In the morning, I stretched out my hands as I usually did before a long day of work and instead met the roof of the hollow tree. Startled, I jumped up, and bumped my head against the tree trunk, the reality of the last day hitting me fast. I was itchy and wondered if I had not made such a grand mistake leaving my pack and coming into the woods where I had no water, no food, no safety, and knew no one.
A bird chirped in the distance, and I wondered how early the day was. The moon had faded into the distance, but the sun was not yet out, a weird interloping of the two of them leaving the outside world blanketed in darkness.
My body clock usually woke me up before it was even 5am, so I decided it must still be around that time and crawled out of the tree trunk. Grabbing on to my makeshift knapsack, I began to walk in the direction of what I hoped was a stream so I could wash up. I had not gone this long without the splash of ester on my skin - even as a slave - and I was starting to see it as the most uncomfortable part of the entire experience.
I still had something to eat, and from the trees that hung low I could see some familiar fruit, so food was not such a priority. I needed to find a way to make shelter, but I couldn't do that till I was completely safe and was a fair enough distance from my pack.
I had blisters beginning to form at the bottom of my feet, and I knew that my face looked like something out of a guerrilla warfare movie. Still, I pressed on, confident that most, if not all, of my problems would be solved once I found a water spot.
In my hand I brandished the knife that I had stolen from the table, and I planned to wash it at the river. I also held it out in front of me as a form.of protection, because I had never been in this part of the woods and I had no idea exactly what or who I would find in there. I might be an Omega without the ability to transform myself at will, but I also knew that I did not want to be a dead omega, and my best chances at survival relied on the knife.
Soon enough, the sound of running water was all that I could hear, and I knew that I was close enough to the river. The thought of running water made me tremendously happy, and I forgot myself and ran to the river to wash myself up. I had not realized how thirsty I was till that instant, and now that I was aware of it, it was all that I could think about.
It didn't occur to me that there could be someone else there, or even more than one, because I simply rushed all the way there, splashing the cool water onto my face.
“Wow, someone's hot!” came a voice, and startled, I jumped. Thanks to how loosely my foot was planted by the Riverside, I feel headfirst into the cold water.
“Well, that was one way to take a bath now, wasn't it?” Turning over to where the voice came from, I was shocked to see a handsome man, surrounded by equally beautiful people, who had no business being in the woods. He was dressed in clothing that I recognised to be good fabric, and I knew that it was not readily available to just anyone, so I jumped to my feet and paid more attention to his face, hoping that recognition would visit me soon. The rest of them seemed to study me too, their eyes running across my body. I felt self conscious, but I stood my ground in spite of it.
I felt a thrum of power bubble at my fingertips as I counted them in number. They were all around me and could attack me at any minute. I felt a strength that I hadn't had before, and I knew somehow that I could take them. Someone's hand reached out and tapped my back, and acting on adrenaline, I pulled his arm over my shoulder and threw him head first into the water.
“He is a member of us, the outcasts. He was deaf, he just wanted to say hello.”
Smiling, I tucked my head and conceded that he did have a point. He didn't need to humor me or answer me with an explanation, but he had, and now I felt like I should be nice to him.
“My bad. Who are you?”
“I am from Running Brooks, and no, that is not where I'm headed,” he smiled, speaking for all of them. Murmurs of assent went through them.
“Same with you guys?” I asked, and the rest of the outcasts shrugged, obviously not used to speaking so much.
“How mysterious!” I smiled, squeezing my freshly short mop of hair. I was used to having long hair and taking much more time to wash my hair and groom myself, but hacking it off the night before had apparently been the right decision, because now I could go about my day without worrying about long hair dripping water across my shoulder as I went on with my regular activities.
I felt a little spark of attraction towards Lee, the smart, funny man who had helped me out of the river, but I also knew that it was temporary, and was just me clinging on to the first bit of human contact I had seen in quite some time.
“Where are you from, and where are you headed?” he asked me, the smile suddenly disappearing from his face. He was already becoming very serious about the topic, a trait I found instantly endearing. It was nice to be asked questions, nobody had been curious about me in quite some time.
“I don't know how to answer that without sounding at least a little bit silly. My pack is back there, and I was exiled, sort of? A long story, but I don't have a destination in my mind. I'm simply moving.”
“Would you like to move with us? We're heading to a settlement over in the east.”
“I'm David,” came one of the outcasts.
“Kimora,” said another.
“Wally.”
“Luke,” signed the deaf guy.
“Nice to meet you guys. I'm Layla.”
A pause went over the conversation, the sound of the running river being the only conceivable sound. I thought about my options and looked them over. Lee himself was at least a Beta, and could offer me protection from the dangers that loomed in the shadows of the forest. Instead of telling him how little I could do, I looked him in his eyes and simply asked him, “Can you build a shelter?”
