Chapter 1 Red River Village

CHAPTER 1: Red River Village

Seraphine's POV

I heard someone shouting my name like the roof was on fire.

“Seraphine! Wake up!”

The voice was loud, urgent and right in my face. I shot up in bed so fast my neck almost cracked. My heart was racing like it wanted to escape my chest.

“Dad?” My voice shook.

My father was standing over me, breathing heavily. I had never seen him look scared before and that alone made my stomach twist.

“Get up,” he said, grabbing my arm. “Get up now. The village is under attack!”

For a second my brain refused to understand.

“Attack? Why? By who...?”

“There’s no time!” he yelled with urgency.

That was the end of any questions.

I jumped out of bed still wearing my nightgown, hair sticking everywhere and my feet cold on the wooden floor. Dad pushed me toward the door and I stumbled my way into the living room where Mom and my eight-year-old brother were both trying to force their shoes on at the same time. Mom’s hands were shaking too much and my brother was crying so hard he could barely breathe.

“What’s happening?” I asked again but it came out more like a whisper. No one answered me.. maybe they couldn’t.

Dad burst into the room behind me.

“Out. Now!”

We rushed out of the house… and that was the moment everything changed.

The night sky was red and not sunrise red.. fire red.

Houses were burning, flames climbed over roofs like hungry hands and smoke choked the air so fast my eyes watered instantly and then I heard the screaming.. Human screaming.

I froze, unable to breathe. Dad shoved me forward again but I couldn’t move because... there were wolves.. huge wolves.

Not the normal kind you see in forests. These were massive and sometimes bigger than horses with glowing eyes and bodies that moved with terrifying speed. They were pouncing on people... tearing, biting and ripping.

“Oh my God…” I whispered.

But it wasn’t just wolves. Some of them… looked like humans but not quite. Too tall and too fast with eyes glowing gold or red. They were setting fire to houses, dragging people out and kicking in doors.

Lycans..!

I didn’t even have time to process any of this. One moment I was staring in horror, and the next...

Mom screamed and I whipped around just in time to see my little brother being yanked off his feet by a wolf twice his size. One second he was there, the next the wolf had him pinned on the ground with its jaws tearing into him with a sickening sound that didn’t feel real.

“NO!” Mom shrieked and ran toward him.

“Mom, don’t...!” I tried to grab her but she was already gone.

Another wolf leaped out of nowhere and tackled her. Their bodies rolled across the dirt, and blood... so much blood... splattered across the ground.

“Mom!” I screamed until my throat burned.

Dad grabbed my wrist.

“Seraphine, run! Go!”

“I can’t leave them...!”

“Run!” he roared.

He shoved me so hard I stumbled forward. When I turned around, he was already facing a wolf that looked bigger than all the others. Its eyes glowed bright, almost silver and its fur was really dark. It moved with a slow confidence that made my skin crawl.

Dad didn’t run.

He raised his makeshift spear and stood his ground like a soldier in some heroic story but this wasn’t a story.

“Dad!” I shouted. “Dad, please...!”

The big wolf lunged and everything inside me shattered.

I watched helplessly as it tore into him... ripping flesh and breaking bone with its glowing eyes cold and empty like it wasn’t even killing a person, just breaking a toy.

“STOP!” I screamed and tried to run toward him but something grabbed me from behind.

“Let me go!” I kicked and clawed but whoever held me was strong.

“You’re no good to them dead!” a rough voice yelled right in my ear.

Next thing I knew, I was thrown over someone’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The world bounced upside down and blurry as they ran... and I mean ran. The person carrying me was fast.. like panic-fueled fast.

I screamed until there was nothing left in my throat. My voice broke, my chest hurt and my vision blurred with tears but the only answer I got was the sound of more screams behind us… and the night splitting open with howls.

Hours... or maybe minutes; everything felt blurred... passed in a whirl of running, sweating, crying, stumbling and more running.

We finally slowed and I was set down on my feet, though my legs nearly gave out.

A small group of survivors... about twelve people... huddled together in the dark forest. Some were limping, some bleeding and some crying.

I wasn’t doing anything.. I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t cry anymore. I just… existed.

Shock feels like floating in cold water. That’s what I felt like. Cold, heavy and drifting but I heard the men talking among themselves.

“That wasn’t just any attack,” one of them whispered. “The Lycan King himself was here.”

“That’s impossible,” another man snapped.

“I saw him!” the first insisted. “The huge one. The one that tore apart...”

He glanced at me and shut up.

I stared at him anyway. My voice didn’t work but my ears definitely did.

So the huge wolf that killed Dad… that was him? The Lycan King? The monster ruling the Lycan kingdom beyond the Red River Village? The one everyone feared?

I felt something sharp coil inside my chest. Not grief... grief was too soft for this. This was anger.. cold anger.. slow anger. The kind that takes root and grows thorns.

I didn’t know much about Lycans but I knew one thing right then and there. I’m going to kill the Lycan King. Not today.. Not tomorrow. But one day.

We walked until the sky began to lighten. My feet hurt so much I could barely move them but I just kept going, not saying anything, not feeling anything. It was like my body was just doing its own thing.

By dawn, we reached the gates of the human king’s palace and a sentry spotted us immediately.

“Stop right there!” he shouted with his spear raised.

The survivors all lifted their hands to show they meant no harm.

I stepped forward, or maybe I just drifted forward. I wasn’t really sure and that was when it hit me. A strange feeling like something inside me had snapped awake.

The air tasted sharper with colors looked brighter and the ground felt… alive under my bare feet.

My senses were suddenly too strong and too much. I clutched my head.

“What’s happening?” I whispered but no one heard me.

My heartbeat sounded like thunder in my ears. The guard’s breath was too loud, the wind was too loud, everything overwhelmed me at once and the world spun then went dark and I collapsed…