CHAPTER 3 - THE GENESIS

ALAENA’S POV

Death is playing a game of hide and seek with me.

Every time I think I’ve found it, it finds a way to elude me.

I thought the three Croonies had us for good, and oh yeah they were Croonies he wasn’t lying about that.

Speaking of him, I still refuse to acknowledge his name. It tastes like gravel in my mouth, but he just saved my life and I can’t wrap my head around it.

When the Croonie in the tree lunged at us, he ducked him somehow and threw me softly into the nearby bushes. The last thing I saw were the two other Croonies attacking him before I rolled over to one side.

Those were the scariest 15 minutes of my life and that’s saying a lot given what I had gone through the last 24 hours.

I was paralyzed and forced to listen to the fight not knowing who was beating up who.

I closed my eyes and hoped for the worst at first, but then I realized another chance at death.

All fear dissipated, this time I closed my eyes smiling hoping for the fatal blow.

“Hey hey! Are you okay?!”

A now familiar voice asked shaking me rigorously

“F*ck”

I cussed as he turned me over, he survived it.

He picked me up and walked a distance before we set up camp again. He had killed the three Croonies and burned their bodies to cover our tracks.

At this point I had gained full consciousness and partial movement, he came closer and put the bottle of water in my mouth, I took some and spat in his face. The anger had taken over me, how dare he?

Killed my papa and now denied me going to meet him f*ck am I drinking his water for?

I know, I’m being unreasonable but I need time to digest every f*cking thing that just happened.

F*ck I’m cursing a lot again, I do it when I’m on the edge.

He simply dropped the bottle next to me and went back to where he was seated.

He plopped down and turned to me.

“Get some rest, we need to move soon”.

He said before backing me.

A man of few words.

I rested my head on the pile of cloth he had set up when I passed out.

The Croonies were real, they existed for real and we were under attack from both the Croonies and the East wolves.

I’m searching my head, those history lessons I loved need to come through now I need to remember how this all started.

The texts say our fight with the Eastern wolves and the origin of the Croonies were tied together.

The Alpha at the time was a wolf named Lance. He was the Alpha of the Westland pack. There was peace at the time between the two packs.

The Eastland packs had better land and terrain, their harvests were bountiful.

The Westland packs had to work a bit harder to get harvest but my people were hardworking simple farm folk.

The texts went on to say my people did not have any special manifesting powers. We were all children of the moon goddess but because we were far off to the west our link with her got severed.

A strange snow blizzard had hit the Westlands and destroyed their reserves, famine had hit and pack members were starving.

Alpha Lance readied his son and sent him and a few other wolves to the Eastlands to ask them for food and supplies to see out the long snowstorm.

The Eastland pack sent the head of his son in a sack back to him as their reply and that was where the war started.

Disgruntled and desperate Alpha Lance took the head of his son and disappeared into the snowstorm.

Some say he was gone mentally, others said he was inspired by voices in his head from the shock of losing his son, but after a while, he came back with his son alive, and not just that he had learned the art of magic.

Texts say he would later find out he was deceived by the children of the snow, they told him they were from Mahina the moon goddess.

They brought his son back through their sacred arts which they passed down to Alpha Lance and his son but they didn’t know it was the dark magic they had been given.

Before Lance found out he was deceived he taught the wolves who were able to master the arts, and this gave them a chance to avenge their alpha son, Because Eastern wolves had powers peculiar to them this leveled the playing field.

They started with little successful raids pillaging food and supplies, and then an all-out war broke out.

Soon enough Alpha Lance found out he was deceived by the children of the snow, his son was turning feral and getting stuck in half-turn. The dark magic was taking over his soul, the wolves that had weaker souls went feral immediately.

Alpha Lance rounded them up including his son painfully and cast them out of the land.

He put up a spell that made any feral wolf burn if they crossed over.

The wolves that had fully lost it tried to cross over and got burnt immediately.

His son turned and walked away with a few others, the text says they were the first Croonies, and his son was The Croonie King

Lance then put a seal on all the pack members, they would never be able to access the full power of the dark magic so it never had to consume anyone again, it made us weaker but we were able to hold our own over the next centuries in battle.

“Alaena!”

Another voice pierced through the dark from the bushes

“Alaena!! It’s me!”

The voice this time closer sounded and more familiar.

“Sergei!” I squealed out of excitement as he emerged from the dark

His expression changes and his claws are out, I look up and Roy Silvermane is standing his eyes this time showing a menacing look he was ready to attack.

“Get behind me”

Sergei said as he growled.