Chapter Text
“Stop looking so fucking spooked,” Antos grumbled, swearing as a rock slipped under his foot.
Antos flailed his arms wildly in a desperate attempt to keep himself out of the water. He pitched forward, recovering his balance just in time to keep from crashing into the river.
His curdling mood further soured, Antos shot a glare over his shoulder and scowled when he realized Luca hadn’t moved from the small dry rock jutting above the surface of the river.
“I said ‘get your fucking ass over here before I fucking leave you,’” Antos snapped. “We’re losing light!”
Luca chewed on his lip and clutched the loop of rope draped over his shoulder. “Mama said to stay away from the river.”
Antos swore again, this time just for fun. Luca didn’t know what most those words meant, but he knew his mama wouldn’t have approved.
“You listen to your mama for everything?”
Luca nodded. He was eleven, and she generally knew best.
Besides, ever since he first shifted…
Luca had always thought his papa didn’t like him very much, but his mama always denied that he treated Luca any different from any of his other pups.
When Luca shifted for the first time, he finally understood why.
Luca wasn’t a full-blooded wolf. The second his father—or the pack leader, the wolf Luca had thought was his father—had seen him in his wolf-dog form, he’d chased Luca’s mama out of their camp. Luca hid till she came back a day later, submissive and apologetic, but nothing had been the same since.
At least Antos was talking to him. Luca always thought Antos was grumpy and mean…well Antos was grumpy and mean, but Luca’s mama had been the only one to pay attention to him for weeks. He was just happy that his cousin was willing to talk to him too now.
But still, the river marked the line between their pack and the mountain pack. The mountain pack was stronger and vicious, and everyone in the valley pack knew to stay away from them.
“There isn’t enough food for the pack in the valley,” Antos snapped. “We do this all the time, they don’t come this close to the shore. Do not make me come back there and drag you over here.”
Luca hesitated a moment longer. He hadn’t thought there was any lack of food, but the pack’s chief hunter would know better than him how much prey there was and whether their enemies came close to the border.
A thought occurred to him: if he helped Antos bring in lots of food for the pack, maybe his papa—maybe the pack leader would be happy with Luca and let him stay. So far, no one had tried to chase him off, but he’d seen his mama and papa arguing, he’d been fixed many times with a vicious glare or snarl from a man who was suppose to love him.
The thought of being tolerated a little longer was too seductive to pass up. Luca slipped from his dry little island, dipping his toes into the rushing water to find a foothold.
The water was frigid, but Antos was already mad at him and thought he was a little kid, so Luca just wrung the rope around his shoulder and picked his way forward.
Antos grumbled, his exact words lost in the babbling water, but he trudged forward, now trusting Luca to follow.
On the opposite bank, it was clear Antos was wrong. The whole shore smelled of the opposite pack; Luca could see a smattering of pawprints right up to the water.
Antos was looking at Luca, his stony face silently challenging Luca to call him on the lie.
Luca swallowed back his protest and tried to swallow his fear, but he didn’t say a word against his cousin.
Antos walked away from the shore into the treeline, glancing around slowly. He didn’t seem that worried about the other pack, so maybe Antos just knew the mountain pack’s schedule.
Luca relaxed slightly. If the wolves wouldn’t be around for a long time, then that was almost as good as if they hadn’t been around at all.
Well, it really wasn’t, but it did make him feel a little better.
Luca followed Antos into the woods, wishing he could be more help than just carrying the rope. If Antos had anything to carry, Luca would have offered to carry it for him just to be helpful, but Antos had empty hands.
He really wasn’t sure why they needed the rope since he thought they hunted in wolf form, but Antos was the hunter and Luca was the kid.
A certain ways into the woods, Antos picked a sturdy tree, considered it a moment, and held out his hand toward Luca.
Assuming Antos wanted the rope, Luca pulled the coil from around his shoulder and put it in Antos’s hand.
“What’s it for?” Luca dared.
“Snare.” Antos grunted and started tying the rope around the trunk of the tree. “You keep an eye out.”
Maybe the mountain pack wasn’t a safe distance away after all. Luca bit his lip and obediently turned around, looking up and down the hill for any sign of enemies as Antos did whatever he was doing with the rope.
The back of his neck prickled like he was being watched, but it was just Antos behind him, right? Luca risked a glance behind him and—
Luca hit the ground hard, a huge body on top of him. He screamed in terror and thrashed, trying to get away from the enemy wolf.
“Antos!” Luca screamed for help, digging his nails into the attacker’s neck. “Antos, help me!”
The attacker kept himself seated on Luca’s stomach to pin him to the ground as he rose up enough, revealing his face.
