Chapter 7 Alone

Seraphine's POV

I ran until the village sounds faded to nothing. Until my lungs burned and my injured leg screamed with every stride. Until the only things chasing me were guilt and the image of Lyralei tumbling down that embankment, swallowed by darkness.

Keep moving. Don't stop. If you stop, you'll go back, and if you go back, they'll kill you.

The forest blurred past—trees like skeletal fingers reaching for the moon, snow crunching under my paws, my own ragged breathing filling my ears. Behind me, nothing. The hunters had given up or lost my trail. Didn't matter which.

I'd left her.

My baby sister.

Alone in the fucking woods with armed men and hunting dogs.

The thought made me stumble. I crashed into a tree trunk, shoulder first, and the impact sent fresh waves of pain through my trapped leg. Blood had matted the fur there, turned it black and sticky.

Stop. Need to stop.

I collapsed against the tree, sides heaving. The transformation wanted to slip away—my body too exhausted to maintain it—but I fought to hold the wolf form. Safer this way. Faster if I needed to run again.

The moon filtered through bare branches above. Beautiful and cold and completely indifferent to the fact that I'd just abandoned the only family I had left.

She's seventeen. Never transformed. Can't hunt worth shit. How the fuck is she supposed to survive out here?

I pressed my forehead against the rough bark, fighting the urge to howl again. That sound earlier—that desperate, anguished thing that ripped from my throat—had been pathetic. A wolf's goodbye. A coward's apology.

You left her.

The accusation came in Mom's voice. Disappointed. Heartbroken.

You were supposed to protect her.

Dad's voice now. Flat and final, like the day they died.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but that only made it worse. Behind my eyelids, I could see Lyralei's face when I threw her off my back—confusion, then fear as she started rolling. That split second before she disappeared where our eyes met and she realized what was happening.

No. Stop. Can't think about that right now.

My injured leg throbbed with each heartbeat. The trap's teeth had gone deep—through fur and skin, into muscle. Maybe hit bone. Hard to tell with all the pain mixing together into one white-hot mess.

Need to deal with this. Can't run like this. Can't do anything like this.

The transformation hurt worse than usual. My body resisted, too drained to want to change. But I forced it anyway, gritting my teeth as bones shifted and muscles reformed. The process that usually took seconds stretched into agonizing minutes.

When it finally finished, I was human again. Naked. Shivering. And bleeding all over the snow.

"Fuck." My voice came out hoarse, barely more than a whisper.

The wound looked worse in this form. The trap had torn through my left forearm—not the leg anymore, since the wolf's front limbs became human arms. Ragged punctures on both sides where the metal teeth had penetrated. Deep enough to see muscle. Blood still flowing, though slower now.

River. Heard water earlier. Can't be far.

I dragged myself upright using the tree for support. Everything hurt—the arm worst of all, but my shoulder from the bullet graze, my ribs from hitting the tree, my whole body from three weeks of running and hiding and slowly starving.

The river wasn't far. Maybe a hundred yards through the trees. Each step felt like miles.

Lyralei could be anywhere. Could be hurt. Could be captured. Could be—

No. Don't finish that thought.

The water appeared through the trees—a black ribbon cutting through white snow, reflecting the moon. I stumbled to the edge and collapsed on the bank.

The wound looked even worse in the moonlight. Both sides of my forearm torn open, edges ragged. Some of the punctures went straight through. I could see the damage when I tried to flex my fingers—tendons maybe cut or at least badly damaged.

Have to clean it. Have to get the debris out before it heals wrong.

I shoved my arm into the river and nearly blacked out from the pain. The water was ice-cold—snowmelt from the mountains—and it felt like someone was driving needles into every nerve ending.

"Shit. Fuck. Goddamn it." The curses came through clenched teeth, over and over, a rhythm to match the throbbing.

I held my arm underwater anyway, watching blood cloud into the current. Had to make sure no dirt or bark or trap rust stayed in the wounds. Infection would slow healing, and I couldn't afford that.

Can't afford any of this. Can't afford to be hurt. Can't afford to have lost Lyralei. Can't afford to be this fucking useless.

When I finally pulled my arm out, the bleeding had slowed. Not stopped—the wounds were too deep for that—but slowed. My werewolf healing was trying to kick in, but it was sluggish. Three weeks of malnutrition and constant stress had worn me down too much.

Need food. Need rest. Need to not be a complete disaster for five fucking minutes.

I looked at the river. Fish, probably. Had to be. And I was too tired to be picky about how I got them.

Catching fish one-handed while half-dead turned out to be exactly as difficult as it sounds.

I crouched in the shallows, teeth chattering, trying to focus through the exhaustion and pain. The fish were there—I could see them darting between rocks—but my movements were clumsy, too slow. They slipped away every time I lunged.

Come on. Just one. Just give me one.

It took maybe twenty tries before I finally pinned a fish against a rock. Not even a big one—barely the length of my hand—but I grabbed it and dragged it to shore before it could escape.

The fish flopped in my good hand, scales silver in the moonlight. Fresh. Food. Exactly what I needed.

I bit into it raw.

The taste made me want to gag. Blood and river water and the weird texture of uncooked flesh. But I forced myself to chew, to swallow. My body needed this. Needed protein and fat and anything that might help me heal faster.

Lyralei's probably hungry too. Probably scared. Probably wondering why I left her.

The fish turned to sawdust in my mouth. I tried to take another bite and couldn't. Just sat there with the half-eaten thing in my hand, staring at nothing.

She was seventeen. Never been alone in the wilderness. Never had to hunt or fight or survive without someone watching her back. I'd always been there. Even after Mom and Dad died, even through all the running and hiding, I'd been there.

Until last night.

What if she's hurt? What if she broke something in that fall? What if the hunters found her?