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“Akemi, are you out there?”

Sascha’s voice rang out with frustration throughout the forest. This was the Twilight Forest; it was certainly nothing to be messed with, or at least according to her new friend.

She heard a twig break nearby and gasped softly in fear as it startled her. A scent came to her nose and she instantly recognized who it originated from. Sighing in relief she realized that it was Akemi’s scent. Sascha had found the light gray she-wolf. Before she knew it Akemi had leaped out before her, fur bristled like needles.

The white she-wolf’s eyes widened and her fur stood up cold as she saw what was on her friend’s body! There was a long gash stretching from above Akemi’s right eye to the tip of her muzzle, dark crimson blood spilling out and staining the jet-black leaves.

It was as if Sascha could see the white of the she-wolf’s skull under the wound! It disturbed her how deep the cut was.

The light gray female just stood there, panting and all four legs separated with a good distance between them as if to support her balance.

That wasn’t all! There were four long stripes down her hip, also with blood escaping from them.

“What happened?” She asked shakily, her heart pounding in her stomach. She was very deeply worried for Akemi.

Who had done this? Had it been a hunter from Windstorm City? Had it been an animal? Or worse, had it been one of the magical creatures that were rumored to roam these forests at the time of twilight…?

Often times, wild monster roamed, or so she’d heard; snarling, drooling beasts out to kill and maim. They’d eat children and suck blood.

It was something much more dangerous than a hunter, because the wounds were, as she looked closer, not made by a human. The poor girl, her entire face was bleeding!

“A creature,” she whispered out, trying not to strain herself too hard. “It attacked…” Akemi then winced in pain and fell to the ground. What now? Sascha wondered desperately in fright. Is the creature still around?

A loud roar that was similar to that of rough thunder was heard throughout the entire forest. Without warning a large dragon descended as quickly as the element of lightning from the tree tops. Sascha didn’t even have time to scream, for the dragon had Akemi tightly gripped in its dagger sized teeth.

Akemi couldn’t have run before she was picked up because she was so weak from the last attack that the flying creature had given her.

Sascha only snapped back to reality when the dragon started the fly up and out of the forest, carrying Akemi’s poor torn body with it.

Taking her friend away from her! Oh, the sight of this just made her… well, just a little pissed off.

While the dragon was flying over the tree tops to the south of Windstorm City, the white she-wolf took off as fast as her paws would carry her in an attempt to try to stop the magical animal.

Sascha could remember the last time she had run like this; it was when the forest had been lit on fire by the Knights of Aerulis.

Back when Tairek was alive!

At this moment while trying to save her friend, she could almost feel Tairek’s presence with her as she pounded the earth with her paws.

She would not lose a friend this time!

Sascha thought her heart, lungs, and mind would explode; she was pelting at her full speed. She saw a black clearing, somehow unlit by the moonlight, up ahead. The clearing also meant that she’d be able to save her friend.

She knew nothing about dragons or their weaknesses, but she put that off and focused on the moment. What could she do? It wasn’t that high off the ground, she could possibly leap and cling onto the thing.

A white wolf with peculiar orange stripes and amber eyes leaped out of the bushes, sensing the distress. With tremendous power in his back legs the strange wolf shot upwards toward the dragon and amazingly clung on with its fangs.

Then two other wolves streamed into the clearing while the dragon was flying around, one with black fur and red swirly markings and another with white fur and ice blue stripes.

Not wanting to waste time, Sascha rushed forward and summoning all the power into her legs she took a huge leap. Due to the heavy weight of the clinging wolves the dragon was forced lower to the ground, giving Sascha a better advantage.

She felt her paws meet the dragon’s back, the wind made from its gigantic wings almost throwing her off balance. Immediately the white she-wolf sunk her fangs into the dragon’s large shoulder.

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Her teeth met the shoulder bone, and the dragon let out a loud snarl mumbled out by Akemi’s squealing body. A bit of blood spilled from the wound that Sascha had given the dragon and tasted strange on her tongue, but she didn’t care.

But no matter how hard she bit into the shoulder bone, on the verge of breaking it, the dragon would not let Akemi out of its grasp.