A few moments later, the sun was peeking out from behind a cloud, and I was on the journey with Lee and the rest of the outcasts. We had been making conversation, getting to know each other more, and in all honesty, it had been fun, but there were some things he reminded me of about my former pack, and it made me feel a certain sense of nostalgia for a life I had not even lived. He was an orphan, just like me, albeit a more recent one. He was a Beta, which was where our experiences differed, but he had lived almost all of his life in his pack with his mother. Apparently, his mother was an outcast wolf, so he was not treated with as great regard by the other members of his pack. Kimora and Wally were adopted siblings, and had been sent out of their packs because they were both too strong. I thought that was a good thing, and I told them as much. They smiled just then, the first one I had ever seen them give me.Lee liked to sing under his breath, so every few minutes, I would catch h
I was starting to find that I was glad that I had stumbled upon the outcasts. For one, the first thing that had gone wrong had been solved immediately, and I was left speechless at how quickly they had managed to avert the crisis I had preempted. Luke, the deaf guy had been leading us ahead, and he seemed to have missed the sight of a stray twig that was lying on the ground. I thanked the gods that he could not hear how absurdly loud the noise he had managed to make because everyone’s heads swiveled around in shock. We had been passing through an uncomfortable patch of trees that we suspected belonged to a pack of wolves that were not the most welcoming, and it was such a considerable amount of space that skirting around it would have taken too long. I had not been the one to notice that we were in another pack’s territory – that had been Lee – but I had taken the lead on skirting through and staying out of sight. As someone who had worked as a maid in a home that I was not wanted in
Night was beginning to fall, and my arm ached where the tree branches had slapped me during my run. We needed to find a place to settle down soon, and I had already even started to tire, the burst of energy that had propelled me forward quickly dying out. Lee was back in front, and I was walking behind with Luke again. The night air was breezy, something I had come to appreciate, thanks to the heat I could feel in my fingertips. I was getting tired, and was already considering walking ahead to ask Lee to stop for the night, when he called out. “I think it’s about time we stopped for the day. We haven’t had anything to eat all day. Kimora, go with Luke, see if you can find us something for dinner. David, find some twigs to use to start the fire. Layla and I will prepare the campsite for tonight while everyone does that. Is that okay?”A chorus of yeses echoed all around the other outcasts, and we all went to our designated stations. To Lee, I asked, “How exactly are we supposed to pre
Later that night, everyone was lying down close to each other, snuggled close for warmth. We would have to take shifts watching over each other for safety, and I had volunteered myself up for the very first one. I felt a pang of guilt I could not explain for bringing in three more mouths that we had to feed, and I wanted to work off the guilt somehow. I suspected that Lee knew what was on my mind when I had volunteered myself, but he had said nothing very graciously, allowing me the time I needed to process what I had to. I was more than pleased that Erin, Eric, and Remy had gotten to eat something. I wondered how long they had been in the bushes without anyone but little Eric to care for them.I had never had an elder sibling, or anyone to look out for me and take care of me, so I knew firsthand how hard it was, and I wanted so badly to take care of them. That aside, I had quite a lot to think about, like where the strength I had used earlier had come from. I wish I could credit i
Returning back to the pack, I made my way to where Lee had woken up from and laid my head on the pallet. Almost immediately, I fell asleep, only rousing a few times in the night when someone moved. It was nothing like the previous night in the hollow tree, but I was a lot of friends richer, and I had learned something about myself that I hadn’t known before.When I woke up in the morning, I could smell the sweet scent of oranges, and I woke up abruptly. Like I hadn’t pummeled him the night before, Lee casually held out an orange to me, and gratefully, I accepted it and got to my feet. Making use of the makeshift water collector they had made the night before, I splashed some water over my face and rinsed the orange before peeling the skin off and biting into it. Within seconds, I had finished it, and gratefully, I accepted the orange that Kimora offered to me. I was embarrassed, but I was far too hungry to care for too long, so I bit into that too. Looking up, I realized that everyone
A few hours later, I believed that I had found the place I wanted all of us to settle in. We had had breakfast back at the clearing, some venison that Luke had done out to get, and it had been a hearty meal, with enough leftovers for us to drag along with us as we went on our way now. It had taken us some time too – I had almost asked to stop a few times but since the littles were walking on without any problems, I pushed myself to do what they were doing. I suspected it was because I was not used to this kind of work since my entire walking experience in the pack I was from was walking to the stream. Once at the spot, we had immediately made some new friends. We had been smelling the scent of nearby wolves for a few minutes, and everybody was on edge, until I had enoihhband fishef out the two wolves who had bee skanking behind us on our way to the clearing. “What do you want?” I'd asked, unblinking. I had sensed no threats from them, and everyone else in the pack seemed to be jus
Snapping back to reality, I stepped aside and went to rest my back against a piece of bark so I could watch my pack members go at it. I wondered how I had made the transition on a few days. I already thought of them as my pack, even though I had made a resolution not too long ago not to belong to one. The irony was not lost on me. Just then, I got a vision of the pack having a lot more members, thinking of how fast word spread and how many more people were being thrown out of their packs every day. I felt a little bit giddy at the thought. Sure, it was a terrible thing to be thrown out of your pack and the family you thought you had, but look at me, the same thing had happened to me, and my chosen family was leagues better than the set I had been packed with initially. We made our way back to our settling grounds that night, and everyone set up camp, making plans for our futures. There were a lot of trees beside us, and with the river, we could construct huts. From nearby towns, we
In a month of belonging to the pack and doing the things I had started to, my strength had started to develop even more, and the respect I got from the pack members was even greater than it had been before. I had worries about my mate and my former pack, and how they were faring, but whenever I needed a reminder, I would tell myself some of the things they had told me before. I was becoming someone else, free from them, and now I felt the need to talk about it with someone, which was why I went to find Lee. “Hey,” I said, smiling at him. He was seated in between quite a number of men and women at a corner of our land, just watching them talk, and I was trying to get him away from there.“Hey,” he smiled, taking my hand. “Do you want to sit down?” he asked, shifting over. With a smile, I shook my head no. “No, can you come with me please? Are you in the mood to talk?”“Sure,” he said, expression morphing into a frown. I considered assuring him it was nothing too serious when I turn