*Isla*
The howling is getting closer. Panic wells up inside of me. I don’t even have a weapon. Antony begins to strip, preparing to shift. We are all in trouble.
“Fuck,” Poppy mutters, turning away from him. The next thing I know, she’s disappearing into the nearby trees.
“Poppy? What are you doing?” I shout to her.
“She’s probably hiding,” Antony says behind me. I don’t particularly want to see my cousin naked, so I don’t turn to look at him. “Coward.”
It’s the last word he mutters before I hear his voice in my head. “I’ve shifted.”
Turning around, I see that he is now a large gray wolf. My eyes widen in shock. I wasn’t expecting him to be so big. Ben gathers up Antony’s clothing and shoves it into his backpack, picking that up off the ground, too.
The howls are closing in on us. “Poppy!” I shout, thinking there’s no way she just left, but I have no idea where she’s at either.
A moment later, a wolf emerges from the trees. Antony turns toward it, rearing up on his hind legs, ready to charge.
“Wait! It’s Poppy!” I say, noticing that she has clothes in her mouth. She spits them out at my feet, and I pick them up, noticing she’d left her bag next to a tree before she left. I shove them inside and throw her bag over my shoulder.
Poppy can shift—I didn’t realize she was old enough to do that because I’d never seen her do it before. She’s a majestic wolf, brownish red in color, her eyes softly glowing a light gray-blue in the dark. I can tell by Antony’s reaction that he is attracted to her now. I suppose they must know now, then, that they are mates for sure—whether they like it or not.
They will have to wait until later to explore the possibilities that might include. The wolves in the jungle are closing in on us quickly now, and I feel that same panic exploding inside of me that fizzled to the surface before they even shifted.
Then, the glow of dozens of pairs of yellow-green eyes, similar to Antony’s, show up all around us, peering out at us from between the trees.
My blood runs cold within my veins. Only Poppy and Antony stand between us and certain death. If only there was a way I could let these people know I am there to help them.
The mind-link!
Will it work for these wolves? I was able to hear Antony a few moments ago, but that might be because he is my cousin.
“We are here to help you!” I send it out in all directions. “Please, listen to me! I’m the girl from the pool of water, the one that came back to life!”
“That’s not gonna work!” Antony tells me. He’s not wrong—they begin to charge us, coming at us from all different directions. My arms go around my baby as I prepare to do whatever I can to save my son.
Antony rears back, trying to look as big and mean as possible. He tosses his head back and lets out a menacing howl.
The wolves suddenly stop their charge, most of them at least ten yards away from us still. I have a feeling they’re just regrouping, not sure what to make of Antony’s howl, but then, they all turn and run away as quickly as they appeared, none of them howling or otherwise making a sound.
It’s all quite peculiar. It doesn’t make any sense to me.
Were they all really that afraid of Antony?
“Ha ha!” he says in my head. “They know I can take them all!”
Somehow, I doubt that’s the case, but then… why else would they all turn around and run.
And then… I sense someone or something standing behind me. Slowly, I turn around, praying to the Moon Goddess that whatever I see won’t send me running through the trees the way that the wolves just did.
Before I even completely turn around, I get a glimpse of exactly what it was they feared, and my mouth drops open.
Yeah… that would’ve made me run, too.
* * *
*Maddox*
I have no idea where we are going other than that we are following the sounds of howls. It doesn’t seem to matter which way I run, though, I still can’t get Isla to answer me on the mind-link, and I’m not sure we’re even headed in the right direction.
And then, an even louder howl than we’d heard previously cuts through the night. This one sounds menacing, not just haunting like the previous ones. Whoever this wolf is, he means business.
Something tells me it’s Pepelos, though I’m not sure why. I’ve never been with him in battle to know what he sounds like as a wolf, but I think I recognize his voice.
I should be able to reach him as his Alpha King as well, Or Poppy. Or Mystica. But I don’t manage to get anyone.
We run through the woods, dodging vines and large rocks. Dried lava, the black boulders slice through our fur and skin if we get too close to the wrong obstructions. Large insects buzz around our heads, annoying the hell out of us and stinging our skin. We continue to run, searching for signs that we’re headed in the right direction.
