Hey everyone! So this work was much longer but I went through and decided to do a whole of editing. So this is brand new material. Similar plot, same characters, but all updated and hopefully better :D I hope you enjoy as much as before :D
Synopsys
Three months ago, Clarke ran from her pack. From her family. From the only home she's ever known. Why? She found out a secret that she couldn't forgive. So she ran from her mother, her own pack, and her friends, in the hopes bringing down a crumbling dynasty. But when she is discovered, her plans must be rewritten as she hops on the back of a motorcycle with a stranger and races off into the night.
There is much more to this story than just a runaway girl. With her trust shattered, Clarke has to learn how to confide in her new saviours. And they in turn must learn to set aside their differences to band together. With an alliance in the making, new friendships will be built that are worth fighting for and the past will come crashing into the present.
Will Clarke and this new pack survive or will Clarke's old pack destroy them all?
Chapter 1
She shouldn't have stayed.
The words echoed over and over in Clarke's head as the familiar male scent wafted her way. She should have left this place the day she arrived. It was foolish to think she could remain hidden and safe here. Damn her heart for winning over her head.
It was three months ago, that Clarke had run. She'd run from her pack, from her friends and family, from the only home she'd ever known. From the moment she'd slung the small duffle bag over her shoulder, she refused to stop moving, shifting place to place. Only the necessary sleep she required slowed her down for mere hours every few days. Stopping meant They would catch up. Stopping meant she would be found.
The isolation of this place had drawn her in at first, exhausted from nearly two and a half months of constant running. She'd believed it would be safe enough to spend a night or two to get the rest she desperately needed. That first night, she'd rented a room in the cheapest motel she could find. All she'd honestly wanted was a real bed to spend a night in. She didn't care how crappy or cheap it was. As long as it wasn't the ground, it would be perfect.
In all her weeks of running Clarke hadn't had a single moment to think of what had occurred and what had made her run. Perhaps it had been stupid to do so. Perhaps, she'd sentenced herself to an even earlier death and her friends as well.
No Clarke. Survive. Do not think about them. Not yet. Just focus on him.
She could not risk falling into the sure despair thinking of them would cause. Not yet. Especially not now when the familiar scent continued to grow stronger as its owner closed in on her.
Clarke remembered overhearing the words spoken by her mother and Jaha Thelonius. It had not been the whispered words, flung like swords between them, Clarke was accustomed to that. Neither had it been the nature of their conversation. Instead it had been six simple words in the midst of their banter that had her second guessing her entire life. Those six words had her fleeing into the night, alone and without more than a few words, written down in a letter, left for her friends to find.
The conversation that night nearly three months ago began as a not so unusual chat between her mother and Jaha. It was normal for them to talk about Clarke's upcoming betrothal to a shifter, someone called Tristan, a boy she'd never met. She had grown accustomed to their whispers, but something was different that time.
Clarke had spent many years sneaking up on her mother and her advisors. She found herself listening in on their private conversations. Too many times her mother or Thelonius had discovered her and she had been punished accordingly. The scars encompassing her body proved as much to those who dared to look a little closer. Through each failure, Clarke had learned and improved. She learned how to be silent as a shadow and how to clamp down the fear of discovery, until there became no difference between the tapestries on the wall and Clarke's own body. Until not one of Abigail's advisors, enforcers or guards discovered her presence.
Though it had been years since she'd let the fear overpower her, the tangy scent of that night wrapped around her body like a cloak.
Clarke's hate for her mother and Thelonius had not grown into a burning inferno because of their talk of Tristan and her impending betrothal. In all honesty, Clarke had known for years that she had little choice in her life and little room for anything other than submitting to each and every one of her mother's demands. A betrothal had been of little concern to her, not when it could mean so much more than marriage to a foreign boy.
No, that conversation changed nothing for her. It was instead when her mother began to speak about Clarke that her ears truly tuned in and listened to each articulated word. It was that exact moment Clarke learned a secret that came to uproot her entire life. A secret that made the final decision for her. The final decision to run from what her life had become. Her scars both physical and mental had grown too numerous the past few years, as had her doubt in what her mother began to preach after the death of her father. Yet, she did not possess the courage to leave, to face the punishment of her elders should she run and ever be discovered. Those six words gave her the courage she'd never possessed.
The memory of those whispered words, sharp as blades in the night took over her consciousness.
"What are we going to do Abby? I think she's catching on." Thelonius pressed a hand onto Abby's thin shoulder, quickly pulling back when her eyes turned gold and she nearly snapped at him. Clarke's mother had never been one for expressing caring emotion, not even towards her own daughter. She certainly wasn't going to allow Thelonius to touch her. How Clarke had been miraculously conceived boggled her to this day.
"Clarke has always had my eye, but I think that after what her father tried to do… She's a liability. She's too much like him. If we go through with this, she'll need to die. If we somehow get someone into her room the night of the wedding… The pack will believe it was the Grounders and we'll finally be rid of this truce. I can't stand having them on our land. This is Skaikru territory… not Trikru territory… And I will never bow to their demands." Abigail's voice lowered as she hissed.
