PART 20
After what seemed like forever Kane and Axe finally stopped walking. They stopped at what looked like a huge bolder. It wasn’t until Axe leaned against it with his shoulder and pushed hard that Mystic realized it was blocking the entrance to something. The bolder slowly moved until it revealed the opening to a cave.
“Get in there.” Kane growled. Mystic cocked her head sideways at him.
“You’re keeping me in a cave?”
“Now!” Kane snarled and snapped at her face, missing her nose by inches. “Or I’ll have Axe take you in.”
Axe looked at her and showed his teeth as he licked his lips. Mystic inched towards the opening, panic starting to set in. How on earth would anyone find her here?
“Go!” Kane snarled again and bit at her flank. She yelped and hurried into the entrance, stopping just inside.
“You’ll stay here until we figure out what to do with you. That will be up to the rest of the pack. Have fun.”
His last comment was said in a mocking tone just as the bolder slide across the opening behind her, trapping her inside. Just as the last sliver of light disappeared Mystic found herself thrown to the ground by something slamming into her shoulder. She smelled and felt more than she could see because her eyes had not adjust to the dim interior of the cave.
Instinctively she rolled onto her shoulder and leapt back up to her feet snarling. She was almost immediately knocked to the ground again and all she could see were streaks of gray. She could tell by the force of the hits that whatever it was, it was bigger than her, but not quite as big as Kane or Axe. She jumped to her feet again and tried to hear the direction it was coming from. Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the light in the cave and she was able to brace herself better for the next attack. Snarling she snapped at the thing as it knocked her off of her feet again. She yelped in pain as strong jaws started to close on her shoulder but she jerked away before they got a good hold on her.
She drug herself to her feet again and spun to face what she could now see was a wolf. He was bigger than her and was mostly gray with some white along his back and down his face. His eyes shone an unearthly shade of red. He bared his teeth silently and charged at her again, grabbing her by the side of the neck and tossing her to the ground as if she were a puppy. He stood over her and swiftly closed his jaws around her neck, pinning her to the ground. She bared her teeth and started to snarl when she heard a soft voice from somewhere else in the cave.
“Don’t…fight him. Please…just let me….hold still.”
Mystic blinked and stopped snarling. She had no idea why, but she listened to the voice that was so calmly telling her what to do.
“Don’t move, okay? You’ll be okay, I promise. Just stop fighting. Its best if you go limp, like you’re dead.”
Mystic tried to relax her body and to her surprise the death grip on her throat loosened slightly. The voice then began talking to the wolf that was holding her down.
“Come on now….just let go. That dog isn’t going to hurt you…or me. You didn’t even give her a chance. Look. She isn’t fighting.”
The wolf towering over her let go of her throat but kept her pinned to the ground.
“How do you know?” The voice was male; deep and raspy.
“I don’t…but you have to give her a chance. For me?”
“If she tries, can I kill her?”
“Yes. But first you have to let her go.”
The wolf turned his red eyes towards Mystic and snarled again before stepping off of her and retreating to a dark corner of the cave. Mystic didn’t move until the softer voice spoke again.
“You can get up now. I’m so sorry about that…it isn’t really his fault.”
Mystic slowly rolled over and stood up, shaking the dirt out of her coat. She winced and took weight off of her injured shoulder by sitting down.
“Who…are you?”
She asked, peering into the darkness. The owner of the quite voice stepped closer to the entrance and into the dim light. At first Mystic thought she was a wild wolf because she was almost pure white, but as she moved closer she could see the evidence that she was a designer dog; her eyes, the inside of her ears, and the bottoms of her feet were all a shocking shade of pink.
“I’m sorry again. I’m Mali, and that was my son,
Kale.”
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As Black headed back to the pack, he let the rest of the memories of that day fuel his anger
Mali had raced along side him towards the meadow as soon as the signal howl had been heard.
“Mali! Stay here.” He pleaded with her as they ran. She laughed lightly, the way she always did when she thought he was being over protective.
“Not a chance. I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And neither do you. What are we supposed to do? Let everyone else fight? You trained me. You know I can do this. Hey, I took you down the other day.”
He knew she was being playful and trying to get him not to worry, but he still wished she would give up on a being a fighter. She was good. Very good. One of the best in the pack, but that was what scared him. She was fearless.
“Fine. But please be careful.”
“As careful as you are.”
“Ugh. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
They reached the meadow together and quickly separated to help with the fighting that had already started. Moments later he heard her yelp of pain. His head shot up in the air in time to see Axe pinning her to the ground. He didn’t remember running, only the bone jarring impact of hitting Axe full force and sending both of them rolling on the ground. His teeth clamped around Axe’s front leg and he bit down, feeling the bone start to crunch. Axe bit Black’s shoulder hard and used his yelp of pain as an opportunity to yank his leg from Black’s mouth before it was broken. Black flung himself at Axe’s throat and bit down until he tasted blood. He could see the panic in Axe’s eyes as he shook hard, trying to loosen Black’s grip. Black could feel Axe start to weaken and he held on. He almost had the giant HellHound pinned to the ground when he heard his name snarled softly.
“Oh Black…” There was a teasing tone and when he glanced over everything in the meadow had stopped except for what was going on between him and Axe. The taunt was coming from Kane who has Mali by the back of the neck, holding her up so her feet weren’t touching the ground. She whimpered in pain and Black instinctively let go of Axe’s throat and lunged for Kane. What happened next only took seconds but would forever be etched in his brain.
As soon as he let go of Axe, Kane shook Mali hard. She yelped loudly and he shook her again, harder. Her cry of pain still woke him up in his nightmares, then she went completely limp. Axe took advantage of the moment and pinned Black to the ground as Kane ran off to the forest carrying Mali. It wasn’t until Kane was out of sight that Axe let him up. Nitro and a few other fighters had come and stopped him from following the HellHounds into the forest.
Despite knowing she was dead Black had searched for months, only giving up when he finally realized that if Mali was alive she would have come back to the pack…to him…He jogged up to the main cave and stopped in front of Nitro who looked surprised to see him.
“Black. I’m glad you came back. We’re going to need you.”
“I’m only staying if there is a plan to get Mystic back.”
“We are working on that now. First we have to make sure the rest of the pack is safe, then a few of us will go out to bring Mystic back.”
“Okay. What’s the plan?”
Thank you all for waiting so patiently. Hopefully this lives up to expectations lol.