Alyssa had finally dozed off out of exhaustion. Her head slumped limply to the side, her lips parted slightly. She had spent the last two hours crying, and her body had finally given out to sleep.
Her bound hands were cradled in her lap, her feet drawn together, her chest heaving evenly in a deep slumber.
Across the clearing, Arrow slowly rose to his feet. Dusk was fast approaching, and the forest shadows were stretching longer. He would finally be able to move through the terrain without being detected.
All he had to do was take the girl to the continent’s border, where the slave merchants ran their operations in secret. Once he secured the gold, it would be just another completed contract on his list.
He had no fear of her escaping. Once a girl was sold into that market, escape was impossible. She was as good as dead.
He walked toward the sleeping Alyssa and leaned down to wake her up. But the moment his hand touched her shoulder, her eyes snapped open; sharp, alert, and calculated. She had been pretending to sleep the entire time.
Before he could react, she whipped her bound wrists upward, revealing a jagged rock clutched tightly in her palms, and slashed it violently across his face.
Arrow roared in pain, staggering backward and gripping his face. Black blood spilled from the deep wound, weakening him completely.
Seeing him distracted, Alyssa kicked off the ropes around her feet that she had secretly been cutting through with the sharp rock.
She strained forward, biting the inside of her cheek as she forced her body through the thick rope binding her to the tree. The moment she was free, she struggled to her feet.
By the time Arrow managed to draw power from his body to heal, she had already fled.
"HELP!" she screamed as she ran, her voice shrill and high-pitched. Because her wrists were still bound together, she couldn’t swing her arms for balance, which severely hindered her pace. Still, she ran.
Pounding footsteps echoed right behind her as Arrow rapidly gained ground. She could hear the furious huff of his breath closing the distance between them.
"HELP ME!" she shrieked again. A second later, something hard and solid slammed brutally into the back of her skull.
Her knees buckled instantly. She crashed into the ground, the entire world spinning in a violent vortex. She could barely keep her eyes open, her vision rapidly fading into a blur.
The last thing she saw was Arrow leaning down to throw a heavy burlap bag over her head. Then, she passed out.
She had no idea how long she remained unconscious, but when the bag was finally yanked off her head, she was dumped at the base of an enormous stone bridge.
Night had fallen completely. The skies overhead were heavily clouded, blocking out the half-moon that tried to peek through the gloom.
Alyssa looked around weakly, her neck barely strong enough to keep her head upright. Arrow’s hand gripped her upper arm in an iron hold, pinching tight enough to cut off her circulation.
The sprawling space beneath the bridge was a rowdy hive. Men shouted at the top of their voices, and terrified girls screamed shrilly as they were dragged away in chains.
With a sickening lurch, she realized this was the exact slave market Arrow had threatened her with.
"Please," she tried to plead again, but her voice was barely an audible whisper. Her mind was fuzzy from the pain, and a warm, sticky dampness coating the back of her neck confirmed she was bleeding heavily from the blow.
Arrow dragged her roughly toward the dark recess of the bridge where two fearsome-looking men were waiting. They were shifted halfway, their upper bodies retaining a heavily muscled human shape, while their lower bodies took the terrifying form of massive wolves.
Arrow shoved Alyssa forward into the dirt, then glared at the slave merchants from beneath his hooded cloak.
"Fifty gold bars," he muttered, his tone transactional.
"Twenty!" one of the merchants growled, baring his teeth.
"Forty!" Arrow shot back coldly. "No less."
The second merchant stepped forward, lifting Alyssa’s chin to scrutinize her face. His eyes gleamed with malicious intent.
"She’s a beauty. I’ll give you thirty!"
"Forty!" Arrow maintained. "Or I take her back right away."
In the end, the merchant cursed and threw a heavy leather bag filled with forty long gold bars.
Arrow caught it cleanly and was in the middle of counting the contents when an earth-shattering roar shook the entire valley.
Everyone froze, the sheer intensity of the sound halting the market in their tracks. The stone bridge literally trembled under the weight of the roar, sending a shower of dust and debris cascading toward the ground.
