AND THEN I WOKE UP

26 FEBRUARY, FRIDAY, WARLOCK TIME

"Sam. Sam, wake up." I heard Ben's voice in my ear.

Eh? What? My eyes flew open and I sat up. Ben let go of my shoulder and put a finger to his lips, "Shhh..."

What? I looked around and realized that I was back. In the sweltering tropical jungle of the Warlock's Tower. Geesh! Why? I hadn't even gotten the chance to soak in my bath! T.T And now that I could smell again, it was quite evident that I needed one. My only comfort was that Ben didn't smell any better.

"What time is it?" I squinted up at the artificially lit sky.

"Not yet 10." Ben answered, "River just snuck out of camp. We sent Cobra to follow him. What do you wanna do now?"

Then Ben frowned, "Were you dream travelling?"

He leaned back in to sniff, I pushed his face away, "Let's go."

I had to hand it to the special team. Indeed professional warriors were different! They packed up and left very quickly. Like normally, at the end of our camping trips, we'd have to put out the fire and cover it, take down the tents, pack our bags, dispose of the leftover food... And then attend a debrief. Thus we'd take the whole morning to break camp. But my special team did all that, skipped the debrief, and we were off in 10 minutes.

Cobra had left tracking marks for us to follow. It was the standard code I recognized, but instead of chalk, Cobra had carved them in the tree bark or a simple arrangement of sticks on the ground. These clear tracks coupled with what I could only credit to River's own slowness helped us to catch up in no time at all.

Like seriously, it was like quick run to the packhouse kitchen to borrow a cup of sugar.

I didn't even have a chance to tell Ben and Ki about the war back home.

"The trail stops here." Barry informed us. He was taking the lead since he was the closest thing we had to a local guide.

Cobra dropped out of a nearby tree to greet us, "Shhh...."

"Report." Ben ordered.

"Cobra's voice was quiet and urgent, "Target down, 15 paces away. Not alone."

Wait, what do you mean down? And... I looked around to make sure Wilhelm and Keanu were still with us. They were. So who else could River be with?

But of course, our wolves quietened immediately. Not having our mindlink abilities sucked. We were too close to our "target" to discuss our next plan of action.

It's not that I think River would notice, but I didn't know who or what River was with. Could it be that Fount decided to come down personally to receive his stone after all?

Whatever it was, there was no time to stand here guessing, the sooner we got to River, the sooner we'd know.

My lucky sense of direction was rearing to go. I let Boo out a little because I remembered she had been rather reassuring to have on the surface while at Jude's pack. Usually, I liked to be in full control - but there were times such as these when I felt safer to be able to move before I think. Boo had very good instincts.

I'd just have to assume my wolves would be able to follow my lead, even without any mindlinks or prior instructions. I did give the hand action for "Move out." I didn't do it obviously enough, only my betas saw. Ben repeated the signal for the others. I made sure to raise my arm higher when signaling after that.

Anyway, 15 paces wasn't far. I flanked around the trees, keeping to the shadowed parts. Eventually, I stopped where we had a good view of River sitting on the ground. He was holding his ankle.

"Hurry up! The wolves are coming!"

It took me a moment to locate the speaker, a small brown creature that had spoke from a nearby branch.

"Its really a squirrel." I whispered under my breath. A squirrel with a small clear warlock crystal around its neck.

"Its a tree shrew, alpha." Barry whispered back.

Oh. It looked like a squirrel with a scrawny tail to me, but I'd just go with whatever the local guide said.

"This is bad. Hurry up." The tree shrew was jittery, "Why are you so slow? Hurry up and heal yourself! We still have a chance."

"Heal myself?" River blinked.

"Yes. Don't you know anything? Use the stone and heal yourself!" The tree shrew was losing its patience, "Hurry!"

This tree shrew was almost as impatient as Ben. Hahaha.

"Can I do that?" River asked.

"Of course!" The tree shrew snapped, "Why would I tell you to do it otherwise?"

"Ah. I suppose..." River gave it some thought, and then he decided, "Well, it wouldn't hurt to try."

The tree shrew glanced furtively at our direction. Did it see us?

"Hurry!" It urged the boy. River struggled a little to get up, his stone glowed and he floated for a moment before landing back on his feet.

"Oh." River tested his weight on his feet now, "It worked."

"Yes, yes, didn't I say it would? Now hurry, boy! We have not a moment to lose." The tree shrew sounded like a grumpy old man.

