William shook his head and looked right at Aceso. “We have to risk it. Is her life any less precious than mine?”
Katherine looked between William and Aceso. She could tell that something was being shared by the two of them and the rest of the pack was being left out in the cold. “What are you two talking about?” She looked right at William whose tan fur was being bathed by the early morning sunlight. “It sounds like you two know exactly what is going on and where Achelois is. Care to fill the rest of us in?”
“You’re right, Katherine,” Aceso said, “William and I know about the Whyte Plain because we’ve been there before.” There was a sudden tension in the air that made William feel very uncomfortable. “What we have been training for since we entered the City under the Mountain, is so we would be able to join the war and start running raids into the Whyte Plain.”
“Why didn’t anybody tell us this?” Charles asked.
Aceso looked all around the room. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. The Elders sent us on this mission because of the coming winter.” Aceso stopped and seemed to gather herself and settled down with her back arrow straight. She was pack alpha and she was addressing her pups. “The Whyte plain is one of two war fronts that we shape shifters fight on.”
“War fronts?” Katherine seemed confused.
“We shape shifters have fought a war since we came into being. The Whyte Plain is the newest front in that war. We have been trained to fight so that as a pack so we could enter the Whyte Plain and have a good chance of surviving.”
“Why were we never told any of this?” Charles asked.
Aceso glanced at William, “Because if you had been told just how dangerous leaving the City under the Mountain was going to be, wouldn’t you be just the slightest bit wary about being able to be found.” Aceso looked at all of them. “That’s why I accepted William’s oath and became his alpha. If I hadn’t, he would now be lost on the Whyte Plain as one of those soul eating shadows Nicolas spoke of, always hungry, always hunting, always killing, but never satisfied.”
A deathly stillness settled over them. Katherine and Charles stared at Aceso and William found himself studying the ground in front of him.
“You knew and you never told us?” Katherine said.
“If I had, you can’t tell me that you wouldn’t have been tempted to swear your fealty to me. I’m not sure if I would have accepted your oath under such circumstances.” She looked between Katherine, Charles and Nicolas. “I want nothing more than to be a true pack with you. But you swearing to me out of fear is not the way things are done, they can’t be the way things are done.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Charles regarded Aceso. “What do we do now?”
Aceso turned toward Nicolas. “You said you knew where Achelois went?” Nicolas nodded. “Then I will go after her.”
William jumped up and knocked his head against the rock overhang of the den entrance for his trouble. The dull thud brought everyone’s attention to the enforcer. William rubbed at his head, between his ears. “You can’t.” he said squinting through the dull pain that coated his head like a baseball cap. “If she has been there for a few hours, she has already been taken or soon will be. How long was I in there before I was almost…” he trailed off still rubbing at his head.
“She’s alive.”
They all turned toward the blonde. He sensed the attention and looked up from under his eyebrows. “I saw her, she was surrounded by the shadows, but they stayed away from her. It was strange, like something out of a cartoon I watched as a kid. They were writhing and moving around her, but they got no closer than a few feet away. She was lying there, on the white, mist covered ground. I know she’s alive.”
William looked at Aceso. “This seems wrong.”
Aceso nodded. “I won’t leave her there. I will take Nicolas and go, the rest of you gather the deer and take them back to the City under the Mountain. Tell them what happened to us and maybe they can send help.”
Nicolas jumped as if he had been bitten by a poisonous snake. “I can’t go there! You can’t make me go there! I didn’t volunteer for this; I didn’t volunteer for any of this!”
William looked over at Nicolas, “None of us did.” He leveled a hard stare at Aceso, “And if you think that I’m going to let you go back there all by yourself, you’re crazy.”
Charles wiped his snout with his claw. “I have no idea what’s going on. Why can’t we go back to the City under the Mountain for help? We obviously are not expected to go to this place on our own yet.”
The calm of Charles voice seemed to dull some of the urgency driven adrenaline that had flooded Williams body. He slowed down his breathing and tried to focus and think. What Charles said made sense. The Elders would know what to do and then they could go to the Whyte Plain in force.
“There isn’t enough time for all of us to go back and get help,” Aceso said.
“Why not?” Katherine said a bit too sharply.
Aceso met her with a level stare. “The City under the Mountain is several hours away at best. You and Charles would have to go because you are the only ones who could cover our tracks.”
“But Nicolas just said that those shadow things wouldn’t approach Achelois. Maybe she is fighting them off somehow.” Katherine’s voice was full of reasonable, naive hope.
William knew better. There was the possibility that his experience and the draining, controlling nature of the Whyte Plain itself only gripped him because he had no idea where he was or what had been happening to him. The memories sent chills down his back. If Achelois was not going to be eaten or devoured or whatever those things did to her, then he had a feeling in his gut that the Whyte Plain itself would do the work for them.
“Doubtful,” William said.
Charles and Katherine looked over at him. “Why do you say that, William?” It was Charles.
“Because I was there.” He looked up and met both of their accusatory stares in turn. “If those shadow things haven’t eaten her, the Whyte Plain will rob her of her identity and her mind.” He looked at Aceso. “She doesn’t have much time, does she?”
“No,” Aceso answered.