cover by TaeTaeGinger88

The gods envy us
They envy us because we're mortal.

- Homer

.

The night became pungently alive, as it began with hungry growls and the sliding of their underbellies against saturated soil planes. The air swarmed with tension, thinning the oxygen they breathed as their lungs pledged to collapse. To which blinking eyes fell closed wonderfully without fret, without sanctuary, between the advances made beyond their trail of malevolence.

Vera Lee raced— zipping past the tree lines as numerous branches ripped open, plunging deeply against the flesh between her thighs as the cold blood trickled, down her sweaty legs leaving a dank residue. Her ambition was the only thing that kept her striving, hastily without appetite. Buckling knees were whining from relay.

It was either the quivering tendons in her swollen veins or Mavis's tightly closed fist repetitively clamping down against her backside, to keep her pace forward. The adrenaline was a distraction as it crashed against her nerves louder than any tidal wave against murky waters aside rocks.

Suddenly Eve fell to her knees bashfully, for the second time, which seemed like the hundredth.

"Why are you hunched over onto your knees like that. You are slowing us down."Vera shouting these words as if they were poisonous, saliva escaping her bitterness being spat on the flustered Eve's face.

Vera rolled Eve onto her side, inspecting her for any visible wounds to the eye and there weren't any.

Eve shakes violently as bile rose to the back of her throat, sweat decorating her cheeks whilst she took labored inhalation collectively in.

What Vera found shocking most subconsciously makes her release a gasp in utter shock. She suspected a cut or maybe reddening bites from insects, anything but a prominent baby bump poking out from underneath Eve's sundress.

Betrayal

Treachery.

Even disgust wavered the air between the two females as Vera's heart took on an unearthly pace, flaring nostrils before shaking Eve in way she'd plea to gargle her wasted intestines. Eve's jaw ticked, with a heavy stomach only a reminder soon she'd hurl.

Her once golden tresses that Vera admired so greatly became dirtied being scattered beyond her face, even her dress was hoisted up to reveal her short and stubby legs. Vera clasps her hand over her forehead, wiping the sweat away as she stared into the ground with a look of... disappointment.

This is the information she'd been withholding all along. This very piece of vital ultimatum. This is why Vera hadn't caught even a sight of Eve molding the scented mask into her skin. Even if she had, inevitably she wouldn't be able to hide the wholesome scent of the child she was carrying.

"This is why you were leaving huh? You are pregnant." Mavis spat furiously with these beady eyes reflecting her raw fury.

"Leave her Vera, she is of no use to us anymore," Mavis concluded beginning to tug on Vera's sleeved arm away from a sweaty and panting Eve.

"She's dead weight!"

Mavis's head felt lulled and all she wanted to do so badly was to get away from this god forsaken place. To escape this life she was far from accustomed to. She refused to assimilate with royal assistance, the ways in which served priorly men.

Vera snatches her arm, tearing the sleeve Mavis once clung from, causing Mavis to fall toppling over, "Are you crazy! We can't just leave her Mae. Anything could happen to her out here. She's with child."

Mavis rolled her eyes, fighting back the urge to slap them both. Vera couldn't decide which surprised her most, Mavis's sudden authority to lead or Eve's intrusive demise.

Suddenly Eve crawls over, flinching on her hands and knees —with little to no strength she tugs on Vera's pants' leg out of desperation,

"No you can't leave me! I'm running away from my mate. Please no! He's on the front line!"

Vera watches intently as Eve's hot tears fell from her whimpering banter, all the more reason why Vera needed to make a decision, and quickly before all three of them were bloody captured again.

Vera knew the longer they stayed or attempted to hospitalized Eve the easier it would be for the pack of wolves to find them, and she dreaded how her mate would react to seeing her in this predicament. Eve's hands digging profoundly into the soil, moaning aloud from her dejection.

As if right on cue the two girls bickered back and forth debating on what should they do with the pregnant woman. Soon relentlessly an overbearing howl was heard above their heads, startling Vera to her milky core.

Following behind the breaking of a dauntless search party, in symphony an army of provoked growls rung over the clouds which hung glumly in the sky— much louder than any church bell's ring. Mavis clutters up to her feet, shaking Vera back into reality.

Seething while snatching the essentials from Eve along with the satchel, "No! We can't afford it. You are dead weight!" Mavis announces and all Eve could do was sob harder. Crumbling into nothing as she fought harder to stand but failed desperately. What Mavis does next is much more haunting, it takes Vera by surprise.

She empties the once-contained scent masks onto Eve and steadies the rest into the basket of herbs and water. Mavis proposes a plan to Vera in a hushed whisper but Eve wasn't accepting the fact she would get left behind. All this arguing is stalling time, Vera thought. Long enough for Alexander to find her.

How Vera so desperately wanted to be found.

"Come on Vera there's not enough time we're not too far from territorial land." Blood is rushing within Vera's ears. Guilt is eating away at her stomach line, half admittedly, She knew what had to be done.

Scarred for dear life is an understatement. Vera was terrified.

