Kira tried to hide herself and it was already too late for her to leave the cave. Whoever it was, was already so close. She held her breath, hoping that they would pass and leave, but the sounds of footsteps and the sound of twigs breaking grew louder.
"Did you find her?", she heard a voice ask. It seemed like they were looking for her
"Not yet, but I am sure she is here, I can smell her. I recognize her scent", The other voice answered.
"Werewolves but Rogues", Kira whispered to herself as it finally dawned on her who they were.
She did not think they would actually look for her.
"Ummm...", she started thinking, her brain running wild.
Suddenly a thought came to her. She always gathered pine needles leaves and slept on them. It was not bad but turned out to be nice and had a lovely scent. Quickly Kira took those leaves and started rubbing them all over her body, wanting to cover up her scent.
They were already so close to the cave. As soon as she was done, she went to the furthest corner in the cave, slid down to the ground, her knee at her chest as she closed her eyes praying she wouldn't get found.
"Someone was here", Another totally different voice said, observing the quenched firewoods.
"She should not be so far gone", The first voice she heard said.
Kira's heart was beating as she listened to them talk and when she looked up from her knee, her eyes met with one of them.
She just froze, not even blinking.
He smiled at her and said, "Peek-a-boo."
Before Kira could react, he grabbed her from her hair, dragging her out of the cave. Kira struggled, punching his arm, clawing and kicking, but he was way stronger than her and her attackers were many.
"You thought you could steal from us and then disappear?", The man dragging her asked while chuckling, "We will teach you a good lesson not to take what does not belong to you."
"I did not steal, I was only hungry, I needed some food", She tried to defend herself, trying to fight him off but to no avail.
She then thought about screaming and as if he knew, she barely managed a scream before his hand clamped over her mouth, silencing her cries for help.
As if anyone would save her from this.
"No, no no no", Kira screamed in her head, "I was so careful, so cautious", she was so scared, "they might kill me, torture me...", tears started rolling down her face, terror surging through her veins as her screams were muffled.
The faces around her were covered and shadowed, their eyes glinting with range. She had confirmed that it was them.
She tried to plead for mercy but with her mouth covered, she could not get a word out. They tied her hands roughly behind her back, the ropes cutting into her skin as Kira pleaded her eyes, trying so hard to get at least an eye contact with one of them. Maybe they would have pity on her and let her go.
"Mmmm...pwmmmsemm", Kira kept on begging but as soon as they were done with the ropes, with a sharp tug, they pulled her to her feet and began moving through the forest.
As they dragged her through the forest, she kept stumbling on rocks, stones, barefooted. They did not even care and suddenly a searing pain shot through her foot as a rusty nail had pierced her skin.
Tears sprang to her eyes as she forgot everything else, a wave of nausea washing over her from the excruciating pain from her foot.
"Not this, not now, please...", she said in her mind while stumbling.
Their roughness with her just made it worse and she could feel bruises forming, her body aching. Kira had to bite down on her lip to try and suppress the pain as much as she could.
"If I am going to die, well I am not going down without a fight", Kira said to herself. It was like the anger from the pain she was feeling and the way they were treating her just fueled her with so much anger that she started fighting.
"Stay in one place like the good girl you were before, unless you want me to slam your head on one of those big strong trees", The man holding her whispered in her ears, only for her to turn and nod him on the head so hard, he let go of her and stumbled backwards.
Kira winced, because as much as that felt satisfying, her head started hurting a lot. Before she could register, she was grabbed from behind. Kira managed to turn around while struggling to get whoever it was off her and kneed him in his little baby boy, making him let go of her, hands on his crotch as his face was filled with pain mixed with anger.
"Get her", he shouted at the rest, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!"
"Such a shame", Someone said out of nowhere, "How many men against one female, it is a shame."
Kira turned around quickly, her heart and head pounding at the same rhythm to see who it was but could not get a clear picture of who the voice belonged to.
"Why don't you take someone your own size or bigger? Someone like us?", a second new voice said with a chuckle.
Kira could feel the confidence from their tones, while wondering who these men who had come to her rescue were.
Meanwhile the rogues around Kira tensed, their focus now on their new threats. A low growl escaped one of the men, the leader of the rogue group actually, "If you can really take up, why don't you show yourself?!"
"Tsk tsk, silly rogues", one of the new voices said and within seconds, there was a thud on the ground.
One of the rogues laid dead, his neck snapped in an unusual direction.
The other rogues quickly turned around, bringing out their weapons, knives, spares, getting ready to fight, their hearts beating as they kept looking for these threats.
Soon another body dropped, followed by another.
"WHO ARE YOU???! SHOW YOURSELF!", The leader of the rogue group yelled angrily as his men kept falling to the ground lifeless, "I WILL RIP YOUR INSIDES APART, FACE ME!", he challenged.
The rogue's leader with his knife in his hand, spun around widely, his eyes moving through the dark forest, his breathing quick as he panicked a little.
"WHERE ARE YOU?", he hissed, turning around in a circle, slashing at the air.
Suddenly a cold and calm voice whispered from behind him.
"I'm right here."
Before the rogue's leader could turn around or even react, a hand shot forward, plunging through his back with a sickening crunch.
Slow and steady the rogue's leader felt a hand wrapped around his heart, squeezing it. The pain was immediate and excruciating. He gasped, eyes wide from shock.
With a brutal yank, the stranger pulled his hand back, bloodied and clutching the rogue's still-beating heart, while the rogue's knee buckled, blood gushing from his mouth as he crumpled to the ground, his knife slipping from his grasp.
"You didn't have to be so brutal brother", The other stranger chuckled.
"He was asking for it, I just had to give him what he wanted", the stranger answered and let go of the rogue's heart, letting it drop to the ground.
As their leader was now dead, the other rogues quickly disappeared, running away, knowing that they would have no chance of winning this fight.
While the stranger who killed the rogue leader wiped his hand with his handkerchief and disposed of it right after, the first stranger walked up to Kira who was checking on her foot and had just pulled out the nail she stepped on earlier,
"Are you alright?", he asked her, his voice low and calm.
Kira nodded, not looking up, still trying to catch her breath, "Just some nail", her voice trembled slightly.
Kira got up from the floor, putting her whole weight on her good foot as she turned to see the strangers who had saved her, "Who are y-"
Her words were cut short as she immediately moved away from them.
"Kira? Kira Valen?", the stranger called out, just as surprised as she was.
"Mate", the two strangers said at the same time.
Kira also felt her eyes flash and bit her tongue to stop herself from uttering that mate word.
"Stay away from me!", she said right after, her face scrunched up in irritation as she moved backwards.
The strangers were the Alpha Twins Bryan And Aiden, the Tyrell brothers. She knew them very well because once upon a time, she was a member of the Crescent Pack and they were her Alphas, that was before she was wrongfully accused and exiled.
"You are coming with us", Bryan the first born twin said with no room for argument to Kira.
"I am not going anywhere with both of you", Kira snarled at them.
"You are going to come with us Mate, when we get back to the pack, then we can talk about everything else", Aiden said to her.
"I said, NO", Kira yelled at them, "I will never go back to that pack, I will never go anywhere with you two, I don't even want to be mated to both of you", she told them and started laughing while cleaning off the tears that rolled down from her eyes, "Do you know what?", she raised her brow at them,
"I reje-"
But before she could complete that sentence, the Alpha twins quickly grabbed her, each on one side, their fangs elongated and bit down on her neck, marking her forcefully.