Chapter 14:
Nars' Worst Nightmare
As if seeing Fleet with no idea and Magril's half-eaten, rotting corpse floating in a lake of black slime wasn't bad enough on Nars, he had just returned to his and Daria's den not even half an hour later to an even worse nightmare. Nars had always had horrible nightmares about losing Daria in a number of ways and now it had happened in one that neither him nor anyone could have imagined. Daria was dead, a large gaping hole in her chest that suggested something had killed her not by tearing into her chest but by brutally busting out of it from the inside.
There was two colors of blood, red and almost black, the second suggesting a presence of something toxic having been in Daria's system, and small pieces of flesh, including her left lung, all over the cave floor near where she had died quickly yet so brutally. Nars just felt in his heart that his mate had suffered the worst death someone could despite dying as quickly as this death was brutal. They also saw that Candu was dead of the same causes, but there were no signs of what it were that had torn out of Daria and Candu's chests. Just a third lifeless body—that of a horrific-looking spider-like creature.
Nars went into, cursing, ranting, screaming, and condemning whatever it was that not only took both Fleet and Magril from him but now his one true love. He had never thought he would find Daria's dead body, let alone in his own den! He began acting like a wolf ready to commit murder—murder on whatever killed the only loved ones he'd had left! He had nothing left! No mate and no pups! He had no one to love him now! Nars just wanted to fucking die, he was that upset by the three losses he had just suffered. It was Daria's death that hit him the hardest as he had just promised her that he would make sure nothing happened to her and here she was dead. And Nars hadn't been able to do a single thing to save her from not only dying but suffering too!
Nars snarled like something straight from Hell as he went for the dead spider-like creature that had its eight legs pointing toward each other and stuck together as if he had been frozen in this still position after meeting death. He had intended to tear into the damn thing's flesh, just knowing that this thing was responsible for whatever had torn out of Daria and Candu's chests getting into them to begin with. But Nars learned that he would have died even more brutally than both of them and his two pups had if he had sank his fangs into this thing. He had knocked a decent-sized rock loose from the cave wall in his frenzy and it had fallen onto the spider-like creature, crushing it with a loud splattering sound. It bled out a dull yellowish substance that reduced the rock to nothing and burned a hole in the ground several feet deep in a matter of seconds. Acid, each of the wolves thought individually to themselves. This spider or whatever it was had acid for blood. Princess stared down that hole in which the acid blood had burned with a shocked expression on her face—it was still burning down into the ground even though it had already gone past at least ten feet deep in mere seconds.
Nars reacted as if he hadn't just seen that thing bleed an acid that could destroy anything in seconds. He didn't care about that. Daria and his two dead pups, even if they couldn't be called that anyone as they both were adolescent wolves now, were the only things on his mind right now.
"Damn it, no!" Nars howled miserably in an angry tone. "Not Daria too! Damn whatever took her from me! Damn it to the deepest pits of hell…I will kill the bastards that did these things to her and my pups!"
"Nars—" Kate began. She approached Nars, a wolf she had known since their puppy days when they were competing against each other in the great wolf games, nervously. She knew from experience that grieving wolves could react to being approached in violent ways. She had learned that with Daria after she'd learned of her mother's death from the head wolf, her mother's murder. She had made a threat on his life despite her blindness. But now it was Daria who was dead and someone else acting the way she had about her. But Nars reacted to Kate's nearing presence in a way that none of them would have ever expected.
"Get your fucking paws off of me!" Nars snapped, causing Kate to back off almost fearfully of him. But as soon as Nars saw the shocked, even almost terrified in the case of Humphrey, his tone quickly changed to one of regret for how he'd snapped at Kate. "I'm sorry…I shouldn't have snapped at you like I did, Kate. But Daria…sh-she's gone…"
"Don't be sorry," Kate said as she embraced him in a hugging fashion as best a wolf could with another of her species. "You just lost the last wolf you loved with all your heart…you have every right to be angry right now. We don't know what we're dealing with but it's taken everything from you. Don't apologize for anything."
"What do you suggest we do now?" Nars asked, in tears, and in a hurting voice.
"Hunt down whatever it is killing our friends and family," Kate answered Nars with a low growl in her voice. She sounded just as angered, now, as Nars just had seconds before. "And we will kill every one of the motherfuckers responsible for all of those deaths. You have my word Nars…none of these deaths will go without vengeance…"