"So, like father like daughter? We'll eliminate the threat?" Thelonius looked to Abby for confirmation.
"Yes. We eliminate Clarke, the same as we did Jake." Abby agreed. The same as we did Jake… The words echoed back and forth in her mind. Clarke's eyes turned red with rage, yet her heart broke with grief. However cruel Abigail had been to Clarke, to everyone, however forceful, this was still her mother. This was still the only blood relation she possessed. It hurt because this was still her mother, whom she had believed had truly loved her father, in whatever messed up way her mother could love anything. For months, Clarke had searched, and been greatly punished again and again for looking for her father's killer. And here the murderers had been the entire time, right under her nose.
Her mother had murdered her father for the reason that she did not want peace with the Trikru pack. The very pack Clarke had been betrothed to years ago by both of her parents in the hopes of true peace.
Clarke had to escape. If she did not, everything her father had worked towards, what her father had died for believing in, would be lost. She could not let that happen. Quickly and quietly making her way back to her room, she began to write a letter.
That very night, Clarke packed a bag and escaped to her car. She told no one, not even her own friends who she trusted with her secrets, with her life. She could not risk the chance that she would be discovered or any of them conspiring in the corner with her. She could not endanger them yet. By leaving in the dead of night, some might follow and get out while they still could. Many would take convincing. Knowing she had little time remaining, she wrote a quick letter, addressed to her betas and left it in the one place they would know to look come dawn and Clarke was discovered gone.
She wanted to go to each of them, tell them she was leaving. She wanted to gather each of them and take them with her, but it would be too much. There were too many of them and it would draw too much attention. In the dead of night, as Clarke snuck to her car, she hoped and she prayed to every God and Goddess whose names she'd ever learned for them to discover her letter quickly, before her mother or her guards took note and make their own escape. If they did not do it soon, they would never get out.
Sending her thoughts to the heavens, she prayed. Please let them get out. Do not let them hesitate. Let us find one another again.
Walking away from her pack, from the ones who had been by her side since she was a pup, broke something in her. Even with the letter she'd left, there would be some who would refuse to leave. This confined and isolated world was all they'd ever known, and the life they'd all become accustomed to, including Clarke. It would be no easy feat to rise against the fear rooted deep in all of them and walk away, only to fear discovery every day. If they were caught, there would be no rosy welcome back, there would only be torture for the pure disobedience and maybe the sweet release of death when no sound came from their broken bodies, and no thought crossed their shattered minds.
Clarke had always refused to risk their lives, but she knew that in this instance she must because the alternative would be much worse. She would be willing to take any punishment if she were to be discovered. It would however, kill her to have to watch her mother find new ways to torment each of her friends.
Clarke had to escape now and then find a way to get them out. She needed to get away, find a safe place and then send word to Trikru about going against her mother and giving full immunity to those that asked for protection. She needed to escape first, then she could send word to her pack, assuming they managed to escape. Her closest friends would abandon this pack if she asked them to. She wanted to explain everything in her letter, but she had to make do with only telling them she had run, and pleading with them to follow. Without clearly stating where she planned to go once she was free, she left plans for them. They were to find a pack far away who would offer them sanctuary until she managed to get word to them. Clarke was the rightful heir to this dynasty. If Clarke left earlier than planned, instead of waiting for her mother to die or pass the crown to her, she'd still be the rightful heir and an alpha in her own right. Other packs would be obliged to assist her and offer aid to her pack.
Once she got far enough away, she would make her way to one of those packs and get word to others, asking for aid, for sanctuary and protection. Then she would reunite with those she held most dear.
No one stopped her as she left. No one tried to drag her back. No one expected her to leave.
Good riddance. Clarke thought. She'd be glad to leave this place behind. Start over fresh with her pack elsewhere. Maybe it would help fill in the void she carried in her heart after her father had died… No, after he'd been murdered. Murdered by her own mother and the person he believed to be his mate.
Clarke had been ready for some time to leave this cruel world she lived in. Now she finally had her chance.
With one look back, her heart remaining with the pack behind her, her head telling her not to linger, and tears in her eyes, she whispered four words.
"May we meet again."
Clarke travelled hundreds of miles away in the hopes of never meeting one of the many trackers her mother would send for her. Even if Abby planned to murder her own daughter, she still needed Clarke alive and in her possession until the exact moment she intended to kill her. She would be furious. Abigail hated it when her plans did not go exactly as she had expressed.
Clarke grinned at how difficult she planned to make it for her mother to get her back. If Clarke was not there to marry Tristan, there would be no alliance. Without that alliance, her mother couldn't go to war without making the first move, something she hoped to avoid.
Clarke decided she couldn't go directly to the Trikru pack. Her mother would see right through that plan. So, she headed in a different direction first. She went North towards Montana instead of East towards Iowa where Trikru resided. She wanted to be hours away from where she'd been raised before her trail was caught.
