Catching Fire.

Marise's Pov

We crossed the woods and I felt that he was running behind us, following us. This can't be real. Must be some kind of bad-witted thing. My mate is not alive anymore. There's no way it could be him.

Rona and I fought to be in charge. I manage to control her, even if she was in her form. She tried to get me back there, but I wasn't able to. I can't go through another heartache. I am condemned to be alone now, to never have a partner, and I have accepted it. I will pull myself together, and I'll be strong on my own. I will form my own pack one day, and avenge the death of my partner and kill Orfeo once and for all. I heard him getting closer, so I set a higher speed and Aesira started slackening off.

S*it. I forgot that nobody could keep up. My wolf, Rona, was exceptionally fast and super pliable. I had never met another wolf capable of keeping pace with me.

Edira sometimes had to use magic in order to hold on to my pace, she especially had to when we were running from Orfeos dark hunters.

A dark hunter is a wolf with a deep gray fur and a slender body. They are known for their tracking abilities and they are very good at sneaking over a pack's border unnoticed. A well-trained dark hunter can even hide their scent for fifty miles.

"MARISE! STOP!" Edira screamed through the mind link. Crash. A big bang and I dangled with a gray wolf over me. I screamed and I got rid of her, and then Aesira jumped and kept her down.

"Watch out!" I bound my mind to Aesira when I saw another gray wolf, much bigger than the one Aesira was holding. He throws himself at us, and he sets his sights on Aesiras' neck.

I was furious, and I picked him up in the motion and I crushed him to the ground as I gnashed my teeth and growled angrily.

He roars back at me and stomps with his paws, trying to get loose. And I was about to finish him, but I got caught up in a submissive cry. And I can't kill a wolf who's submitting to me, it's against the law. Even rogues need to follow them, which I have been since we left our pack.

And then I felt his presence once more and I turned around, and this time he had his human form, a very naked and revealing human form. I could feel myself blushing when my eyes saw his package. He made no attempt to hide the fact that he was naked in front of us.

His eyes looked at me and they made me feel weak and uncomfortable. Aesira released the wolf she held and ran beside me as she grumbled towards the man to retreat, feeling my weakness appear. We were frozen, and I and the man who's supposed to be dead kept our eyes closed while more and more wolves started coming in from all around us. Forming a barrier to keep us from running any longer.

We were trapped. And we were down on options. We could fight for our lives, or I had to face the man who had caused me such pain and trauma. That man was real, for I sensed his presence. All the emotions I had felt that night before the attack were slowly bringing me down to my knees. And it scared me. I tried to fight it, but that magnetic force field is strong, beyond me.

"What should we do?" I heard Edira's calm voice in the mental bond. She was still calm in the most difficult moments. She is my stone, and I am the wind whirling about her. The wolves started circling around us and the man stood there, looking at us. My heart skipped a beat when he cleared his throat.

"We need to talk, change back to your human, please," he begged and extended his arms towards me. A wolf on our left groaned at us and I felt resentment like a slap in the face. It wasn't a particularly welcoming pack. Most of the wolves were staring at us with dark and vicious eyes. No pack liked rouges, the unknown. Leaving our pack had left us to be without a flock, which was something ugly. Wolves live as a group, werewolves belonged to a pack.

We had forgotten to do a new protective spell since they only lasted a few weeks at the time, and I had messed up with hiding my smell. So we probably stank rogues.

The tension was building up and Edira felt it too. Wolves started threatening around us, and in order to keep us safe,

Aesira did what she had to do to make them back off, and she caught fire. Her fur caught fire and her eyes formed two fireballs. The wolves backed away, and I saw the man, who was supposed to be my dead mate, stand with a puzzled look on his face.

I was immune to Aesira's fire because she had marked me with a protective spell, a simple symbol on my wrist. I stood my ground next to her side and enjoyed seeing the wolves back away. But what we didn't know was that another wizard was standing in the middle of the pack, awaiting the Alphas signal.