My heart hammered as two large hands lifted me and set me on my feet. A light exploded in the darkness, blinding me.
I could remember dogs trotting into the village. They had rolled onto their backs, vying for father’s attention. He had laughed and thrown them some meat scrap. They, in turn, had hunted down two rabbits to set at father’s feet. He’d piled straw outside the sheep pen, and the dogs stayed there for three nights. On the fourth night, when father sent me out to feed them, they changed into men. One had scooped me up while the other gagged me. Then, they’d run.
But something had gone wrong. While running, three dogs crossed our trail. The one carrying me had dropped me to the ground as he shifted and launched at one of the new dogs, tearing into it with deadly force. Then, whirling, he had gone after another while his partner fought the remaining one. The fights had inched closer to me, and I’d scrambled to my feet to try to run, but someone had caught me up from behind. When I’d looked up, the man who held me had a horrible gash where his right eye should have been.
The same man stared at me in the dim light while his partner untied me. Dried blood crusted his face, but I noticed the gashed had closed a bit. His eye socket, however, appeared sunken.
“Do not dwell on it, child,” he said. “Your life is worth an eye and more.”
With the simple thoughts of youth, I didn’t understand how I could be worth such an injury but kept quiet.
“My name is Roulf, and I have searched for you these last fifty years.”
Since I’d just reached my fifth year, I couldn’t understand why he’d looked so long. “Why did you bind me?”
“We could not allow you to run. The cycle ends in a few days. They are still looking for the last one. You. This is your third life in this cycle. My son helped you in the last life,” he nodded at the man beside him, “and felt when the bond was broken.”
His eyes didn’t leave mine as if he waited for me to answer. I shrugged at him, my younger-self not understanding while my older, dream-self did. An ache grew within me. I wanted my father.
“You do not need to understand now, just listen. What I tell you will matter later. They must have all of you alive at once. It does not matter to them if you are Claimed. You saw what they did to me. If they take you, they will do the same to you. They will hurt everyone you ever loved, and people you never knew. You cannot let them take you,” he stressed with a slight growl. He sighed and rolled his shoulders. His son set a comforting hand on him. Roulf reached up and patted it as he turned to smile sadly at his son.
“We will stay here as long as we can. If they find us, you must run that way,” he said pointing toward one end of the dark tunnel, “and remember my words.”
They extinguished the light then, and I sat isolated in the darkness, my little heart hammering, listening for a threat I didn’t understand. I shivered and tried to hold in the whimper that wanted to escape.
Roulf’s son, who had already helped me once in his life, sat beside me and wrapped an arm around me.
He whispered, “When you need to feel safe, remember this.” He gave my arms a gentle squeeze, much like my father might have if I’d woken with a bad dream. I leaned into him trying not to sniffle.
He remained beside me for two days, holding me in the darkness for hours, keeping me safe with his father not far from us. I slept and didn’t complain about hunger when I woke. Roulf’s words and their cautious silence impressed upon me the need to stay hidden.
In the dark, I lost concept of day and night, but they never did. Baen, as I heard his father call him, whispered to me occasionally, telling me when a night animal entered the cave.
When I felt Baen suddenly shift into his wolf form, I knew we had been found.
Roulf pulled me to my feet, spun me to the left, and nudged me forward. I didn’t say anything. I knew what he wanted me to do. Sticking my hands out, I groped through the darkness, wanting to run but only managing a slow stumble.
“I am proud to call you son, Baen,” Roulf said.
The words struck a deeper fear in me than Baen’s abrupt shifting had. I tried moving faster. After his words, nothing but silence rang behind me.