The first day, Clarke spent driving, attempting to put as many miles between her and her mother as possible. The second, she ditched the car somewhere in Nevada, over a state away from her home in Colorado. No one had yet tracked her, and the plan continued. She'd gained valuable distance, but this would be where she'd need to continue on foot. Ditching all forms of GPS, it would be harder to track her. Her mother would have to first find, then get to the car and by then Clarke would be far enough away that even with her scent left behind, they would not know where she planned to go, or catch up in time to catch her.
Once the car was left behind, Clarke spent her time as a wolf, hunting food, sleeping in the woods, watching her back. She did not dare shift for the first month, just pushing forward, praying day and night for the safety of her friends, and her own continued elusiveness.
Having spent so much time as an animal, allowing those instincts to guide and protect her, she spent minimal time thinking of her friends. The wolf did not allow the distraction of it. But however dominant the wolf became, her heart remained broken, missing an intrinsic part of her soul. Those brief moments when her human mind took over, were consumed with nightmares and foolish hopes. Nightmares of her butchered father haunted her along with the horrors she expected her friends to be going through if they had not escaped or worse, if they had but were caught. Moments spent wondering if they made it out and hoping they had.
Her heart ached, but she could not stop and she had no way of sending news or asking for it. So, she continued forward.
Over three months into her journey, she shifted for the first time. It took her nearly a day to adjust to the unfamiliar body and mind that came with it. Clarke was at her wits end. She could no longer go forward at the pace she forced herself to keep. She refused to sleep more than a few hours every odd day, both from the fear of being captured and the horror of the nightmares each doze brought. But three months of this had worn her body out.
It took a few days, but she found a sleepy little town in the South of North Dakota with minimal residents and an motel that asked no questions. She allowed herself to stop, just for the night she'd told herself. Just so she could recuperate enough to keep going.
Two days later, she ran out of the minimal cash she'd been able to bring strapped to her leg in a tiny pouch. She was still a good month or more from reaching Trikru territory. As much as she desperately wanted to continue, she couldn't. It would not be wise to continue without any cash at all. She did not know when or if she would require it again.
A new plan began to form in her mind. Clarke could find work for a week or two and then she could go to Trikru. A week or two would be okay. It had to be. She could work and rest and try to find a way to send word to the packs within the surrounding states, to ask for aid and information about the pack she'd left behind.
Her third day in the town of Arkadia, Clarke found a job working in a bar. Luckily no one asked any questions when she couldn't present an ID, and walked in without any information. They hired her, believing her when she'd said she was twenty-two. Clarke was really only eighteen, but no one needed to know that. She would be here for a week, or two max and she would disappear again.
Deciding it would not be wise to continue shifting and living in the woods between shifts, she decided to temporarily move into a motel that rented rooms by the week at a cheaper rate. They were kind enough to wave the deposit and allow her to pay after her first shift and even though the room smelt heavily of both smoke and alcohol, she couldn't have cared less. There was a tiny cot in the corner and a bathroom where she took her first shower in over two months. She'd let the hot water run over her aching bones and attempt to soothe the hole in her chest.
So far everything was good. Soon enough she'd be able to send word to Trikru and then find her pack.
But for Clarke, soon enough became too late.
Clarke dropped the empty bottles she'd been holding, watching them shatter as the familiar male scent wafted to her nose just before the shadow in the corner took his form. She forgot everything as fear enveloped her entire body and the predator within debated whether to immediately flee or fight her way out.
There had not been a single tracker her entire journey, not one, until now. Leaning against the brick wall in the alley outside the bar, half concealed by shadows, stood Finn Collins. He looked just as she remembered him from nearly three months ago. His shaggy dark hair had grown an inch, but his youthful expression looking at her like she was the moon had not changed.
She did not know what to say or what to do, so she stared at him.
Flee or fight? Fight or flee? Stay or go? Go or stay?
Finn was the first to break the silence.
"Clarke." He looked at her with a mix of relief, desperation and longing in his gaze.
"My letter," She's not sure why these are the first words she can get out, but it's all she can say. "Did they get my letter."
Finn as if in a trance continued to stare at her.
"Please Finn, where are they?" Clarke looked back and forth between the alley and Finn's frozen body. Were they here? Did they find her? Could they all be hiding somewhere nearby? But if they were, why had it not been her betas who'd come to her? And why did she feel like she has been cornered and was about to be trapped.
As if shaking himself out of a stupor, Finn tossed his head a few times before standing to his full height and taking a step towards her. Clarke in turn, took a step back. Hurt flickered in his eyes before he shook that too from his gaze.
"Clarke, you need to come home. You're mother, everyone, they're worried sick about you." Everyone? Did that mean no one had escaped?
"What do you mean? Finn who is with you? Did they get my letter?" Clarke could hear the slight tremor in her voice, as her blood grew thick with worry.
"Letter? Clarke, I'm here to bring you home. It's time to stop playing games." At the tone in his voice, Clarke bristled. Games? He thought she was playing games?
