Chapter 12

I can feel a clear distaste and rage radiating from Zrot before I can even see what is happening. Skye guides me forcefully with a mental hand as if to present me to his Wolf Beast to show I am a 'friend'.

Zrot pauses to consider the offer, lifting his head, he judges me in a split-moment. Zrot starts violently pacing a Solividian den, snarling in rejection, while the exits from the Wolf Dominion are blocked by glass showing either tunnels into the ground or the sand above. The height at which Zrot stands is certainly massive – equal to the statue.

Breeding for our Wolf Dominion military creates gigantic war machines from the Wolf Beasts. Only my Zrot Company is this strong and large – all other Wolf Kind are five times smaller. A little lesson in our genetics. Now, Ryder, why don't you try to command Zrot, Skye laughs in my head, knowing I'll already fail, LET'S GO FOR A WALK – I cringe when Skye commands Zrot over me.

I watch as the gigantic beast pauses, lets out a large wobbly tongue in joy and then he runs for the exit like an excited puppy.

I laugh spontaneously – which doesn't exactly please Alpha Skye.

He loves you, I try to brush it off.

Zrot respects me, Alpha Skye challenges my statement, since your insolence continues – I'm leaving you with him.

NO! I panic, but Alpha Skye becomes a void next to me, and I feel the rest of Zrot flood me. Won't I die from this? Won't my brain melt out of my ears?

The Wolf Beast is simply running out an opened exit, while my brain feels shaken with every burst of aggression Zrot shoves my way – pushing, me, out.

I try to resist, simply because it feels ego-bruising, but with one more shove – I'm out like a flea he just shook off.

However, I do not awaken in my human body.

I awaken in Xrat – who has once more escaped. At least; in this very moment. He's burst out a glass window, and is falling with his paws out – about to crash land into the sand.

It's exactly what happens. Xrat slams into the sand below, breaking a leg after attempting to fly out a damn window, yet now he is tumbling with his momentum and crying out in pain.

He had been trying to follow Zrot's paw prints in the sand – feeling me run away with another Wolf Beast.

This was Skye's fault!

It's okay, I'll get you help little buddy, I try to soothe Xrat and he cries out in high pitched whimpers for me.

I can hear a distant voice, Skye is trying to bring me back, but I latch onto Xrat and I refuse to leave.

As I'm physically dropped in my human body, I feel isolation while the ground around Xrat thunders with a loping Wolf Beast a few minutes later – coming for us.

Xrat lies on his side, unable to move from the shock of the fall settling in, our head is laid out watching and waiting for help.

As the sand at the edge of a small dune wavers – Zrot comes bounding over silently, teeth bared as the gigantic Wolf Beast slides down the sand and sniffs Xrat.

I can tell Zrot's movements are more controlled and I know Skye is there.

We're snagged up in his jaws a moment later – to be delivered back inside.

I do not leave a terrified and guilt ridden Xrat, even when Zrot deposits us at an emergency terminal inside the den – which rises as an open lift to a hospital.

Nurses and doctors rush to Xrat, bringing him in for healing.

Only once Xrat is sedated to have his bone realigned in the hospital – I am able to leave.

I wake up groggy, once again, paralysed as my eyes blink open past a fog of tears I had been crying, after sharing my Wolf Beast's pain.

I'm alone and back in my cage while Alpha Skye is seemingly missing.

At least I think he's gone from the residence, until I regain my movement back the same time as he does.

I'm able to sit up in my cage, my passionate energy is fuelled by sadness this time round.

Instead of demanding to be released, I burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably while Alpha Skye stalks back into the room from one over – and he is also full of intense rage and emotion.

He sweeps down to kneel in front of my cage, glaring in at me, "I'll kill you!" Skye unleashes a hidden violence, "You impudent worm – how dare you," I'm shaken by his unexpected verbal abuse – completely blind-siding me. I don't know what he's referring to.

All I can comprehend is that Skye is screaming at another, perhaps a memory – but it's not at me. His eyes are glazed with his fury.

I keep in my sobbing, and Skye's blue eyes rake over me, no sooner he is opening the cage and tearing the rope adorning my body, unravelling it and pulling it clear of my limbs. I don't complain, I let him do it.

I lay still like a frightened lamb to the slaughter – and the cage door is finally slammed shut as Skye tosses the rope aside, throwing it across the room before dramatically collapsing against his office desk, lowering himself to the ground – where he passes out in a heap.

I'm soon to be next then, but before I fall asleep – I turn my head and I see a mark I never saw on Alpha Skye's inner left bicep. Red, ugly and raised. It looks to be a slave-brand that pulses and sinks into his skin – disappearing as if it was never there, then his face distorts – the cut above his lip becomes wider then suddenly fades to the smaller line. His nose is larger – more at human proportions – but then it's straighter and more refined. His eyes flicker behind his lids – his skin shimmers a dirty bronze than becomes a solid creamy dish pale, reflecting the neon blue light of the Genesis Moon.

I must be seeing things in this deluded state – because in that moment, Alpha Skye looked a little human.