With ease, Mavis catches an iron grip around Vera waist enough to pull her from Eve's side who sunk deeper into mud and greenery. This time Vera allows Mavis to perform this action, as they ran with no definite destination.

"Steer forward Vera. Don't look back!" Mavis chimes from the left of Vera's shoulder. She squints her eyes into the dark sky into the gaze of the prompt moon.

The voice of Mavis's reminder rung loud in her head over and over again on repeat, Don't turn around!

Don't look back! Only forward, never back!

Abruptly Vera pauses in her steps, bristling her insides. She felt to be choking on the scented mask, when a blood-curdling growl is heard, shaking everything around her.

When a cry ruptured her eardrums did Vera instantly stiffen stealing a fleeting glance, she freezes in her rooted stance.

Vera turns perfectly right on time to see a male that could easily be mistaken for an Alpha due to his pungent odor, it reeked of power, attention, alertness. The aroma wafering Vera's reddening nose.

Far from Vera with his punishing grip burying Eve's hands into the marked soil, her feet dug into the green plants beneath her - and on top of her was the gamma of Alexander's pack.

He was taking her under the moon's light, in naked glory.

His wolf's eyes which were filled with ecstasy take ahold of Vera's spectating optics daring her to look away as he's claiming Eve for all to see. That's what he wanted, for all to see.

Which each thrust he makes severely, Eve lets out a cry that begins to start morphing into moans. Yet the gamma's teal eyes never left Ver's once he retracts his claws that were marking down Eve's rear end -sweat was pooling down her forehead.

The gamma while still penetrating his mate pulls Eve closer to his own, with her colliding down meeting his hardness.

The scarf Eve wore was now muddied and unrecognizable. The way he used it to muffle her cries is now stained with his milky release.

Eve has now collapsed as the gamma licks around her neck trailing heated kisses to her mark where he indented his teeth for the claiming.

This was not her first time.

Another round of loud feral growls ring when finally Mavis screams out again scoldingly, "Damnit Vera you never listen to me!"

"Damnit I wish you had listened to me!"

"Is that the reason you told me not to turn around?" The question coming out hauntingly like a statement awaiting Mavis's reply. "Yes. Yes! That is the reason I told you not to turn back. Eve knew what was coming her way."

"You knew. You knew this whole time." Vera's stomach turns inside out at the irony of it all.

With the help of Mavis, Vera forces her legs forward.

"Hey, Vera!" Mavis begins to jump, filled with thrill beside her. "Hey, I think we're gonna make it!"

Just as Mavis's hope started to course through her body with adrenaline, suddenly she's pulled to the ground followed behind with a growl and a yelp.

A pained expression disperses on Vera's face at the sight of Mavis's shredded clothing hitting her in the face, when she's snapped back into the cold bloody truth at the feral Hector.

A very much naked Hector pounding into a distressed Mavis.

At first, he's reeling her in like a fish on a line but her feet were digging into the ground beneath her as she cries for help. She repeatedly called out to Vera but Vera couldn't do nor say anything. Her screaming was futile.

It was like a repeating image of Eve's fate upturned adding on to the viciousness and wildness.

A carnal purr sound came from the back of Hector's throat as he forced her into a submissive position.

Her blouse and jeans already discarded left Mavis in nothing but undergarments which he had finally torn. He softly pushes her folds to the alining his self up for entry when Vera feels hot sweaty arms wrap around her pulling her into a warm chest.

The ground is stained with Mavis's virtue. The world seemed to be spinning off its hinges as Vera stood witnessed.

He turns her around stealing her attention away from the display Hector was putting on but Mavis's loud whimpers hadn't gone missing. Vera never heard Mavis make those sounds before and never wanted to.

"Come on Darling," A low dark chuckle so close and masculine coming out mixed with an animalistic charm to it -is heard by Vera's ear but all she could do was inhale and exhale in response. Too traumatized by what just happened to her friend.

"That's enough for your virgin eyes to see all in one night, Vera." This is the first she's ever heard him call her by her name.

"And now that I know what your plans are, my little mate," Alexander is more than amused but he finds his hand creeping up the side of Vera's neck and before he could retaliate, he gives it a little squeeze.

He liked the way he held her jugular in his hand giving a sense any moment now he could end it all. End her.

"Now that I know your eager plans you will never again leave my side." He promises.

Alexander seizes this moment as Vera is shocked and mortified to entangle his fingers within her hair where he started to massage her scalp,  almost on impact did it make her shudder and relax inside his chest but out of sensitivity Vera attempted to pull away.

The fragile girl felt long traumatized at the show she just watched with bloodshot eyes that grew tearier by the second.

All she could do was perform whimpers, lowly fretting as her mate inhaled in her scent, his sniffles becoming louder as he fought back his urges to bury himself inside of her tantalizing enclosure. "Alexander-" her frail shaky voice started between loud sobs but he stopped her instantly with a rumble escaping his chest.

"Not today." He assured her as if he already had read her mind while he studied her features attentively.

"Soon will I venture the mounds of your feverish skin but it won't be today."

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