"How dare you. I'm not a child playing hide and seek." For all that she knew, Clarke had been gone for three months and everything could have changed or nothing at all. Finn was no exception. While he'd been loyal to Clarke, it had always been to a degree. Always to a point and he had suffered the least because of it. He'd even become the youngest and best tracker in the Skaikru pack, charged with locating traitors, runaways and enemies alike to bring them back to Abigail for their punishments.
If her betas were not here with him, Clarke did not believe she could trust him. If he had left with them, they would all be here or none. If they had been caught and Finn had been on their side, then he would have been taken with them. Realizing that Finn may not be on her side, she began looking for ways to escape him.
"You're getting pre-wedding jitters Clarke, I get it. It couldn't have been easy knowing that in a few months you were about to be married off to someone you didn't even know. If I could get you out of it, believe me princess, I would. But it's not possible." Finn took another step forward, the longing returning to his gaze. It was months ago when he'd broken up with Clarke's best friend and attempted to make a move on her. One she had not reciprocated. Yet ever since, he'd followed her around like a lost puppy. In the beginning, she'd hated him for breaking her best friend's heart and tried to keep her distance. Her hate had faded, but it was beginning to bloom once more.
"No. I could care less about that damn wedding. I'd marry him today if it meant my pack was free. I will not be going back Finn, not today and certainly not with you." A growl vibrated in her throat as she decided to stare him down.
"I know you're worried. The alliance is shaky at best Clarke, I know that. But that is why Abby wants you to marry Tristan. Once you come home and marry him, we'll all be free." Finn was pleading with her and it disgusted her. How could he not understand? He'd been raised in the pack, same as her. After everything, how could he use his freedom, not to escape for good, but to attempt to convince her to come back with him. Back to that place of torture and death.
"I am not going back Finn and if you cannot see why, you are blind and you are no friend of mine. Abby wants to start a war, not stop it. My marriage will only be the beginning. Even without a war, I would not be returning with you. What she has done, what she will do, is not right. We grew accustomed to it Finn, but I finally woke up. That's why I left. She would erase everything my father has accomplished and everything she has done, everything she is doing, it will never stop. It will only get worse." Clarke wanted to knock him out and run, but part of her wanted to make him see and understand. He was her friend, once, and she had been so alone. Her wolf prowled beneath her skin, anxious. It did not understand. Why was she turning away this male? He was from her pack and she had been so alone. She craved touch, needed the unity and bond only a pack provided. Wolves were not meant to be alone. Whining, the wolf fought against the human who wanted to be as far from this male as possible.
She wanted to give him a chance to change his mind. To help her.
But no amount of words and pleading from her wolf would make her forget what he had done or what he was trying to do. Shoving the animal aside, the Clarke growled at the male.
"Princess, come home with me… Please." The pleading and desperation in his tone, as he approached her step by step hardened her heart. Finn would not change and she would have to fight him to escape. If she stayed, he would force her to go back and she would not be going back until she had an army behind her. She did not want to fight him, but she would die before she allowed anyone to take her right back into her mother's clutches.
"I'm sorry Finn." Clarke prepared herself for the fight about to come. There was no other way. He wouldn't listen and she couldn't risk staying here much longer. Finn would not be the only tracker on her trail.
As Clarke allowed her eyes to glow and her canines to extend in warning, a motorcycle raced suddenly off of the road and slid to a halt beside her. "Hey! Get on!" The rider yelled to Clarke, her voice feminine and direct.
Clarke took a moment to debate between her options. Fight with Finn, one of her prior pack mates and run again, or hop on with the stranger dressed in black and take her chances?
After weighing her options, she decided that the woman dressed in black was the safer bet.
Clarke slid on the back and quickly wrapped her arms around the thin girl. She hadn't seen her face, but she could tell the girl had dark hair, nearly black in the surrounding night. The girl suddenly took off and Clarke lurched forward with the momentum. In the fear of the moment, Clarke chose to take her chances with this stranger, but she had briefly forgotten that her mother would have sent people for her. People, Clarke herself would not necessarily know.
Who was this girl? Why had she come at the perfect moment to rescue Clarke?
The girl began to zip through streets back and forth with no apparent pattern until Clarke has utterly no idea where they've gone. Everything looked different and she cannot place herself by either sight or scent. They hadn't entered the highway so they couldn't have gone that far.
Clarke decided she had trusted this girl long enough. Taking a sniff towards the girl, Clarke froze. She shouldn't have gotten on with this girl. The girl's scent gave away that Clarke had just gotten on the back of a motorcycle with another one of her kind, one whose intentions she did not know. For all Clarke knew, her mother had put a bounty on her head.
"My name's Octavia!" The female, as shifters preferred to say, called out as they sped down yet another road leading to some mysterious location.
"You have five seconds to convince me why I should trust you. I know you're a shifter just like me." Clarke must yell over the sounds of the road flashing by and the engine rumbling beneath them. If this female cannot convince her, Clarke will let go and jump. The few bruises and cuts she'd attain would heal within a day at most and that would be a much better alternative than going back and being dead.
"I am not just like you." Octavia said with a sneer.
"Are you working for my mother?" Clarke realized it was a stupid question. Even if the juvenile wolf was, in fact, working for her mother, it's not like she would announce it.