I have to follow my gut at this point, hoping that I can instinctively find Isla and my son, even without any evidence that we’re going the right way. No more howling beckons us. The jungle has fallen quiet.
A few moments after the jungle went quiet, I finally hear Isla’s voice in my head. “Maddox? Where are you?”
“I’m in the jungle, running toward you, I hope. Why? Are you okay? Was there a battle?”
“I… I don’t know what’s happening,” she admits. “The wolves all turn around and left. There’s a glowing blue orb hanging in the air behind us. Can you see it?”
Lifting my head, I look around me, my wolf eyes cutting through the darkness. I see nothing like what she’s describing. “No. What direction should I be looking?”
“Uhm… toward the moon.”
I look to the north, where the moon hangs above the mountains. The light between the trees of the jungle look slightly illuminated. Is that what she’s talking about? “All right, baby. I’m coming. Hold on.”
She doesn’t sound that scared now when she says, “I think… I think we’re all right. I think… the light is here to help us.”
“Wh-what?” I can hardly believe my ears. “No, Isla. Quit making bad choices, dammit! Stay where you are. I’ll be there soon, and then we can go home.”
“No, Maddox! I’m not going home. I came here to do something important, and I’m going to do it. If you don’t like it, then you can go home without me.”
“But Isla, haven’t you realized yet that you are in over your head? You never should’ve come here to begin with!”
With that, the mind-link goes quiet. I continue to run through the jungle, calling her name as I go, but I know she’s not going to answer me, and it has nothing to do with the blue light I can vaguely see through the trees in the distance.
*Isla*
“What is that?” I ask Antony. He is back in his human form now, dressed, and walking up to the blue light, which grows larger and larger by the second.
“That is a gift from my mother.” His tone is irritated more than thankful. “That means she’s around. I’ve seen her use this before to ward off the angry wolves. I’m surprised they scattered so quickly.”
“It’s probably because of your menacing howl.” Poppy’s voice is rolling with sarcasm as she comes up on my other side, also dressed now, with her hat back on her head.
“All right. So… if the light came from your mother, I guess we can follow it to wherever she is?” I ask.
Before Antony can reply at all, the light begins to move through the forest, slowly at first, until we prove we are following it. I ignore Maddox’s voice in my head. Now, I wish he hadn’t come here again. I wish I hadn’t contacted him and let him know about the light. I need to hustle to find Aunt Mary before Maddox finds me. If he thinks I’m just going to walk back to the dock and get on a boat without finishing what I came here to do, then he’s wrong—dead wrong.
I had been hoping we’d get to stop soon because we’ve been walking all day. My feet are beginning to ache. My back is sore, and this baby feels like he weighs a thousand pounds. But we keep walking, following the light, none of us talking. Not even Poppy complaining.
Eventually, I begin to see what looks like a small hut in the distance, situated in a clearing between the trees. My heart begins to beat faster as I consider that we may have found Aunt Mary at last.
If that’s the case, we are about to find out whether or not she was being honest with me in her letter and truly seeks my help with the curse or if what Antony told me to begin with is true, and she really does wish to do me harm.
If she tries to kill me, I doubt I’ll be able to do much to defend myself. If Antony can’t intercede on my behalf, I might’ve just come a very long way to die.
Movement stirs in the doorway. The blue light quickly darts to the hand of the woman who is standing there. In the darkness, it’s hard to tell, but she has a familiar air about her. Antony picks up his speed, rushing over to her. She opens her arms to him, and they embrace. Looking over his shoulder, he meets my eyes, his yellow orbs glowing in the darkness. “I did it, Mama. I brought her here.”
A cold chill runs down my spine, and I stop walking.
Behind me, in the distance, I hear howls and what sounds a bit like thunder. I don’t even turn around though. My eyes are locked on Aunt Mary’s face.
She glides toward me without even taking a step, and I freeze in place.
Stopping short of me, her long green gown billows around her, her dark hair also blowing in her own wind. “Hello, Princess Tropicana.”