“We have been following these tracks for hours, Fraeya. It's too dangerous to continue. The sun will disappear soon.” Keerla held her bow, arrow nocked and ready.

Beluar nodded in agreement. “Keerla is right. I feel eyes on us, and I don't like it.”

Fraeya and her companions spread out where the tracks came to a dead end.

She stood up from her crouch and noticed how dark it had become. “I agree. Let’s go.”

A feral cry from the tree canopy forced her head up to the black panther descending towards her friend.

The feline crashed into Keerla after she managed to fire an arrow. The experienced archer used her bow to intercept the panther before it landed on top of her.

Her friend smacked into the ground, bow string snapping from the panther’s weight. Beluar roared in defiance when Keerla screamed in pain as the claws dug into her hands and legs.

He pulled his blade out and lunged. The panther pushed off Keerla and pounced on Beluar’s arm before he could strike, sinking its teeth into his flesh.

Bone fractured within the panther’s grip. He screamed in pain, galvanizing Fraeya into action with one fluid motion, striking out at the animal the moment her sword left its sheath. The panther released Beluar's arm before it lost its head.

Fraeya stood between the animal and her two companions. Beluar held his broken arm to his chest, sword somehow back in its sheath, and Keerla managed to get up, still clutching her useless bow. They would be no help in a fight and Fraeya didn’t know if she could survive this encounter on her own.

Two wolves raced into the fray, attacking the panther from behind, forcing its attention on them instead of her. The feline retaliated and aimed its ire at the wolf on the left, maw poised to clamp down on its head for a death blow.

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Fraeya barely recognized the one wolf who looked out for her as he dodged the strike only to be slashed in the side by the panther when it rolled on its back and extended its paws. The wolf’s companion defended the injured wolf by swiping at the panther’s eyes, held her ground, and howled in defiance.

Quick and silent as the wind, Fraeya plunged her blade into the panther’s chest and leaped into the air in a smooth spiral, aiming her strike at the feline's neck on her descent.

She didn’t miss.

Blade left on the ground, Fraeya knelt in front of her protector and his companion. His blood soaked the forest floor. Despite the growl from the uninjured wolf, she held up her hands in supplication. The wolf licked her fingers before whimpering at the unconscious wolf under her.

She looked the wolf in the eyes and said, “I can save him, but not here. I must return to my village.”

Fraeya lifted her furry friend into her arms and nodded in gratitude as Beluar placed her discarded blade back into her sheath. The three of them moved through the darkness towards their home, the only protection they had being the four-legged friend that fought beside the wolf who now lay unmoving in her arms.

They cleared the forest and put on a burst of speed as they scrambled across the open land that separated their village and the tree line. Torches blazing along the wall became beacons of safety that Fraeya sorely needed.

When the archers manning the gate aimed their bows at the wolf leading the patrol’s mad dash to safety, she screamed, “Do not shoot!”

A warning shot landed in front of the wolf regardless, halting the animal's progress.

Her companions made a final push, leaving her alone with the new wolf. “Believe in me. He will see you again. You have my word.”

The wolf howled and vanished into the night.

Fraeya entered the village in time to find the healers tending to Beluar’s broken arm and Keerla’s head and scratches across her arms and legs. When the healer rushed to her and scowled, she demanded, “You will heal this wolf.”

The elf cringed but did as requested without any fuss.

With nowhere else to go and a refusal to dump him outside the gates, she argued with the elders to keep the wolf in her home. They conceded by demanding that a guard be posted nearby.

Her forest wolf lay in a pile of hay on the floor, chest gently rising and falling in slumber. Fraeya lay beside him and whispered, “Thank you for saving me.”

Sleep soon took her back to the day she turned down the one she loved because her father forbade it, and she wept.