"And no, I wouldn't be caught dead working for your mother." A deep growl reverberated from the female's throat. It's clear this Octavia was quite good at acting or she really did dislike Abigail Griffin.
"How can I know you're telling the truth?" Clarke snapped back. It would be easy for this girl to lie. It would however, also be difficult to make Clarke blindly trust her. Octavia was less built than Clarke, perhaps a touch taller. It would be Clarke that had the advantage in a fight against her.
"You can't, but it's likely in your best interest to take your chances with me instead of pretty boy back there." Octavia's voice carried something akin to a smirk in it and Clarke had to admit that she agreed. Clarke would rather take her chances with this stranger, even if she might be working for Abigail, than with Finn who she knew was working for Abigail. In a fight, Clarke also had a better chance of winning against Octavia than against Finn. And if she had to fight her way out, Clarke would much rather face a complete stranger than fight a male who had once been her friend.
They soon arrived at an abandoned building; something that probably used to be a warehouse but shut down and hadn't yet been taken down. They appear to be on the outskirts of Arkadia, near an old railroad situated on a field stretching beyond as far as her eyes could see. Here, she noticed the stars twinkling overhead, a sight she had not dared lose herself in during all three months she'd been running.
Her pack would be staring at the exact same sky, looking towards the North star, if they hadn't been imprisoned beneath the ground where Abigail loved to confine them. The ache in her heart returned full force and she must look away before it consumed her.
"If you were lying to me, and there is an ambush in there waiting for me, I swear that you will be the first one I kill." Clarke snarled her vow to the young shifter and then wearily dismounted, putting a few feet between herself and Octavia.
"Not everything's about you, princess." Octavia mocked, obviously overhearing Finn's annoying nickname. Clarke lets a low growl escape from her throat in warning. She did not care for this stranger teasing her when she felt she might shatter from grief. Finn had not confirmed her pack had escaped. If anything, he had told her that none had.
Octavia took off her helmet and Clarke was struck by her beauty. Green eyes the colour of the pines in the woods zone in on her and a slightly tanned face shone with youth. Where years of possible joy should have reflected, her eyes were hard the more Clarke looked at them, like Octavia's childhood had disappeared too soon and she'd had to grow up and face the world long before she should have. Clarke saw her own reflection in the young shifter's eyes; One that appeared no different, just another child who'd been forced to grow up too soon, one who'd had to face horrors most grown men wouldn't have survived.
Octavia jerked her head slightly, indicating Clarke to follow her into the abandoned warehouse. Skeptically, Clarke followed.
The night sky above should have blocked out all light in the surrounding area, but the shifters keen eyesight allowed Clarke to see through even the canopied trees. She scanned for potential threats and for surprises of any kind. With each step she took towards the brick layered building, she took in the scents all around. There appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary. Aside from the local wildlife, the only other scents belonged to the two female shifters.
Still, as the pair enter the old building, Clarke did not lower her guard.
The open layout appeared empty. A thorough scan of the rafters gave no indication the pair were anything but alone. Clarke listened for other heartbeats or soft footfalls outside, and again nothing. Everything was too quiet. Suspiciously quiet.
"I know this may seem confusing, but I know who you are Clarke and we need your help." Octavia paused a few feet near the middle of the long space and turned to face Clarke. As the young female turned, her arms fold across her chest and armoured eyes met Clarke's own.
"We? Why do you need my help? How do you even know who I am?" Clarke asked as she wearily peered around the room, again. Though she had heard only two heartbeats, the rafters and the shadowed corners still held ideal potential for an ambush. It would take only a few seconds to be caught unawares by another of her kind.
"My brother and I, we're going to make a trade. One only you can help us with." Octavia showed no emotion on her face to explain to Clarke what she was talking about and what her intentions might be.
"What kind of trade?" Something about this has begun to feel even more suspicious. Slowly, one cautious step at a time, Clarke began to back away. Clarke might potentially be able to defeat this female in a fight, but she'd rather not risk the injury it would cause.
"We've heard rumours circulating. I'm pretty sure your mother didn't exactly want it to get out that you'd run, but I do hear that she's quite eager to get you back. She has something we want, so we took it upon ourselves to get something she wants even more." No. The blood drained from Clarke's body, and multiple shivers ran down her spine as she realized just what the shifter in front of her actually wanted.
Abigail must have put a bounty on Clarke's head. Her earlier suspicions had turned out to be correct. While Octavia wasn't working for Abigail, she still wanted Clarke to send her back and gain whatever reward was being offered.
"You, for the freedom of our mother." One second before Clarke shifted to run, she halted as the female continued speaking.
"Your mother?" Clarke asked, shocked. Abigail rarely kept prisoners that did not belong to her pack. Clarke had witnessed many executions of foreign shifters, and even some of her own pack, those Abigail truly believed to be threats. But Octavia's mother was a prisoner? Of Abigail? That did not sound right. As far as Clarke knew, when she'd left the only prisoners had been her friends.
