2
 

 

 

 

Oh, no. Please don’t let me be paralyzed.

I gave myself a few seconds to calm my breathing and form a cogent thought.

I need to gather myself and get up.

Though my mind remained hazy and my head hurt like a bitch, vaguely I knew that we’d crashed. 

I couldn’t move my limbs, so I searched for Thane with my eyes and spotted him several yards away, not moving, blood pooling under his head.

No, no, no! Please no.

“Thane!” My voice croaked, but at least I still had a voice.

Thane didn’t answer.

Mentally, I pushed strength into my every cell, commanding my body to rise and go to him. My friend needed me.

It took an entire minute, which felt like a century, to manage to flex my fingers.

When I could finally feel my muscles, I crawled toward Thane, not waiting a second longer than I had to.  

Thane was staring up into nothingness, his brown eyes, once full of mischievousness and vigor and caring, now glassy and empty. 

“Thane!”

My face hovering above his, I realized he was no longer breathing.

I pried open his mouth and, laying my lips on his, puffed in again and again, but he wasn’t taking in any air. I pounded on his heart, trying to make it beat again, but it wouldn’t respond.

The blood under him continued to spread.

At last I collapsed on him, my head on his unmoving chest, waiting for a miracle, waiting for his heartbeat somehow to roar in my ear, like divine music. 

I waited, but there was only dull silence in the ship’s cold space, then my own hysterical sobbing. 

Thane was gone.

How could this have happened?

It shouldn’t have ended like this.

As a full-grown leopard, Thane had always been stronger than me. He’d shifted when he was only three years old. He should have been the one who survived.

I should never have gotten him involved, no matter how he’d begged and threatened and enticed, but I believed we could have another life. Believed we could fight against an entire hostile world and overcome any obstacle, together.

We’d succeeded in stealing the spaceship designated to send me to Jeroboam, in deceiving and escaping two tyrants, and in staying under the radar of their space patrols.

Finally, we had reached our destination. I hadn’t imagined it would be his demise.

“Thane, come back please.” I wept. “You can’t leave me behind like this. You promised! You can’t do this to me. We have a life together now. Don’t you want a new adventure?”

He just stared, not hearing me, not seeing me.

A cacophony of shouts, curses, and the sharp rasp of blades crossing flooded into the ship’s bridge from somewhere outside.

I shot to my feet and sprang toward the view window.

Spreading before Virgin was a cluster of wrecked spaceships, layered upon each other in a grandiose coliseum. Virgin had crashed on top of an old ship.   

I began to grasp what it meant to be a cursed planet—this place where Thane and I had fallen, and where Thane was now lying dead.

I surveyed the view further.

The blood-chilling sounds came from a clearing in the arena, where a battle raged.

Bodies were piling up, with pools of blood littering the soil.

Every second, blood spilled and splashed in the air.

This was the most merciless fight I’d seen.

What had I fallen into? 

A large white wolf caught my attention. He was magnificent, yet brutal beyond words. He lunged with formidable force and tore a big creature in half with ease before wheeling to sink his fangs into another gray-skinned monster.

The wolf thrust his claws into his foe’s chest and yanked out its heart.

He was larger and faster than any leopard fighter I knew.

I watched in terror and fascination, my own misery forgotten for a second.

Nearly all of the shifters were in their wolf forms. I realized I was encountering the exiled children of the wolf shifters. They’d all grown up. They’d survived.

My bitter smile didn’t last.

It was a sobering sight. My father and Jeroboam had slaughtered their parents and dumped them here like they were trash. If they found out who I was—the daughter of their most hated enemy—they’d surely tear me apart, limb by limb. 

I scanned the city beyond the arena. An urban wasteland half in ruin. In some sections, fires were burning, sending smoke into the desolate sky.

I was struck by the realization that I’d plummeted into a post-apocalyptic city where all resources had to be scarce. That was why all the savages were here. They were battling to the death to claim whatever was in my ship, including me.

Terror pumped into my heart, paralyzing me.

Thane was no longer with me. Alone, I couldn’t defend myself and the ship, since the weapons system was offline. The power supply looked completely drained. It would take days or weeks to fix Virgin, and I was nowhere near an engineer.

I inhaled a hitched breath and fell to my knees beside Thane. I closed his unseeing eyes with my shaking fingers and said a silent prayer.

Death was not the end. But while I lived, my fight wasn’t over.

My cold, shivering lips brushed his forehead. May we meet again in the afterlife. 

I slowly came to my feet and trailed my gaze to the fierce fight outside the ship.

No one would claim me. I was no one’s fucking property. I hadn’t come this far in search of freedom only to be taken here.

They’d have to claim me over my dead body.

Bitter tears welled up in my eyes again. I didn’t even get to grieve properly over my loyal friend.

I grabbed a backpack that contained the necessities—food and water for two days, a change of clothing, and a dagger. Though Thane and I had prepared for a situation like this, I hadn’t really believed it would happen. 

The roars and howls rose.

The wolves were winning.

The monsters they fought against might eat me, but if the wolves caught me, they’d do even worse if they discovered who I was.

Thane and I had been careful to conceal our identities, but it would be safer not to meet the wolves at all. They had an acute sense of smell.

No secret could be kept forever.

I wiped my tears with the backs of my hands and rushed toward the entrance. It was sealed.

I stood frozen for a second.

If I could hear the noises outside, then there had to be a tear in the shell of the craft somewhere caused by the fall. As I ran around in it, listening for the bellow from the battle, I found two openings.

I chose the tear that opened away from the battlefield.

I climbed out, bent down, and ran along the ship’s top. I slid down a floor, then another, until it was safe to leap.

I landed in a crouch. I might not have a leopard inside me, but I was still stronger than humans.  

I sprinted toward the forest beyond the arena where I could seek shelter. It had to be safer than the city. Far away from the butchery, I would come up with a plan.

I put some distance between me and the alien city and looked back. A wolf howled in fury and dismay from the ship.

It was that superb and brutal white wolf. Somehow, I knew it.