Alpha Raven | #1 in the Trueblood Series

The room was silent for the next few minutes. Charlotte was trying to not get stuck at the memory of his injured uncle. Azraiel was try

ing to grasp everything she said and connect the dots in his head.

Azraiel was confused as fuck. Was this some sort of magical glitch or something? The protective magic had the second chance to let Charlotte go out of the woods and instead it trapped her inside it. It was almost like the magic wanted her to stay inside the woods for some reason.

"Did you wake up at the same place?" Azraiel asked. Seeing her surprised expression, he continued "The clearing you described is far away from our borders. There is no way you could have reached here without waking up."

She just nodded her head, "When I woke up, I was yet again at a clearing but not the same one.

There were more trees around and it was...oddly calm...almost dangerously calm. It was utterly silent. I was sitting on the ground in front of a tree trunk, my upper body leaning on the tree for support. It was clear that I didn't just walk there. I would have remembered if I did.

I got up in haste, trying to see if I was injured or if there was someone around. I wasn't injured. Other than slight pain at the side of my head, which I am assuming was from when I fainted earlier, I was completely fine. I walked around the clearing to see if there was someone, anyone out there. It was really odd. The clearing was really small like someone had just cut random trees for a gathering but wanted to be discreet. It was surrounded by tall trees as far as I could see.

I looked in all directions. I had just turned around when I heard someone call my name. When I turned back, there was a man standing in front of me. I moved back, away from him assuming that he is another one of those things I encountered earlier. I was about to run away when he said, " Wait...I am not going to hurt you. I am here to help you."

When I looked at him again he was standing with his arms up in the air, "Wait ...okay?...please. I won't hurt you." I asked him the first question that came to my mind, " Who are you and How do you know my name?"

He said, " I am Richard. Your uncle's friend. We...the Grisham's, I and some others were looking for you in the woods. I found you blacked out in the woods." I didn't say anything to him. I was trying to see if he was lying, but there was no way to know that. I had never heard his name before and I was almost sure that my uncle never had a friend named Richard. Even if he was saying the truth, there was no way I could trust him after what I saw earlier. The fact that he looked like he knew the woods didn't help either. He looked abnormally giant. I mean..not only was he well built but he didn't look my uncle's age for being his friend. But since he wasn't injured and I knew that there was no way I could outrun him, so I decided to go with the flow , at least until I get somewhere from where I can run faster.

So, I asked him where we should go from there. He pointed to the direction opposite from where I was planning to run into. We started walking and I was getting anxious with every passing second. Within a minute I had decided to run away and started walking slower.

"Why did you run away?" His voice moved my attention from finding the right direction to him.

"What?" I was confused because I never ran away. I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Why did you run away from the Grisham's house? Do you have any idea how worried they were? And don't even get me started on your Uncle. He is borderline losing his wits." He spoke with such conviction that I started doubting my own memories. But one thing was clear that I couldn't trust this man. So, I did what could do the best. I ran. I ran away from him in the direction we came from. I was running blindly but I kept looking back to see if he was following me and he ...he wasn't. He was just standing there looking at me.

I ran for some minutes and stopped to catch my breath, only when I was sure he wasn't following me. But as soon as I stopped, I heard some other noises. It sounded like an animal's growling. I turned my head towards the direction from where the sound was coming and there they were. Five giant dog like creatures which I later came to know were wolves. They were abnormally large.. I mean...I had seen wolves before but these didn't look normal at all. They all had different colored furs but there was one thing common in all of them. They all had red eyes. And they were walking towards me."

Azraiel's heart dropped in his stomach as soon as he heard her describe those wolves. The ones she was talking about were rouges. Rouges are the wolves that don't live in a pack because they have been either banished for a crime or lost their sanity for reasons like losing a mate. Not all rouges are dangerous though, but they definitely can’t be trusted. They are weaker than other werewolves due to their lost connection to a pack but stronger than an average human. The rouges that form a pack together become stronger and their insanity often leads them to harm others. Five rouges together seem like they were part of a rouge pack. Did...did a rouge bit her?

And then there was Richard. He was glad that Charlotte ran away from him because he didn't seem like the part of preventive magic. The magic used characters from the person’s memories…and Charlotte didn’t seem to know him… And if he wasn't a part of the magic, then how the hell did he manage to break the protective spells and rescue Charlotte out of the clearing?

"Did they hurt you?" Azraiel asked her, getting more worried about the possible rouge attack he might face in the upcoming days.

“No…No...they didn’t.” Charlotte replied with wide eyes.