"Yes. Our mother has been a prisoner of your mother for over two years and we finally have a bargaining chip that will set her free." The stony look disappeared from Octavia's face and a disdainful one replaced it. She looked ready to grip Clarke by both arms and haul her to Abigail's doorstep.
"As much as that may sound appealing to you, there is no way in hell I will be going back there. And I will kill you if you even try." Clarke snarled angrily, ready now to fight this juvenile. Clarke felt for the female, but she did not care to be treated as either a bargaining chip or a runaway pup. There were more lives than just her own on the line. If she had to kill one shifter to save them all, then so be it.
Readying to shift, Clarke bared her teeth at the female, but a low growl, one meant not as the announcement of another of her kind, but as the threat of an impending attack, sounded behind her. Clarke's body became marble. That growl came, not from Octavia but from another wolf, one who had managed to sneak up behind her.
Deciding the bigger threat came from behind, Clarke turned her back on the female and faced the new, much larger wolf. The wolf was nearly twice the size of Clarke and the scent wafting off of it revealed that it was an alpha. Clarke might have been able to face off against Octavia and retain a good chance of winning, but now with another alpha in the room, Clarke's chances slimmed considerably.
This new alpha looked up at her with hateful dark amber eyes. She did not think that immediately shifting would convey a non-threatening message, so she remained human.
For the moment.
The second that either one of them took a step closer, she would tear them apart and show them just how much of a threat she held.
"Not so fast princess." Again, Octavia used that irritating nickname to spite Clarke, a smirk on her face.
"You can't make me go back. If you try, you will wish you hadn't." Clarke angled herself between the two, a snarl on her lips and hands balled into fists at her side to stall her shift.
"You don't exactly have a choice." Clarke startled as the new wolf's voice became human behind her. A deep, velvety voice greeted her ears. Slowly, she twisted to face him. Arms crossed as if mirroring his sister, the new arrival glared at her, with russet brown coloured human eyes, displaying that she would make it nowhere before he stopped her. Small curls of his dark hair fell over his forehead but gave him no less intimidating of an appearance. He was tall, like his sister, likely a head taller than Clarke and was built like a freight train. Enough dominance seeped from him that if she had been a lesser shifter, she might have cowered in his presence.
Clarke might have thought him handsome, if they weren't in such a precarious position.
"I will try to put this in words a brute like you might understand." A low growl came as response from the male and Clarke cocked an eyebrow in response, daring him to try to kill her in whatever way he was fantasizing. "The only way I will willingly be going back there is with my fiancé and his army with the keys to set them free. I promise you that if you dare to even attempt to drag me back there, I will rip you both to shreds and make your lives so miserable you'll wish you hadn't." Clarke looked between both shifters, head held high in defiance as she made herself out to be perhaps a larger threat than she was. Clarke did not care. She would beg, she would lie and she would cheat to save her pack.
Let the pair of them decide just how much trouble she was worth.
"But, I of course welcome you to try." Clarke gave the pair the grin that used to make Thelonius give her extra lashings and beat her into unconsciousness.
The male, as expected bared his teeth. That grin, for whatever reason, always seemed to bother the males she directed it at. It seemed to goad them into a fight. Clarke simply let her eyes trail down his body and proceeded to roll her eyes back at him. That had him really going. Clarke could scent his impending shift and grinned again. She did not want a fight, not when the odds were stacked against her. She did however, want to goad this male into losing control. His sister would then be forced to step in and corral the alpha while Clarke made her escape.
Octavia, unlike her brother, saw right through Clarke's act.
"Bellamy." Octavia hissed the name at her brother who slowly tore his gaze away from Clarke.
In the two seconds it took for the pair to look briefly away, Clarke had shifted and was sprinting toward the door. While her original plan hadn't worked, she'd still been given enough time to make her escape. The male, however, did not lose any time in shifting and chasing her down. He was on her in seconds. His powerful bite launched onto her leg and he forced her to the ground. She didn't cry out in pain, she'd become accustomed to much worse and fought back in considerably poorer conditions.
Clarke whipped back up and around to sink her teeth into his flank. As her teeth met the sensitive flesh, he roared and released her. She did not waste any time in bolting for the door again. However, she slid to a halt as a slimmer white wolf barred the exit. Crouched low, Clarke prepared to use her body like a battering ram and force the female out of the way. The male, Bellamy, though had recovered and slammed into her before she had the chance.
Knocked off her feet again, she began to whip back up just as Bellamy pounced on top of her, pinning her down. With those dark amber coloured wolf eyes, he glared down at her, attempting to make her submit. He was an alpha, but so was she and she would submit to no one. Ramming her feet upwards, she kicked him off.
When she freed herself of him for a second time, she came face to face with the younger shifter. Octavia blinked before launching herself forward and sinking her teeth into Clarke's shoulder. Before Clarke could launch her own counter attack on the female, Bellamy added his own weight into the mix. The two managed to flip Clarke onto her back.
Clarke froze as Bellamy's teeth stooped dangerously close to her throat. He stood over her panting heavily, teeth exposed and ready to tear her throat out if she moved an inch. Octavia hovered at his side, ready to jump in again if necessary.
