The Lost Lycan Princes: A Journey Home

Our First Battle

Jonathan POV  

  After our meeting with Terrance, we headed to the library to do some more research. Even though we knew we would be waiting on Anthony to get back to see what information he could give us, but we didn't want to sit around twiddling our thumbs for the next few days either. We spent a few hours digging through files upon files filled with information, but the only things we found that we didn't already have were pictures of our biological parents, and an article announcing our birth. Actually, the picture we found was the one with the announcement that our mom was pregnant. I sat back and studied the pictures for a minute. The announcement referred to King Sebastien and Queen Havannah. I whispered the names out loud to myself. Our mother was beautiful, She looked like she was a tall lady - I'm guessing around 6'1, and she had long, beautiful blonde hair, and sparkling green eyes. Our father looked exactly like us - or should I say,  we looked exactly like him. He had short black hair and piercing blue eyes. 

  We got the librarian to let us make a couple of copies of the announcement/picture, and decided to take it back to Linda and see if she might have other pictures of them somewhere, maybe more updated than this almost nineteen year old picture. 

  We had just arrived at the house when Dave came running by us, shifting as he ran. 

  "Whoa!" I exclaimed. I hadn't seen him shift so fast before that, plus I was still getting used to seeing humans suddenly turn into wolves. "What's going on?"

  He jerked his big wolf head back towards the house, indicating that Linda would fill us in, and he took off running. 

  Jameson and I both hurried into the house, our curiosity practically bursting out of us. 

  Linda looked up as we came in. Seeing the looks on our faces, she said, "I take it you saw Dave on the way out?"

  We both nodded. "He let us know that we should ask you what's happening."

  She nodded. "We just got a mind link a couple minutes ago. Four of our she-wolves were found dead in the woods. It looks like they were attacked by rogues, and it was pretty brutal from what we heard. They're sending quite a few of our warriors to try to track them and take them down. It's so sad - these girls were only nineteen, and had their whole lives ahead of them. Now they're just gone. Napya - most of us just called her Nap - and her twin sister Anya, and then their two friends Veronica - we just called her Vee - and Leigh. I don't have the details just yet but when the Alpha mind linked us, he said it was pretty bloody."

  "Were they on pack property when it happened?" Jameson asked. 

  Linda shook her head. "I don't think so. From what Alpha Terrance said, they were found just a few yards outside of the territory."

  "Do you think there's anything we can do to help?" Jameson asked. 

  Linda shook her head again. "You guys can't shift yet, so I don't know if there would be anything you can do."

  "We can't shift, but we do still have some Lycan abilities," I pointed out. "Surely we could help out in some way."

  She looked thoughtful. "That's true. I'll link Dave and see what he thinks." Her eyes glazed over for minute, which is something I was still getting used to, and after a minute she refocused on us. "He says that there's no rogues currently in sight, although they can smell them all around the bodies, so Alpha Terrance said it's ok for the two of you to come there and see if there's anything you can do to help. I can shift and take you there. Kelly could use a chance to stretch her legs anyway."

  "Kelly?" I questioned.

  She smiled. "My wolf. It's been a couple of weeks since I shifted, and our wolves get antsy if we go much longer than that without shifting. From what Dave told me, you two shouldn't have a problem keeping up, even in your human forms. You ready?"

  We both nodded, and she grabbed a plastic bag out of the kitchen before leading us out the front door. We walked over to where the forest began nearby, and she instructed us to turn and face the other way while she shifted. We obliged, and I heard some rustling behind us as we stared off into the distance. Within just a couple minutes, I felt a cold nose nudging my hand, and turned to see a beautiful gray and white she-wolf with a plastic bag full of clothes tied to her leg. 

  "Wow, you're beautiful!" I exclaimed, and I swear she smiled. I didn't know wolves could smile. She jerked her head to the side, indicating that we should follow her, and the three of us took off through the trees.

  We ran for several minutes, easily keeping up with Linda/Kelly. I could smell the stench of death even before we saw the bodies of those poor girls, or the warriors who were investigating their deaths. 

  'How is it that I can already smell them, since they haven't been dead long enough to stink?' I asked Damien. I felt guilty, as I were being disrespectful just by asking, but I couldn't help it.

  'Your sense of smell is extremely heightened, as you already know,' he told me. 'Human can't smell it right away usually, but we usually can within just a couple of hours. It's both a blessing and a curse.'

  I understood what he meant. The heightened sense of smell would definitely be useful sometimes, but in cases like this, I wished I could turn it off.

  'I wish we could too,' Damien replied. 

  I had to force myself not to turn away when I saw the bodies of the girls. I looked at Jameson and noticed he was struggling too. But if we were princes, as I was pretty sure we were, I suspected we would have to deal with death on occasion - hopefully, rare occasions. 

  The girls had, by that time, been covered with blankets, but even the blankets couldn't hide the blood, as it had soaked through in several spots, and I caught a glimpse of one of the girls' faces as a warrior adjusted the blanket covering her. 

  Dave stepped out of the group of warriors milling around, and Linda, who had stepped behind a tree to shift and redress, greeted him with a hug. I saw the tears in her eyes as she greeted him.

