Growing up, I would daydream about my wolf, what she would look like, her abilities, and my mate. But the years came and went, and my wolf never showed herself. I’ve accepted at this point that she never will, especially since my eighteenth birthday is so close, as is the curse of many hybrids. I don’t mind, if I’m being honest.   I’m barely even a werewolf myself. I much prefer the ways of humans. I love to read romance novels about choices and commitment rather than the primal mating rituals of the werewolves.   There’s no way I could be this brute’s mate, either; we’ve never even met, and everyone knows that wolves need to experience their potential mate’s scent before discovering whether they are fated mates.   The Lycan King is rumored to be ferocious, caring only for his arrogant family’s obsession with purebred wolves and killing all hybrids. I knew as soon as I saw my vision that if I were to marry the Lycan King, he would put my darling sister to death, because she is too human to survive in the werewolf world.   Despite all of this, any girl would feel lucky to be married to the Lycan King, although I feel far from lucky. In my eyes, the Lycan King is a brute, an unlovable man whose family only ever cared for killing all of the hybrids such as myself.   If I am his mate, though, I would have no choice but to marry him.   It is fate, after all.   I barely managed to prepare our escape before the Lycan King’s men whisked me away against my will to be fitted for my wedding gown and prepared for marriage.   At the castle, they dressed me up in my wedding gown, styled my hair up into beautiful curls with a crystal circlet on my head, and gave me strict instructions to stay put in my chamber while they prepared my entrance to the wedding.   One guard stayed with me, but they should have left more to watch me, because I easily used my dazing ability to lie to the guard and made my escape.   “Guard?” I asked sweetly, my voice practically dripping with honey.   The guard peered around from behind the privacy screen to look at me.   “May I help you, miss?” he asked.   I nodded, batting my eyelashes at him as I fumbled with a button on my gown. “My gown,” I said, “it’s come unbuttoned on the back and I can’t reach it. Can you please help me?”   The guard’s cheeks flushed and he looked around for a female servant to help me, but there was no one. They were all busy preparing the feast for after the wedding.   “Um, sure,” he said, walking shyly over to me. I turned my back to him and pulled my hair aside to let him button my gown back up.   While he was struggling with the tricky button, I enhanced my dazing ability and spoke again.   “Actually, I have an emergency and I need to leave,” I said. The guard stopped buttoning and looked at me as I turned around. He looked confused, and his eyes were glazed over. I knew that he was in my grasp.   “My grandmother is very sick,” I murmured, standing on my tiptoes to whisper into his ear. “I have to go to her. Will you let me out?”   Wordlessly, the dazed guard walked to the door and opened it for me.   I stepped out of the chamber and curtsied to the guard, then made my escape down a dark corridor.   Now, I have to do whatever it takes to make it to my sister.   I dodge around trees, hiking the heavy skirts of my wedding gown up with my hands to help myself run, but it’s no use. I’ve been slow to move barefoot through these unknown woods, especially since I lack the werewolf ability to run expertly through the forests without a care for the pain in my feet. I can hear the Lycan King’s guards shouting far off in the distance. On my right, there is nothing but a sheer drop to the raging ocean below. To my left, a road.   As I run recklessly through the dark woods, I trip over a tree root and fall to the forest floor. I can hear the alarms sounding from the castle, and know that if I lay here too long, despite how badly my legs burn and my heart races, they will find me. I struggle to stand in the heavy gown that I am wearing, but I manage to pull myself to my feet and begin running again.   In the distance, I can see headlights approaching. It could be one of the Lycan King’s men, or it could be a passerby who might be able to help me. I curse to myself and decide to take the chance, because anything is better than taking a leap into the freezing ocean in a heavy wedding gown, and I most certainly will not allow the Lycan King’s men to catch me.   I lunge into the road, waving my arms at the car. It almost seems as though the car will pass, leaving me stranded here, but then it stops just as the backseat window is adjacent to me. The window rolls down to reveal a man in a black suit and sunglasses, with an attractive angular jaw and shiny black hair that falls almost down to his shoulders. I gulp, feeling my face flush hot with a mixture of fear and attraction.   If this handsome man could steal me away from this unwanted marriage, even if he were to make me his own bride instead, I would not fight it.   The man looks me up and down, as if he is appraising me, before opening the door and stepping out. He’s tall, well over six feet, which makes me feel like a child at my small stature as I gaze up at his sharp jaw and muscular shoulders. Wordlessly, he steps out of the way with his hand on the door and gestures for me to get in. I hesitate for a moment, considering my options to run again if this man was sent from the Lycan King, but I know that he will be able to outrun me with his long legs; and, glancing at my bloodied feet, I know that I won’t be able to make it far with my pain.   I get in the car.