It was over. Clarke had lost.
But just as she began to settle herself, some long forgotten knowledge clicked into place. While the two shifters currently making her hold her breath did not look familiar, there was something familiar about their names. Octavia was not a popular name, and yet Clarke recalled it. How she knew the name was on the tip of her tongue. It was something years ago. It was a cold day in October. It was an execution. No, a banishment? It was a child hidden for years. A young female and a male who left to protect her. A female who was punished for hiding a child.
Yes! Yes, that was it. The woman, the female, what was her name? Amelia? No, that didn't sound right. It had been the name of a princess Clarke had once read about… Think Clarke, think!
Clarke racked her memory for the female's name.
Aurora! That had been her name. Yes, Clarke remembered now. The female had a son; a male Clarke had only ever vaguely seen a handful of times. Then there'd been a child, found in her home; a daughter. An illegal child. The female had been taken in for treason, about three and a half years ago. Her children had been banished and hadn't been heard from since. Her children had the same names and these shifters wanted to trade Clarke for their mother. It could not be a coincidence.
Clarke swallowed nervously. She knew now who they most likely were and that when she told them what she knew, they may very well kill her out of spite. She could withhold the information, but perhaps once she told them, they would realize that she held no value to them and let her leave.
It was a risk she had to take.
"Wait." Clarke uttered the one syllable word and hoped they would listen. She wanted to shift and be far away from the hostile male when she told them. She could not risk his ire with his teeth so close to her throat.
"I have information about your mother. May we speak?" Clarke spoke as calmly as her fluttering pulse allowed. "I will not run."
Bellamy looked at her with distrust in his gaze, but with a nod from Octavia, he stepped off the she-wolf and allowed her to her feet. He did not move far, and his eyes continued to follow every twitch her body made.
It took a moment before she felt secure, then shifted. She waited until the other two did the same.
"I'm sorry, but you won't get your mother for me." Clarke refused to lower her gaze. She hoped that after telling them, they unlike Finn would listen to her pleas and not rush to kill her for the news she carried. From what she'd heard of the siblings though, and the way they'd come after her when she tried to escape, she wasn't too sure they'd just allow her to leave. Octavia had been known to have a temper. That however, did not compare to her brother's, whose temper remained unrivalled, even within the Skaikru pack. She'd not known him personally, but she had known of his reputation. His very violent reputation. If she wasn't careful, he would find a way to either crush or rip out her windpipe without a second thought.
"And why not? You're Abigail's daughter. She wants you pretty badly." Octavia, ever the speaker for the pair cocked her head to the side as if assessing the truth to Clarke's words.
"There is no easy way to put this, but you deserve to know the truth. You can give me back alive, dead, or somewhere in between, but you will never get your mother back because she is not a prisoner of my mother." Clarke wanted to put it as delicately as she could. Though there was only so much delicacy you could provide when breaking someone's heart. "She has not been a prisoner for some time because she is dead."
Clarke felt for them, she really did. She remembered how she'd reacted to finding out her own father had been murdered. It had been instant the amount of pain, grief and crushing rage that had surged throughout her. This was different. She didn't have three years to hope, three years to plan to get him back. These siblings did. She was crushing three and a half years of a dream reunion they could have had.
She remembered the execution. Almost three years ago to the day. Aurora Blake had been arrested after a second child had been found. She'd hidden her, Octavia, for fourteen years, but the child had been discovered. It wasn't a crime to have more than one child, and under her father it hadn't been an executable crime to have a child with someone outside the pack. For nearly two years after Aurora's death, Clarke had wondered why she'd been executed for her second child born from an outsider when it would gain merely a warning from her father, or perhaps a banishment at most. However, in one of her many eavesdropping sessions, Clarke had overheard that Aurora had been publicly denouncing Abigail and how she'd been treating certain pack members. Her only crime had been speaking against Clarke's mother. For that she had been executed that day. There was no speaking against Abigail, not ever. And when Jake was not there to control or calm Abigail, she often took punishment into her own hands. There were no second chances, no shots at redemption in her mother's eyes. After the arrest of Aurora Blake three and a half years ago, the Blake siblings had been banished and hadn't been heard from since.
Until today.
"You're lying!" Bellamy hissed, pushing towards Clarke, while Octavia just stared ahead.
"No, I'm not. I wish I was, but I was forced to go to her execution. He killed her, on my mother's orders. It was only a few months after you two had been banished-" Clarke's sentence was cut off as Bellamy, faster than he ought to have a right to be, suddenly shoved her up against the nearest wall, a hand gripped around her throat.
"I'm sorry." Struggling against the male's tightening palms, Clarke choked the words out.
"You are lying. You're no better than any of them." Bellamy angrily roared, his voice carrying throughout the abandoned building. Clarke truly, irrevocably wished she was lying.
"Maybe not Bell… You know what Abigail and Jaha have been rumoured to have done since we left. Even when we were still there, they weren't exactly Saints." Octavia answered as if in a trance from the middle of the room where she was still standing.