Arrow whirled around, his pale eyes narrowing to slits. Out in the distance, a slaver screamed in agony before the sound was cut short by a sickening, wet gurgle.
The two slave merchants instinctively backed away, their eyes darting frantically into the surrounding bushes.
The roar came again, and a mangled, blood-soaked body followed, flying through the air and landing heavily just a few feet away from them.
The ground shook violently under the weight of the approaching beast. Total panic erupted beneath the bridge as slavers and buyers alike scrambled over one another to flee for their lives.
Someone in the crowd yelled out in terror, "RUN! It’s the Demon Lycan!"
When Arrow heard those words, he clutched the bag of gold and prepared to run, but one of the panicked slave merchants viciously grabbed a handful of his cloak.
"Where do you think you’re off to?" the merchant snarled. In a flash of raw greed, he ripped the bag of gold out of Arrow’s hands, shifted fully into a massive grey wolf, and bounded into the forest to escape, his partner trailing right behind him.
Left entirely alone, Arrow turned to face the incoming threat. He stood over Alyssa, drawing his sharp blade and waiting in a defensive stance.
Then, Dorian’s Lycan form finally emerged from the tree line.
He was an absolute titan, rising well over eight feet tall, with fur as dark as midnight and claws as thick as tree trunks. The complex runes mapping across his massive frame glowed brightly, pulsing with a strange red energy.
His eyes were two spheres of vibrant, blood-red glow, and when his gaze locked onto Arrow, his lips pulled back to reveal sharp rows of fangs. He let out a low, terrifying growl that vibrated through the earth.
Thinking he could still leverage his survival, Arrow quickly grabbed Alyssa’s arm, yanking her brutally to her feet. He pressed the sharp edge of his blade against her exposed throat, staring confidently into the red eyes of the beast.
"Dorian..." Alyssa whispered, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. She had no explanation for how she recognized him in this monstrous form. She just felt it.
Arrow pressed the blade deeper, intentionally cutting into her delicate skin. A thin trickle of crimson blood spilled down her neck, and the sight of her blood instantly pushed the beast completely over the edge.
"Take a single step and she’s dead–" Arrow started to threaten, but he never got to finish the sentence.
The Lycan moved at an impossible, flashing speed, closing the distance between them in a rapid blur of motion.
Before Arrow’s brain could register that the monster had vanished from the tree line, a sharp pain ripped through his neck.
He froze, his pale eyes widening in total shock. His hands lost all power, dropping away and releasing Alyssa who crawled frantically away into the grass.
The blade slipped from his fingers, and his head followed an instant later, rolling cleanly off his shoulders. Dorian’s claws had severed his head from his shoulder in a single, brutal swipe.
The head thudded into the dirt, followed heavily by the headless body, spraying a geyser of blood across the clearing.
Alyssa stared in absolute horror at the gruesome carnage, and the amount of blood caused her nausea to return with a vengeance.
She twisted to her side, retched violently, and threw up on the grass. The suffocating scent of iron and gore made her head spin.
She turned back just as the massive Lycan began to move toward her. Trembling, she dragged herself up to her feet, wiping her mouth with the back of her bound hands and squinting up at the beast.
Tentatively, she reached out her shaking hands to touch him. "Dorian?" she whispered.
The second her palm made contact with the thick, dark fur of his chest, the massive beast fell to his knees before her. Right before her eyes, the transformation reversed.
His colossal form shrunk rapidly, the dark fur receding back into his skin, his terrifying features giving way to the sharp, aristocratic jawline and smooth skin.
In a matter of seconds, he stood before her in his human form, shirtless, his trousers ripped to shreds at the ankles. The glowing red runes faded into dark ink, and his eyes finally shifted from the terrifying red back to a warm, golden-brown.
"Alyssa," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion as he reached out to steady her. He ripped off the rope binding her hands and pulled her into his arms. "Are you okay?"
She started to nod, trying to force a reassuring answer, but the trauma and physical exhaustion of the day finally hit her.
Her eyes rolled back into her head, and her knees gave out completely.
Luckily, Dorian caught her before she hit the ground. He scooped her securely into his arms, turned his back on the slaughter beneath the bridge, and marched back in the direction of the North.