She just sat there and waited until the pain ebbed away to something manageable and tried again to put weight on it. She could do it now that she was calm, it still hurt to blazes, but she could hobble along and so on she went. She’d lost one shoe in that fall and took the other off and would go barefoot.
She’d gotten angry back at the pack road and then just ticked off with Edwards’ son and that had apparently kicked in that rogue part of her, that had seen her sanity go out the window, and she was too far down the trail now to go back, so there were no options open to her but to continue on forwards.
She finally came to a junction in the path that would lead her to a car parking area and turned down it, she was only about halfway down the mountain, but she needed to find shelter and maybe someone to help her.
She may not have a wolf, but she was still wolfen, she wasn’t exactly like a human either, she still had more stamina than a normal human, and she could handle much colder temperatures. Yes, she would succumb to hyperthermia at some point if she was out in the cold for too long. But it did take much longer than it would for a human.
Her core body temperature was higher than a human’s but not really as high as a true wolfen folk. It kind of fell in the middle somewhere, which meant she could fight off hyperthermia longer. She didn’t have the strength or healing ability of true wolfen folk, and she also didn’t get all the heightened senses either. She didn’t have enhanced sight or hearing, but her sense of smell, however, still allowed her to pick up otherworldly creatures, if the one before her was a pack wolf or rogue wolf, but she couldn’t differentiate between bloodlines, or who was whose kin.
She just put that down to being otherworldly herself was all, because she didn’t pick it up until she was in close proximity. Unlike true wolfen folk that could scent for miles, she could only pick it up when face-to-face with them or if they were in the same office on the same floor as she was. Had a range of about fifty meters was all.
She finally saw the trail end up ahead and nearly sagged with relief, though she didn’t like the look of that river that was along this part of the path, and it was swollen and pushing at that banks, but as she looked to the end of the trail she could see homes and emergency crews working out there in the distance.
She made her way along the path and was just about out when she heard a massive c***k and turned to a tree uprooted and splashing down into the river. She moved as fast as she could as she saw the wave of water rise up from it and a torrent of water was rushing at her. She couldn’t get out of the way and she knew it.
Got hit by it and swept away with a scream down the path. She scrabbled and tried to grab anything that was there, and felt pain searing through her side as she was unceremoniously washed out into the car park and was rolled into a wooden post that denoted the edge of the car park. She was kind of half curled around it all limply as the water washed over her and then receded away. She could see people running this way from that emergency crew as her eyes closed and unconsciousness claimed her.
Jared
This was going to overshadow the Luna Ceremony. Something Lance thought he would do; ruin it, because Lance was now the most likely to inherit the pack when it should be Jared’s birthright.
He knew his father didn’t know about the flash flood. No one would have told him because none were injured; it wasn’t an emergency worthy of interrupting the Luna Ceremony.
He had to go and tell his father what he suspected. He tracked his father down. He was standing outside the front of the packhouse, and he knew he was trying to scent for Wynta himself.
“Father,” he sighed. “There was a flash flood down the side of the pack, the guard said it rolled down the pack road. It was petering out as I drove into the pack a second time…” He broached the subject and his father turned and looked at him.
“Explain to me in detail.” His father had asked only after a moment’s thought, took less than 10 seconds, and he was already thinking what Jared was as well.
He explained what had happened, knowing his father wanted the lead up to the event as well as what he’d seen. He explained that his flight was delayed, and the road closures, and then how late he had been to pick Wynta up. That she’d not been in her apartment when he’d gotten there but had gone to the office.
That he’d dropped her off at the pack road because Lotti had called him and told him her car had crashed off the road, and she needed him to come and get her; she’d pleaded with him not wanting to get in trouble or be punished. That he also knew of Lotti’s aversion to rogue and how rude she would likely be; that he’d not known Wynta was wolf-less.
That he’d asked her to walk up to the pack gate and have the guard call for a car to pick her up, that he was just trying to help everyone and stop even Wynta from being late and being punished as per the rules on the invitation.
“So, what you’re telling me… is you put Wynta out of your car on the edge of the pack road when you could have driven her the one mile to the gate, then gone back for Lotti and still managed to arrive on time… When you could have just kept Wynta in the car the entire time! Why did you put Lotti’s needs over Wynta’s? when picking up and delivering Wynta right to me, was my direct order given to you?”
“I don’t know, I guess a pack member over a rogue.” He shook his head.
“Wynta is now missing, and it’s on your hands, Jared, because if you’d kept her in your car, she’d been here inside this pack and in time not to be punished. Now she’s not and has to be punished, I think, son, you’ll find I’ll be punishing you in her stead. It’s now your job to find out if Wynta walked away from this pack feeling unwelcome by you, or did you leave her out there, and she got washed away in that flash flooding. Right where you f*****g left her?” his father snarled.
Jared sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know father.” He answered honestly. “I just did what I thought was right.”
“And you were very wrong,” was snapped at him. “Get your ass out there and find her, dead or alive. I want you to put her in front of me. She is now your sole responsibility, and you’ll not be leaving and going back to France until she is found and brought into this pack.”
“What? I get finding her and I will go out there and look for her, but if she walked away and doesn’t want to come in, something you couldn’t even do for five years, how the hell am I supposed to do that?” he muttered.
“That is now your problem,” his father grated, “I had her. All I needed was for her to set a single foot inside this pack today, and she would be initiated. You screwed that up, now you have to bring it about once more. The rule for that is she has to willingly set foot inside this pack. Only then will she allow herself to be initiated.” Then he was striding away towards the ballroom once more. “Oh, and Jared…” his father turned to him once more. “You’ll be getting punished because you’re now not attending this ceremony, get out of my sight and go find Wynta Morgan.”
A snarl ripped out of him and Creed. How on earth did he find one rogue female who had either just walked away from this pack to never be seen again or got washed away in the flood and likely died in the process. Even just finding her body could be a never-ending task.
It was raining once again; he turned and went inside, and Lotti was watching him. He grated out, “Get back to the ballroom, before you’re punished as well.”
She shook her head and hurried over to him and grabbed on to his arm, “I’m so sorry Jared, I didn’t mean to get you into any trouble.” She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “I’ll even apologize to Morgan.” She told him tearfully.
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