  "Oh Dave, this is awful," she said mournfully. "They were so young! Have they found the rogues that did this?"

  He shook his head. "Not yet. Some of our trackers are following them, and Alpha Terrance and another group of warriors went with them. We're here to guard the bodies, in case they return."

  "Have their families been told?" she asked.

  He nodded sadly. "Luna Ana did that herself. She felt it was too impersonal to send warriors to tell them. They all lived near each other, so I'm sure she's told them all by now."

  Linda sighed. "I feel so sorry for them. I should probably reach out to Luna Ana and see if there's anything I can do to help them. If you boys don't mind, I'm going to head back now and do just that. I've seen more than enough here."

  Dave nodded. "That's fine, sweetheart. Thanks for helping Jonathan and Jameson find their way here. I'll see you at home."

  She kissed his cheek, gave Jameson and I each a quick hug, then turned and left. After she left, we turned to face Dave. 

  "So," Jameson said, "what can we do to help out?" 

  "We're mostly just trying to keep an eye, nose, and ear on the forest, to see if anyone is trying to approach that shouldn't be. I don't think they'll try to approach when they see all of us, but you never know. Some of these rogues aren't the brightest. Anyway, the morgue workers will be here later this afternoon to get the bodies. Alpha Terrance asked them to give us some time to investigate first."

  We walked around with Dave and the other warriors for a bit, mostly just circling the bodies in a huge circle. Some of them were in wolf form, others in human form. We'd probably been there close to an hour when one of the warriors in wolf form suddenly stopped in his tracked, his ears perked straight us. He sniffed the air, a low growl rumbling out of him as he did. Several others in wolf form immediately followed suit, and the ones in human form began to quickly undress and shift. I could hear the sound of a lot of paws hitting the ground, coming through the trees towards us, and an odd smell hit my nose. I later found out that was how rogue werewolves smelled. 

  "Rogues!" Dave told us as he tossed his clothes aside. "They're approaching fast! Can you two fight?"

  We both nodded, although I'm sure Jameson's heart was pounding as fast as my own. Dave completed his shift, and just as he landed on his four paws, about forty rogues burst through the trees, descended on the twenty warriors gathered there, and us. Even over the ruckus that caused, I heard a howl in the distance that Damien told me was an Alpha's howl. He later told me that was how the Alpha's way of letting his warriors know he was on his way back to them. Obviously one of them had mind linked him.

  As the rogues rushed towards us, I let instinct take over. One of them jumped at me, and I spun, causing him to barely miss me, and as he sailed by I was able to reach out and grab him by the neck. I gave him a quick shake, and felt his neck snap. I was horrified, as I'd never taken a life before, but I didn't have time to dwell on that. I slung the body aside and dove at a wolf that was about to jump on Jameson from behind. Jameson had his hands full, as he had his hands around the throat of one rogue already. I knocked the rogue that had attempted to jump him from behind onto his side, and gave him a fierce kick to the head. He yelped, but jumped back up immediately, snapping his teeth together in an attempt to bite my face, but I managed to dodge just in time. He dove at me again, and this time I managed to get my hands around his throat. I gave a quick, hard twist, and again felt the snap of a neck breaking. As I tossed the body aside, I looked over just long enough to see Jameson do the same with the rogue he'd been fighting. He turned to look back at me, and slung the body of the dead wolf at the wolf I hadn't sensed coming up from behind me. We nodded at each other in thanks, and dove back into the fray. We had each killed two or three more rogues when Alpha Terrance, in his wolf form, burst through the trees, followed by about fifty of his warriors. In no time at all, we had wiped out all but two of the attacking rogues, and Alpha Terrance ordered them to handcuffed and dragged away to the cells, to be interrogated later. 

  He and about half of the warriors shifted back into their human forms, and Alpha Terrance approached us with his hand outstretched. "Guys, I'm impressed," he told us. "You did amazing, and I can't thank you enough for helping us out like that. I've never seen such amazing fighting from a couple guys who haven't trained very much. Are you both ok?"

  We both nodded. We were covered in cuts and bruises, and we both needed to wash the blood, sweat, and dirt off of us, but we were physically ok. 

  "It might take a little time to process everything that just happened, but we'll be fine," Jameson told him. "That was super intense."

  "That's putting it mildly," I said in agreement. "And, you're welcome, by the way."

  "Battles are never easy, especially your first one," Terrance told us. "But thanks in part to you guys, we didn't lose any warriors today, and hopefully we've killed most of the rogues involved with the killings of our she-wolves."

  I glanced over at where the bodies still laid under the blankets. "I hope so," I told him. "Those girls deserve justice."

  He nodded. "Yes, they certainly do. I'll make sure they get it."

  Dave approached just then, and Alpha Terrance told him it was fine for him to lead the two of us back home. Before we did, I went over to where some wildflowers were growing and had somehow avoided being trampled in the fight. I carefully picked four of them, walked over to the bodies, and placed one flower at each of their feet. I don't know why, but it just felt right. 

  "May the Moon Goddess watch over and care for your souls," I whispered.