Fire and Ash

Abruptly, the starry night sky is no longer filled with song; it wis filled with the screams of men and women as Alpha Rivera leads his warriors from the trees down into the valley. The air is thick with panic and fear, and Alpha McGowen desperately tries to organise his warriors and mount a defence, but it was no use. Dozens of Redwood’s in both wolf and human form are taken down before they even know what hit them and the rest are slow to shift due to the alcohol.

The ground is soddened with Redwood blood before one of them even lands an attack.

The sound of growls, snarls and teeth clashing together intensifies as the Redwoods start to fight back. They may have been foolish tonight and be peace-lovers, but they are also Celtic wolves, born warriors. As the fighting intensifies, the Redwood’s defence turns into a counter attack and they begin to gain the upper hand.

Hearing the commotion outside, Luna McGowen had ushered the mothers and children to the packhouse and told them to hide. All Redwood’s are warriors, and the mothers would defend their children to the death.

Then, she rushes out with the rest of the warrior maidens to join the fight. She is as fierce a warrior as her mate is, and she would die at his side before she ever left him to fight and defend their pack alone.

After fighting off his fifth Salt Creeker, Alpha McGowen pauses to look around at the carnage. So much death, and now his mate is at risk. He makes the decision to call his rival forward and shifts from his russet brown wolf back into human form.

“RIVERA!” Alpha McGowen bellows out, his voice powerful enough to momentarily silence the fighting, “RIVERA! COME OUT AND FACE ME LIKE A MAN!”

Both packs stop fighting and watch as Alpha Rivera shifts back from his jet-black wolf to human form and emerges from the crowd. Neither Alpha has a scratch on them. Rivera stalks forwards and the Redwood and Creek warriors move back, creating half-moon formations behind their respective Alpha.

“You were foolish tonight, McGowen,” Rivera says, smirking.

“Foolish? FOOLISH?!” McGowen shouts back with complete fury. “I am a new father! You know the joy of new life yourself! But you would use such a gift as an opportunity for annihilation?! You are deranged!”

“I annihilate you now as a gift to my son, for his future,” Alpha Rivera says coldly; there is no sympathy in his voice. “I give you this one chance to submit. You and your Luna may leave your lands with your lives, as may any of your warriors who wish to give up now.” He looks across all the Redwoods as he says this.

“And why would we ever submit to a tyrant like you?!” Luna McGowen shouts from her mate’s side.

A smirk laced with pure evil draws its way across Alpha Rivera’s face, and he lets out a loud whistle. Before they have chance to react, a huge grey wolf launches from the side of the circle, heading straight for Alpha McGowen.

“No!” The Luna screams as she pushes her mate to the side and out of the way of Beta Diaz’s attack. Diaz’s jaws latch around the Luna’s shoulder instead and he drags her down to the ground on the Salt Creekers side, pinning her under a giant paw.

The rest of Beta Diaz’s group emerge from behind Alpha McGowen’s side and just like that, the Redwood’s are surrounded. They look around anxiously.

“Last chance, McGowen” Alpha Rivera mocks.

“Never!” comes a strangled voice from the ground. Alpha McGowen looks at his mate, pinned to the earth and considers surrender. His mate is his whole world, and his heart is already breaking seeing her struggling like this. But when he looks back to Alpha Rivera, all he sees is evil intent in his eyes, and Alpha McGowen knows the evil alpha will not let them live regardless.

So, no. He cannot surrender. For his Luna, for his baby daughter, and for all of his pack and all who trust and follow him.

He throws his head back and lets out another war cry, signalling to his warriors that they will fight on, and they respond with the same cry, ready to fight for their alpha.

But Alpha Rivera simply sneers and nods his head at Beta Diaz, and what happened next was devastating.

Beta Diaz’s jaws clamped down around Luna McGowen’s neck, and with a sickening crack he threw the brave Luna’s lifeless body to Alpha McGowen’s feet. The alpha howls out a strangled wail as he drops to his knees, clutching his heart. The unimaginable pain he feels is unlike any other a wolf can experience. He is broken.

His pack feel his pain too and are weakened. Alpha McGowen whimpers as he clutches at his beloveds’ clothes, pulling her motionless form into his lap. Beta Diaz steps back to Rivera’s side and looks away, displaying a single moment of sympathy for his rival’s heartbreak.

Alpha Rivera, however, throws his head back and shouts in victory, signalling his fighters to continue. To keep fighting. To the death.

