Prologue

The first cut hurt the worst, but the second one cut deepest. And for a moment, the reality of what Anora had done to herself hadn’t sunk in. As she stared at the bloody aftermath of her sliced open wrists, the horrifying truth became all too real. But she wasn’t afraid. She’d prepared for this. Any fear she had washed over the second she took wrist to razor. Any apprehensions, gone, when the pinching sting from the first cut was made. All that was left to do was bleed-out and softly pass from the world she’d known, a world of loneliness and sorrow, to a world where she could forget pain.

She had been fighting the impulse to cry and had been doing a good job up until the last cut. It wasn’t because it hurt, or anything like that, or even because she was afraid to die. No. She wept for no particular reason. And that was worse than any cut she could make. At least if she had felt sorrow or sympathy, even fear, she would know that she was still capable of such feelings. Yet the fact that she didn’t feel any of that made her question her true intentions in the first place.

The night wind brought a cool breeze that gently caressed her small body. With it, a sense of calm. She went from thinking about dying to being distracted by what was around her. Snowflakes twirled down from the gray sky, reflecting gleams of starlight and moonlight, drifting to the forest floor. Marring the ivory color of the bright snow was her black blood, dripping into a stream that she was lying next to. The snowfall increased, which now was slowly becoming her coffin. Not coffin, she thought. It was burying her. It was her grave.

Everything had become numb, like a dream. Her heart came to a near-stop. Her breathing shallowed and darkness inched its way from all corners of her vision. Everything became muted. She closed her eyes. This is it. Goodbye. But something wasn’t right. A putrid smell was nearby, the scent of bile mixed with rotting flesh. Something had arrived, something dangerous. Adrenaline coursed through her body, bringing new life. She took a deep breath, igniting her heart. A devilish hiss and snarl, with a low growl, rolled out from the woods. Whatever it was, it was close.

She lifted her head up to see where the sound was coming from but grew dizzy and faint, hit suddenly by a thunderous headache that blurred her sight. More snarls and growls gathered. They were everywhere, and the smell was growing stronger. Before long, a pack of wolves emerged from the trees and encircled her. They stalked her with their hollow eyes, locked on to each breath and move she made. The thought of being devoured by them wasn’t a pretty one. Their teeth clamping down on her flesh and the foul smell from their breath staining her body, painted a grizzly image that was more than enough for her to bear.

She had to do something, or else become their meal. However, she was in no state to stop them. There was little that she could do, except crawl. When she moved, they growled. When she stopped, they howled and speared their snouts at her arms and legs, taking small bites from her skin and darting backward, then forward, picking her apart, bit-by-bit. Each snap of their jaws, each guttural growl, was a precursor to a visceral bite. She tried kicking them but found it difficult, due to her injuries. At times the wolves seemed lenient, only clawing her. Other times they were downright cruel, clasping her legs and viciously shaking her frail body.

An insistent howl from the alpha wolf put an end to the frenzy and Anora was left, helpless, as the others gave way. Fear clutched her already broken body, and she trembled as the massive beast drew closer. His warm breath pressed against her bloodied face, sour, reeking of something decayed.

“Go on then,” she said in one exhausted, dismal, breath.

The wolf bared its sharp fangs and went to bite her neck. She clamped her eyes shut, waiting for the killing strike. It never came. Instead, the alpha male was knocked away by something even more powerful. She kept her eyes closed, too afraid to open them, too afraid to see what else had arrived.

Growling, snapping, yelping was everywhere. One second there was fighting to her left, the other it was to her right. Whatever had arrived was caught in a fierce skirmish with the wolves. Bones snapped, bodies slammed into the earth, and once aggressive growls turned docile and weak. Eventually, it all stopped, and a ghostly silence filled the air.

Anora was still too afraid to open her eyes but could sense that something or someone was there; alive and breathing. Heavy footsteps drew closer to her.

“Ss-stop,” she uttered, too weak to say anything else.

“Do you want to live?” a voice of a young man asked frigidly.

Her heart jumped, startled by the response. She didn’t expect whatever was there to talk, much less offer a reply. It was a person. A boy. Her eyes slowly opened. Things were still blurred, and, despite that fact, she was able to make out the bloody aftermath of the fight. The wolves had been killed. She looked at the young man, trying desperately to focus her vision to see his face; but could not. Instead, she saw him staring back at her with glowing eyes; white, piercing.

Before she knew it, he’d picked her up and moved her away from the wolf carcasses. She was too tired to stop him, too weak to resist even if she wanted to. The boy wasted no time and began mending her wounds. As the adrenaline died down, she fought to stay awake. She wanted her vision to clear so she could see who he was, but it didn’t. Instead, the hazy snowfall covered most of his face.

When he was done, she fell back into his arms, letting out a relieved sigh. Her eyelids bobbed up and down. The urge to stay awake became impossible and the last thing she saw, before falling asleep, was his bright eyes staring back at her.