The Rogue

Smoke started seeping in from every hole in the windowless hut and Lyra began choking. 

"What's going on? Who are you? What do you want from me?" Lyra yelled fiercely as she forced back a cough. She wasn't going to give her attackers the satisfaction that they had cornered her. 

It was that strong-headedness that had kept her alive for the past ten years she had lived in the wilderness. 

Her eyes flashed dangerously, signifying her wolf was at the forefront, as they darted around, looking for an exit. 

Her right leg was barely on the ground as she took a fighting stance. 

"If you aren't cowards, show yourselves and let's fight it out like warriors!" She yelled again and swallowed hard. Then she let out a muffled cough. 

"Who could be behind this?" Lyra let her mind wander in an attempt to figure out who her attackers were. 

But no particular person came to her mind. She was a lone rogue. She had learnt to keep to herself, believing she was bad luck. 

"Could it be that one eyed rogue?" She wondered aloud, remembering she had had an altercation with one of the leaders of the rogues, just some days ago when she refused to bow to him. 

"Would he really come to kill me just because I refused to give him the antelope I had run miles to hunt?" The mere remembrance brought back the anger she had suppressed that day by just hissing at him and running back to her hut. 

"You coward, come face me!!!" She yelled again and lunged forward. 

"I would rather risk getting burnt than cowering back to die like a coward!" That was her decision. However, before she could kick down the rapidly burning door, she heard a new growl from outside, one that seemed to reverberate through the entire wilderness. 

"Now, what was that?" Lyra furrowed her eyebrows, the sound stopping her abruptly. 

In the blink of an eye, Lyra could hear bones breaking and shattering. By then, the left side of her hut had completely burnt down and she jumped out. 

What she met outside was shocking and confusing. 

The attackers, a group of ten wolves, judging by their severed heads rolling on the ground, had their other parts shattered on the ground. 

"Who killed them... Who helped me?" Lyra wondered aloud and that was when she looked up and her eyes caught a giant black tinted with silver wolf running away. 

"Hey, wait! Please!" She shouted and began running after the wolf. She shifted into her wolf midway and chased harder. 

"Who is that? I have never received help from anyone before in this wilderness since I got here..." Lyra thought and fiercely chased the wolf but the latter was faster. 

 ~~~~~~~~~

After some minutes of chasing, Lyra lost sight of the wolf and she slowed down. 

"Oh my Moon, I have trespassed!" Lyra's wolf lifted her nuzzle as she became aware of her surroundings. She could see she was at the boundary of a pack. 

And it wasn't any other pack but her old pack. 

"Father..." She thought sadly and let out a low, pained howl. Where the wolf had been a moment ago, a slim, tall, beautiful young woman now stood.

Lyra blinked back the tears that had welled up in her ocean blue eyes and shook her head, her long dark hair bouncing in the process. 

Despite the daily struggle to survive in the wilderness and living in grief, Lyra was still able to maintain her natural beauty without any effort. 

"I wonder how father has been doing. Of course, he wouldn't miss me. Why would he, anyway?" She chuckled dryly, shaking her head. 

"I should go back before anybody finds out I'm trespassing." That was her conclusion but before she could turn back, her eyes widened as something hit her nostrils. 

She sniffed a little and then her nose caught whiff of a strange smell. 

"What is this smell? Alluring... Enchanting?" She mumbled, letting her eyes dart around her surroundings in urgent search of the source of the smell. 

Reaching out immediately, she cut some big leaves and used them to cover her bosom and waist. Then, as if enchanted, she found her legs moving forward and carrying her into the territory she wasn't supposed to step into. 

"I should find it." 

A few minutes later, she had fully stepped into the pack where she was born and then got banished. 

"Isn't that the banished Alpha's daughter, Lyra?" A guard at the pack border exclaimed as he saw the almost naked lady, walking straight ahead without looking sideways. 

The other two guards with him looked at the direction and gasped. Anybody could tell it was the Alpha's daughter. Those ocean-blue eyes had been bright, round and big since her childhood and the few strands of silver in her long black hair always sold out every descendant of the Blackmoor. 

"Shouldn't we stop her?" One guard asked, in confusion. 

"Can you dare? With that brutal look and gait?" Another replied. Though, Lyra heard everything, she couldn't be bothered. The strange smell was what she needed to find. 

So she kept walking... Only earning glances and whispers from passersby. 

"The cursed child has returned?" Some pack members whispered. 

That didn't stop Lyra, until she got to the Alpha's manor and froze, her jaw almost touching the ground at her realization. 

"Mate!" Her wolf jumped in her head, declaring as she locked eyes on a particular Alpha. 

Alpha Kade Fenris, the most feared and powerful Alpha, who was known for his intolerance for rogues. He usually cut them into two upon sighting them, without any mercy. 

"That's my mate? The moon goddess must be kidding me..." Lyra almost laughed in disbelief but the matter was too serious for that. 

"Who is that rogue? How dare she walk past the pack border without the guards stopping her?" A deep male voice demanded, shaking even the ground that Lyra was standing on. 

"Bring me her head!"