Gemma
Gemma got off the plane and grabbed her bags. Well over five and a half feet tall, she stood out among the crowd. She looked enough like the amazingly beautiful actress Scarlett Johansson that people sometimes stopped her and asked her for an autograph. Not only was that embarrassing, but it was dangerous since the only thing she wanted was to go unnoticed.
She felt eyes on her, boring into her back and staring straight at her face. She hoped it was nothing more than paranoia and exhaustion. Gemma hoped with all her soul that she had time to get her bearings and make a new plan. However, the chills that roamed her body, touching every nerve, told her she had to be very careful.
With her birthday coming soon, the wolves were trying even harder to take her captive and prepare her for the sacrifice. Wolf shifters were going to be coming out of the woodwork.
After what seemed like an eternity, she got a room at a popular hotel with her new identity. She figured that she would color her hair and maybe even cut it after she took a nap. She was so tired. Her eyelids were heavy, and she could barely hold them open.
As soon as she got into the room, she checked the closet, under the bed, the shower, and every other place she could think of that a wolf shifter could hide. She locked the door and pushed a chair under the doorknob to keep people out – she hoped.
Then she dropped onto the bed and fell immediately into a deep sleep.
She didn’t hear the slight scratching noises at first. Then, when there was a loud thump against the door of the hotel room, she bolted upright in bed, on full alert. Looking at the clock, she saw she’d only gotten about a half-hour of sleep.
The door flew open and hung crooked, partially ripped away from the wall. There stood five huge men.
“Gemma. Please make this easy on yourself,” one of the men said.
“No, Thaddeus. I’m not going to let the clan sacrifice me for some make-believe moon goddess that most of you don’t even believe in anymore,” she answered.
The smallest of the men gasped. “Watch what you say. You will anger the moon goddess, and she will bring death and destruction down on all of us. We have to sacrifice you because you are the white wolf, and you belong to her. You will be immortal,” he said.
“Jamie, do you really believe that?” she asked her cousin. “Besides, are you really willing to allow them to tie me down to a slab of marble and cut my heart out to appease a goddess who has done nothing for the clan for centuries – if she even exists?”
“We are under orders,” Thaddeus said. “Let’s just go.”
“No,” Gemma said, her eyes darting from each of the five men standing in the doorway. Jamie sighed heavily, and Thaddeus nodded to the others. They surrounded her.
Gemma was glad there were only five. She had been fighting her entire life, which meant she was able to hold her own, especially in human form. They couldn’t shift because they were surrounded by humans.
The other thing to her advantage was that they really couldn’t hurt her. She had to be fit for the goddess. If she was damaged, especially in a way that wouldn’t let her heal in enough time to be in perfect condition by her twenty-fifth birthday, then their heads would roll.
They pounced, all at once. Two of them grabbed her from behind and held her arms back, which was exactly what she wanted. She used them as leverage and lifted her legs, and kicked Thaddeus in the face with every bit of muscle she had. A loud crack and a huge rush of blood told her she had broken his nose. Jamie stood next to him, and before he could even register what she was doing, she kicked both of his knees, breaking them.
She twisted slightly and rammed the back of her head into the man’s throat that held her right arm. Gasping for air, he let her go.
Gemma tripped and fell. The man holding her left arm fell with her. She ripped a huge chunk of flesh out of the side of his neck, making him scream as blood spurted everywhere.
The last of the men looked at her warily as she jumped to her feet. As he lunged at her, Gemma’s knee caught him in his groin, and he dropped like a ton of bricks. Grabbing the bag that held pictures of her parents and a couple of other important items, she left, leaving behind the other bag with her clothes.
She always wore a fanny pack with plenty of cash and different identifications. She never took it off, even when she was sleeping. This wasn’t the first time the wolf shifters had surprised her when she was trying to rest.
The noise had attracted a lot of attention, so Gemma was able to slip away from the chaos without being noticed. She could hear Thaddeus yelling in the background to go get her, but none of the men were in any kind of condition to move very far.
As it was, they would have to talk their way out of being taken to the hospital because human doctors wouldn’t be able to help wolf shifters. Their bone structure, and everything else, was completely different, and the humans would figure out they were not like mundane humans. That would give away the secret that shifters existed.
Now that she was free, where could she go?