Luca frowned, the world suddenly taking on a dreamish quality. This couldn’t be real.
“Antos, what are—”
Luca was silenced by a fist to the face.
Blood gushed from his nose, running down his throat and down his lip into his mouth. He choked and spat, trying to breathe, but his nose was useless and his mouth was full of blood, and then the pain hit.
Antos just broke his nose.
Antos pushed off Luca and calmly walked away like he hadn’t just thrown Luca to the ground and attacked him.
Luca rolled onto his stomach, tears flooding his eyes as he spat the blood in his mouth and tried to cough it up from his throat but every breath in made him cough more. He wanted to scream and cry and demand to know why, he’d been listening, he’d been obeying, so why would Antos—
A foot slammed down on his back, forcing him flat in the leaves a gurgled cry.
“Shut the fuck up,” Antos grumbled, kneeling over top of him.
Luca tried to twist away, but his cousin was too strong and Luca couldn’t breathe.
Antos grabbed the fingers of Luca’s right hand and squeezed, holding his hand still as he wrapped the rope around Luca’s wrist.
“N—no—” Luca choked out, gasping in for more breath that forced blood into his lungs.
“I said shut the fuck up,” Antos snarled, knotting the rope viciously tight around Luca’s wrist before grabbing his other hand and binding his arms together behind his back.
Something cold and instantly painful clicked around his neck, drawing a shrill whine from him. Luca had never seen silver before, let alone touched it, but what else could burn and drain the strength from him so fast?
Antos seized him by the shoulder and hauled him up, shoving his back into the tree hard enough to knock out what little air was left in his lungs. Knobby bark dug deep into his back and scraped the skin of his hands.
Voiceless, Luca looked at his cousin. What had he done? Why was Antos mad at him when all he did was what Antos said? Was it because he hadn’t liked the water?
Antos scowled and averted his eyes, a guilty expression flashing across his face. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re not pack, not anymore. You’re a filthy half-breed not worth the food you eat.”
No.
No.
Horror and realization struck Luca. This was a trap for him.
“Antos,” Luca croaked, tilting his head forward in submission and so the blood wouldn’t run down his throat and choke him. “I—please, let me go home. I’ll hunt my own food, please, just let me—”
“You think I believe that shit?” Antos scoffed. “Your damned mother proved that lying and stealing run in your blood, passing you off as Trajan’s for so long. Did you think there would be no punishment for that?”
Luca thought his dad had loved him.
“I’ll leave,” Luca begged instead. He could sneak back when tempers were lower like his mom had or he could find a new pack, but he couldn’t do that if he was tied to a tree trespassing in the territory of the most evil pack in the region. With the silver collar around his neck, he couldn’t even shift to get out of the ropes! “I’ll run away, please, just let me go! Antos, please!”
For a brief moment, the scowl Antos had plastered over his face wavered, and Luca thought Antos might untie him and at least let go.
Then Antos hardened.
“When you curse me to the gods,” Antos said, recoiling from Luca like he was made of filth, “make sure you remember that it was your mother who brought this upon you.”
“You did this to me!” Luca cried, furious and hurt.
Antos scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Why do you think your father took her back? You are her offering, boy.”
Luca’s knees buckled. He fell to the forest floor and stared at nothing, replaying memories of the last weeks. His mother had been repentant near her mate but cold to him, her source of shame. She wouldn’t, though. She wouldn’t have him killed, she loved him.
A sob shook his frame, then another. Hot tears poured down his face, mingling with the blood. She did, didn’t she? She was going to kill him to save her own skin!
Antos shuffled back, exuding stony judgement. “Say your prayers and hold your peace. If you’re a wolf at all, you’ll face your death like a beast.”
“Antos, no, please, please!” Luca pleaded, almost screaming in desperation. “You have to let me go, please, I want to go home! Please don’t—you don’t have to do this, let me go, please!”
Luca stretched as far as the slack in the rope would let him, trying to reach his cousin and make him see reason or mercy or whatever it would take for him to let Luca live.
“If you want to beg like a dog,” Antos said coldly, “then you can die like one.”
“NO! Antos, no!”
Luca screamed after Antos long after his cousin disappeared back toward their own packlands. He choked on the blood coagulating in his throat, his face throbbing from where Antos had punched him.
He screamed himself hoarse and finally collapsed in a defeated puddle of pup as it fully settled over him that he had been tricked, trapped, abandoned, and before long, he would be murdered too.
Sobs overtook him. Luca cried till there were no tears left in him and struggled against the ropes till his skin was raw and his strength was gone. Finally, still wet from the river, he huddled against the tree and prayed for a quick death.