Out of the corner of Clarke's eye, she thought she saw a tear fall down the young female's face.
"I'm sorry." Clarke repeated as she began to see spots. Bellamy suddenly dropped her to her knees and she quickly gulped in breath after breath and coughed deeply.
"I was there." Clarke, rubbing her throat continued. It was a horrible day. One she wouldn't soon forget. "I speak the truth."
"No need to trade you, we'll just send you back in pieces!" Bellamy snarled from above her, looking ready to choke the life from her and complete the job this time.
"No, wait! Please. My mother's done terrible things. Each one of us has experienced a part of those terrible acts. You wouldn't be helping yourselves, you'd be helping her." Clarke pleaded with the two Blakes. She didn't want to die. She couldn't die, not here or back home, not yet. She needed to save her pack first. She would just have to convince them. Show them she was telling the truth.
"What do you mean?" Octavia turned to face the blonde once more, a terrible sadness in her eyes.
"Aside from all the shit she's done the past three years? My mother murdered my father, okay? She murdered him two years ago and I was going to be next. She was going to use my death to fuel the fire of her plan to start an all-out war. First with the Trikru pack and then with as many other as she could. She wants to erase everything my father worked to accomplish. If I go back, she wins. If I go back, no one will fight for the others still trapped there. I have to stay out of her clutches so I can free them. You two have been gone for years. Whatever you think the worst thing she has done is, that is not even the half of it. The worst of it happened to both me and my pack. She has been murdering us. She has been torturing us. And she is not going to stop. Do you understand that? If I go back, there will be no one to save them. No one." Clarke got back to her feet and stared down the siblings with a blazing inferno in her eyes. She gently rubbed her hoarse throat and waited for their reply.
"How do we know you're telling the truth?" Octavia asked, wearily taking in Clarke. Clarke's sure if the roles were reversed she would be weary of what her opponent said too.
"You don't, but I'm betting you'd rather take your chances with me, than with my mother." Clarke answered using a similar line to the one Octavia had earlier. "I ran to save my life and I need to save theirs. I can show you my scars, but I fear that wouldn't be enough. There is no possible way to show you, to make you understand what exactly, she has put not only me, but the rest of my pack through the past year alone. She presents herself as some kind of merciful leader to everyone outside our world, but to those within, she makes all the Gods of every hell you can think of combined look like playful pups. If she succeeds in getting me back and killing me, not only will we suffer even further, but so will those within Trikru and various other packs. It's not only us she wants to punish, but the world. If she gets me back, she'll succeed in beginning another war. She'll start with Trikru, but she won't be satisfied with only destroying them. She'll move on and come for the next and then the next and she won't stop. We need to keep her from succeeding because we only just got peace under my father. All it comes down to is that we all just want to be free. I just want to be free."
A hot tear wells up and falls as she let them take in everything she said. She doesn't mean to be emotional, but with the mention of freedom, she can't help it. She may be free from her physical chains, but her mental ones remain. As do the quite literal chains she suspected her friends to be in as her mother discovered Clarke's betrayal and escape.
"We were going to kill you after the trade, once we got our mother back. Then find a way to kill Abigail while she mourned. I suppose that's not exactly going to work now." Bellamy speaking for only the second time, sighed, running a hand through his short dark curls.
"Wait. You planned to kill my mother?" Clarke's ears perked up at this new news.
"You got a problem with that princess?" Bellamy's eyebrow raised and he stared the younger shifter down.
"Not if you still want to do just that. I want her off her despicable throne and then I want her dead." Clarke answered with a new purpose in mind and a flicker of something that felt a lot like hope in her chest.
"What?" Bellamy asked, clearly not hearing her correctly.
"I. Want. My. Mother. Dead." She paused, taking in each brilliant little detail forming in her mind. "Look, I left a dynasty that was beginning to crumble. My mother is holding on with fraying ropes. After what she's done, what she still plans to do, they will stand against her. We can all stand against her. Yes, that's good. I've only been thinking short term… If we can get rid of her we wouldn't ever have to worry about her again. We wouldn't just be safe, we would be… we would all be free."
Freedom. Clarke can taste it on her tongue. Freedom not only for her, but for everyone in her pack. They would never again have to look over their shoulders or cower in shadows to hide their conversations. They would never have to fear that once they'd escaped she would find them and drag them all back.
"What exactly are you saying?" Bellamy asked, a small half grin beginning to light up his face.
"I'm saying that I have friends who would support us. Some who would join us. My friends, our pack, was the only refuge we had from her and we have all learned to hate her. I left them behind, with a note to follow me. Not only am I the rightful heir, but with them backing me, with you beside me, we could lead us all into a better future, away from the shifters stuck in the ways of the past."
The smirk on Bellamy face only grew as he processed what Clarke was saying.
Yes, this could work. She had gained her first allies against her mother. Together they would gain more and then they would overthrow the leader hell bent on destroying them all.
Bellamy's almost onyx gaze met hers. "Fine then princess, it's time to dethrone a Queen."