In the next moment, Diaz’s warriors advance from the rear and now they attack from all sides, and in the despair caused by their Lunas death, the Redwood pack falls. The women and children who had been waiting in the pack house were spared. Most bowed their heads and accepted their new Alpha and were taken together to their new pack lands with the Salt Creek warriors. The rest were banished to live a rogue’s life. Alpha Rivera was not concerned with them, he did not know that all Redwood women were trained warriors, and he believed they would soon die without his pack.

After commanding everyone to go home to Salt Creek land, he stood alone now, looking around at the devastation he has caused: bodies laced the ground; the Luna was dead, her once piercing forest-green eyes now frozen and unseeing in a terrified expression; the Alpha’s grief evident on his face even in death, and he smiled to himself. He walks to the still lit fire pit that was surrounded by joyous song not one hour ago and takes a flaming piece of wood. He observes the flames licking around the stake as he walks to the nearby pack house and smaller buildings. Then, he torches them.

The earlier dancing fireflies are replaced with flying embers popping off the burning buildings below. The air is no longer thick with song, but with smoke and ash. The Redwood Valley Pack burns.

Satisfied with his work here today, he turns to leave, but, as he is walking through his devastation, Alpha Rivera suddenly hears the faintest of cries over the crackling wood and roaring flames. The sound triggers a memory of his son whose cherub face flashes before his eyes, and the Alpha’s cold, stone heart cracks. He follows the sound to one of the smaller burning buildings and now, he is sure; that’s a baby in there.

“Moons, no!”

In a moment of madness, or a moment of clarity. Whichever way you look at it, the soulless Alpha had a moment, and in that moment, he burst through the window of the burning building. The flames licked at his exposed skin and smoke was thick in his lungs as he searched for the source of the crying. Quickly, he came up against thick wooden doors. Pressing his ear to it, he could hear that this was the room he was looking for. He barged the door, once, twice, three times, but it was no use. He scanned the burning hallway he stood in, there must be a way through.

Following the hallway around to the left side of this room, he coughed and spluttered. Finally, he sees a smaller door, a maid’s entrance, but it is burning; the fire has already reached it and pieces of the ceiling are falling to the ground around him. He must act now.

Looking around, Alpha Rivera finds a tapestry hung on a wall not yet aflame. He takes it and wraps it around his shoulders before running at the burning door with all his might and ploughing through it. There, he finds a cot covered in ash, and inside, a crying, screaming red haired baby wrapped in an embroidered pink blanket. Wrapping her safely in her blanket and the tapestry he exits the room and bursts through a nearby window, into the warm outside air.

He falls to his knees, exhausted and coughing. He has some mild burns on his back, but they will heal quickly. Once he has caught his breath, Alpha Rivera checks on the small, bundle of responsibility he had just saved from certain death. He panics when he sees her eyes are closed, but feels overwhelming relief when he realises, she is in fact sleeping.

He sighs. “You’re all alone now, little one… your mother must have been a warrior,” the Alpha says quietly. “She’s gone now. Dead. Your father too,” he continued, the coldness creeping back into him. He regarded the baby a little more and stood up tall.

“No doubt you’ll be strong like them. That hair you have is saturated with Celtic intensity…”

As he said it, Alpha Rivera had a thought. He looked around, trying to discern what building he had just pulled the baby from.

He could see ornate craftmanship in every detail of what remained of the building; surely it was a building of high importance. Looking closer, he makes out the shape of the Celtic Crest of Arms used by the McGowen clan for hundreds of years above the entrance. He looks down at the embroidery on the babies blanket and sees the same crest there. It hits him like a steam train.

Of course.

Flaming red hair. Beautiful green eyes, just like her mother’s…

She is the right age, and all alone. Alone.

He has orphaned this innocent baby, just two weeks younger than his own. Perhaps he should have left her to die in the fire, he thinks, for now he has the responsibility of her life. She could be a danger or threat to his son in the future, but he cannot undo saving her and he cannot murder her now, can he?

The Alpha is conflicted, weighing up his limited options, but he eventually decides to accept her into his pack. He will ensure she is cared for, and that she grows up to be thankful for her pack and for The Expansion. She will believe the history that he would write. She must.

She will be strong, no doubt, and one should always keep their enemies close.

He will build an orphanage who will care for her, and any other children orphaned in his conquest. They will raise her to be grateful for our mercy, but she must never learn of who she really is, of her bloodline. She may seek revenge, she would defy us, and Alpha Rivera would not let anything risk his son’s future.

She will need a new name, but what to call her?

The Alpha looks down at the tiny, sleeping bundle in his arms…

He sighs once more, “all alone and covered in ashes.”

Alone.

“Enola… Grey,” he whispers wiping a spec of grey ash from her nose.