Procyon (Stars Aligned Book 1) by Mazzy J. March

Author:Mazzy J. March [March, Mazzy J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Decadent Publishing LLC
Published: 2022-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Eris

They cut my food allowance. Or at least, what they gave me from the pack stores. This forced my wolf and I to hunt more at night, cutting into what little sleep time I was still managing. And even with her skill, the scarcity of game made it difficult to catch enough to keep strong.

And someone stole my blankets, all but one threadbare one that did little to protect me from the cold. I had taken to sleeping in my fur, when I dared. Not that there was a specific rule against doing so but no one did, and I had a vague, free-form anxiety that insisted if they found me in my fur, they would do something even worse like throw me out of the pack or somehow stop me from shifting.

I couldn’t think how they could do that, but then, I didn’t know why nobody ever slept in their fur when it was so cold.

Or why I’d never thought of it until now.

Rather, I could figure that out. People in this pack and, I assumed those we associated with, shifted almost never. Only for pack runs, really. So why would it have been in my mind to just do it for comfort. Certainly, my wolf had been a lot happier since I’d been letting her out more regularly. Something that only happened once I refused the arranged mating and began to think for myself.

Oh, sure I knew I was the only one in the pack who believed in the Prophesy, but I always just thought that made me kind of intellectual and maybe interesting. I guess…I daydreamed about my future mate as a gift from the stars in a way my friends didn’t. Former friends? That stung more than I liked to admit. I’d always been something of an outlier now that I thought of it. At the edge of the small group of girls my age. More tolerated than liked or appreciated.

Now, nobody spoke to me at all.

This was hard, so hard…

And I wasn’t sure how long I could withstand the pressure from all sides. If it didn’t let up, I would have to either cave and do what they wanted or just walk off into the land until I couldn’t walk anymore. The only thing that kept me going so far was the underlying knowledge that my wolf did not deserve to die with me.

Still, it was hard. Painful. And this morning, they cut back on the amount of water I was allowed.

I didn’t have other sources for that.

Or the energy, after emptying the buckets, to shift and run. Or shift at all.

So, now I lay in my little dugout, just bigger than a grave, wrapped in all my clothing and the single tattered blanket, my teeth chattering so hard, I feared they would shatter. They’d finally found the way to break me. Nobody could survive on the tiny amount of water I was allowed. And stealing water was a capital offense. Nothing was more precious.

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