The white furred male with orange stripes climbed swiftly up the dragon’s rib cage and came to stand by Sascha, his long claws digging into its skin. Somehow it just wasn’t hard for the wolf to cling on. It seemed like it was a natural skill for him.

“Stay back!” He warned sternly, and then leaped to stand perfectly between the dragon’s head and Sascha. “This is far too dangerous for you.”

Sascha let go of her grip on the dragon’s shoulder. “Don’t ever tell me what’s too dangerous!”

The dragon suddenly threw itself into the surrounding trees in an attempt to throw the wolves off. The Twilight Firs crashed to the ground with a deafening sound, followed by the beast’s violent roar. The orange and white wolf did not lose his footing, and neither did the other two wolves lose their grip on its arm and chest.

The white and orange wolf turned to her angrily. “Leave!” He snarled. “We will take care of this. We will save your friend, I promise you that!”

Of course Sascha didn’t plan on leaving, but before she knew it the dragon had lifted off the ground and was starting to fly upward. Slipping as the dragon flew higher and higher, she clamped onto the base of its right wing with her teeth.

Even being in this type of danger she did not regret not leaving when she had the chance.

She couldn’t look at the dragon’s head from this angle, only watch as the beast flew higher above the Twilight Forest.

“Retreat, warriors, retreat!” The white furred male with orange stripes yowled. Those cowards! The dragon was going somewhere, and they didn’t have the guts to find out where? Well, who needed them! She was doing just fine before they showed up.

“Talomi, Strawberry!” The stern wolf began. “Jump, we’ll be able to land safely in the trees!”

What kind of wolves were they, thinking that they’d survive that fall?

Forgetting about them for a moment, she struggled to get a grip on the dragon’s skin so that she could climb onto its back again.

Instead she slipped again and then caught the dragon’s arm with her fangs and wrapped her paws around it. She could see Akemi from here being tightly carried in the beast’s mouth.

“Sascha, help me!”

She heard her friend scream just before Sascha was thrown with great force down toward the ground. It was a long, lingering fall that filled her with dread, but she did not scream as she plummeted down. She was just too shocked.

A pair of teeth bit into the nape of her neck and suddenly she was on the ground. The impact from hitting the ground had only hurt her hip because her upper body was elevated, but it wasn’t terribly painful.

She doubted it was even broken. Sascha’s upper body dropped and she felt the shock grow stronger as she laid there.

She didn’t know, but it was probably the shock that caused her to lose consciousness.

“Hey, you’re awake finally!”

A black she-wolf’s voice said excitedly as Sascha opened her eyes slowly, only to close them again as she slipped back into unconsciousness. It could have been seconds later or it could have been hours later, but she opened her eyes again.

Her eye lids were heavy, and it was a struggle to keep them open at all.

“Welcome back,” a male voice greeted her neutrally. She weakly looked over at her right side and saw the white male wolf with orange stripes. “Glad to see you’re okay, she-wolf.”

“Yeah,” she whispered, not fully comprehending what he had said. “Uh, huh.”

She was in a large cave lying on her side. There were many crevices in the silver wall of the cave, and the sprays of sunlight seemed to peak shyly through the lichen that hung over the entrance of the cave.

Her head hurt a bit, but it was quite easy to ignore. It didn’t hurt that much. Then she remembered with a sensation of horror; Akemi had been taken by that damn dragon!

“Akemi, where is she?” She jolted up to a sitting position.

Trying to stand, she added to the orange and white male, “You said you’d rescue her!” Of course, she had forgotten that they had jumped off the dragon before getting to her gray friend.

“I’m sorry, young she-wolf. We didn’t have a chance to rescue her this time,” the male responded simply. “But we won’t let Harloc kill your friend. I made a promise and I intend to keep it.”

Akemi was still in danger? Who was Harloc?

“But… you… what are we waiting for, then?” Sascha snapped. “Go and get your reinforcements or something so we can go and fight this Harloc!”

“It’s not that simple,” the black she-wolf with red swirly markings said.

This female was the one whose voice she had first awoken to. She had very pretty aqua blue eyes. “We decided that we must tell our pack alpha about this. The only reason we want to rescue your friend from The Horde is because we know that the prophecy cannot be fulfilled without her.”

Sascha narrowed her green eyes with wonder.

Did Akemi also have a prophecy?

“What prophecy?”