Chapter 73: Show Her What I Am
BAM!!!
The cougar was violently blindsided yet again, the sheer kinetic impact sending her crashing sideways straight back into the deep water of the lake with a massive, exploding spray.
Lyra didn’t waste a single heartbeat. She scrambled out of the shallows, rushing onto the muddy bank to stand protectively over a trembling Tala.
The cougar broke the water’s surface, coughing and gasping for air. Her eyes flared with a psychotic, murderous rage. To be hit by the exact same primitive trick three times in one morning was humiliating—but as she wiped the muddy water from her vision, she realized this was no naive adolescent pup standing before her.
Blocking the path, tall and immovable, was a true, seasoned apex predator. Selka.
"My, my... that fury in your eyes," Selka murmured, her human lips curving into a deadly, mocking smirk. "It seems my daughters gave you the exact same push twice. I suppose it really is a matter of ’like mother, like daughters,’ isn’t it?"
"Don’t fuck with me!!!" the cougar shrieked, her voice a raw, scraping roar of desperation. "I am not here to play games with your pathetic pack!"
Selka’s gaze flicked briefly to the shoreline, catching sight of Nuan’s motionless, bleeding, and heavily mangled form lying face-down in the mud.
When Selka turned her head back toward the cougar, all trace of maternal warmth vanished. Her eyes turned predatory, freezing into a terrifying, sub-zero glare. "You ruthlessly hurt three of my daughters... and you have the absolute audacity to tell me not to fuck with you?! Are YOU losing your goddamn mind?!" Selka snapped.
With an explosive splash, Selka lunged forward, transforming mid-air into her massive, battle-scarred silver wolf form.
The cougar met her head-on. The two powerful matriarchs clashed in the center of the shallows, turning the water into a violent storm of churning mud, snapping fangs, and flashing claws. The surrounding woods echoed with a deafening symphony of guttural growls and savage roars.
Lyra and Tala watched their mother command the water for a split second before turning their frantic attention to Nuan. They rushed over, their wet noses sniffing her blood-soaked hair, her pale face, and the horrific, torn flesh of her left arm, their tails tucking in sheer panic.
Suddenly, the bushes rustled violently. The veteran hunters from the pack broke through the treeline, their eyes taking in the scene instantly. Without needing a single command, a dozen massive wolves dived straight into the lake to back up their mother.
"Cowards! Ganging up on me?!" the cougar screamed, her jaws clamping onto Selka’s shoulder as Selka simultaneously sank her fangs deep into the cougar’s throat.
Behind the hunters, the elderly females, Syra and Nyra, stepped out from the brush. Catching sight of the gruesome scene on the bank, they rushed over to the sisters and dropped to their knees to inspect Nuan’s condition.
Nyra placed a trembling hand against Nuan’s blood-slicked neck, her voice catching in her throat. "Witch...!" she called out loudly, her voice trembling.
Selka’s ears twitched at the sound. She forced her eyes away from the brawl, glancing toward the shore just as Elder Syra looked up, slowly shaking her head from side to side in utter horror.
Selka’s silver eyes widened. Fueled by a sudden, terrifying surge of panic, she used the raw muscle of her neck to violently wrench herself free from the cougar’s grip, throwing the big cat back into the deep water. Selka padded rapidly out of the lake, her heavy paws dripping blood, leaving the rest of the pack to completely swarm the cougar from all sides.
The cougar’s breathing was already ragged. Blood from Selka’s bite mixed with the lake water around her.
"Fucker, get your ass back here! Show me what you’ve got!" the cougar yelled frantically, thrashing in the water as fifteen pairs of glowing eyes locked onto her. "I broke your ’she is definitely not prey’ furless creature! Let me show you what a real predator is!"
But the expression on Selka’s face was completely blank now—calm, like a devastating hurricane trapped and sealed behind glass. She didn’t even turn her head back to look at the lake. She kept walking toward Nuan, her low voice carrying effortlessly to her pack members.
"Show her what I am."
"YES, MOTHER!!!!!!" the pack growled back in a terrifying, unified rumble.
Selka knelt down in the mud beside Nuan, completely tuning out the chaotic violence exploding behind her. In the lake, the cougar’s desperate, arrogant screams echoed one last time. "Fuckers!!! Get away from me! Fucking come at me one by one—!"
The water splashed aggressively, churning into a violent, frothing whirlpool as sixteen elite hunters tore into the invader with absolute, merciless brutality. Within moments, the cougar’s shrieks and roars died down into the quiet ripples of the lake, silenced forever. The clear mountain water slowly turned a deep, stark crimson.
As the violence faded into a heavy, suffocating silence, the first bright rays of the early morning sunlight finally broke through the dense canopy, hitting the shimmering surface of the red lake... and casting a golden light over Nuan’s still, motionless body.
(Next Day)
The entire camp was draped in a heavy, suffocating silence. The usual bustling sounds of the wolf pack had completely vanished, replaced by a gloomy, depressed weight that seemed to hang in the very air.
Outside in the clearing, Koda sat by the ash-filled, died-down fire pit. He stared blankly at the charcoal, his ears pinned flat against his skull.
The energetic, goofy smile that usually defined his face was completely gone, leaving him looking hollow and small. No one in the pack spoke.
The hunters who had aggressively torn down the invader the morning before now lay in the shadows, their heads resting on their paws, shrouded in a collective guilt.
Inside the dim sanctuary of Kael’s den, the atmosphere was even more devastating.
Nuan lay completely still on the sand bed, her pale body wrapped neatly and securely in large, clean leaves that the elders had painstakingly prepared to keep her wounds covered. She hadn’t moved an inch since they brought her back.
Her breathing was so shallow, so agonizingly faint, that the cave felt entirely devoid of life.
Kael was resting his heavy head right beside her motionless shoulder. His golden eyes were bloodshot, and the tears that had filled his eyes yesterday still returned again and again staining his fur as they dripped onto the dirt.
Since the moment the pack had carried her broken body back into the camp, he hadn’t left her side for a single second. He hadn’t eaten. He hadn’t slept. Whenever an elder or his mother tried to step close to tend to her, a low, desperate rumble would vibrate in his throat—he absolutely refused to let anyone take her away from him.
To Kael, the world outside this dark cave had ceased to exist. Everything had stopped. It felt as though his own heart had stopped its beats the moment her eyes had closed, leaving him trapped in a frozen, silent nightmare, desperately waiting for a single sign of life from his mate.