I didn't like the tree shrew. I know Mum always told me not to be quick to judge, "You never know, he might just be having a bad day, or be struggling internally, or running late for something important."

I had thought it was very unfair, everyone else was allowed to have bad days and excuses for being rude except for us because we were the Alpha's daughters.

This tree shrew was kind of rude. I mean, it was cute (although my hamster Lucky was cuter), but I didn't like the way it was talking at my friend.

The tree shrew jumped to the next branch, "Hurry! There is a secret path just up ahead."

"Why don't you want the wolves to come?" River asked.

"No... the wolves would ruin everything." The tree shrew answered, "You don't know anything. Hurry, this way."

River didn't move from where he was standing, "The wolves are my friends."

"Yes, so you keep saying." The tree shrew grumbled, "Do you want to save them or not?"

"Why would they die if they came?" River asked.

"Why do you have to ask so many questions, boy?" The tree shrew threw its little paws up in exasperation, "Just shut up and follow me."

"No." River decided, "Tell me what would happen to my friends."

"Nothing. If you bring the stone to the warlock, everything will be fine." The tree shrew said.

The tree shrew sure knew a lot for a small jungle mammal.

River was still undecided, "How do I know I can trust you?"

"Oh! You brat!" The tree shrew lost it then, stamping its tiny foot on the branch, "Why can't you just do what I say?"

I think the better question was, "Why must River do what the tree shrew said?"

Although River was weak and troublesome, the tree shrew was really just the size of a squirrel and except for the small piece of crystal around its neck, totally unmagical and ordinary. Surely River could easily subdue it.

"Game time." I had to be careful to keep my voice low and instructions short to avoid detection, "First to catch the tree shrew wins."

"Hoi hoi!" EJ jumped out of the bushes and dashed forwards.

I face palmed. Seriously? He just gave away our position!

I looked around and realized only Ki, Keanu, and Wilhelm were left. Ki smiled and shrugged, "This should only take a moment."

"Quick, brat! This way if you want to save your friends!" The tree shrew bounded away.

"Wait! You didn't explain yet!" And River gave chase.

Don't just follow strange (and rude) creatures into the forest!

"Wait River!" Wilhelm got up and gave chase to stop him.

"Ah," Keanu smiled and shifted closer to me, "Don't mind if I just wait with you."

Who said I was going to just wait here?

"I got it!" EJ crowed!

Okay, that was totally unexpected. I meant, that EJ caught it. Of course I knew one of them would catch the tree shrew easily enough. I had seen these guys hunt.

"That wasn't fair!" Torque argued, "I was about to get it."

"Blame yourself for being slow." EJ taunted.

"That..." Torque was about to argue when there was an explosion.

"EJ!" That was Fluffy.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" That was EJ.

"Hn," Ki stopped smiling, "That doesn't sound good."

Torque bashed through the forest thicket, with Fluffy in his arms and the other wolves on his heels.

"Keys! Help!" Barry called, "Fluffy got hurt."

Torque put Fluffy down in front of us and Ki began to glow, "The rest of you too, gather around."

"Fluffy got the brunt of it because he kicked the tree shrew out of EJ's hand and away from the rest of us." Barry explained.

Okay. It didn't look that bad. Most of the damage was on Fluffy's boot and pants. His feet were actually pretty okay since his bloodline power was heat. The others suffered varying degree of burns, but under Ki's glow, their wounds were quickly repairing. I heaved a sigh of relief.

"What about the tree shrew?" I asked.

"The tree shrew exploded itself." Torque reported.

Could tree shrews do that?

"It is very probable that the piece of crystal around its neck allowed the warlock to control it, and also cause it to self destruct upon capture." Ink said, "Further analysis required."

That's okay. It's not like we could get you another talking tree shrew to analyze.

"And River and Wilhelm?" I asked.

"No idea about the prince. But Wilhelm is probably with him." Ben said.

I looked around, I had another wolf missing, "What about Cobra?"

And then like magic, Cobra dropped down from the trees in front of me, "I found the secret path! Prince River has gone on it. Wilhelm sends word. He will follow his prince. Please come ASAP. He fears the Warlock is up to no good. Shhh..... "

"Hurry and heal! We need to go!" Did that make me sound like a tree shrew? I did my best to correct that, "Hurry please!"

"Let's go first." Ben decided, "Leave the guys here with Ki."

"I'm coming with you." Ki stopped glowing.

"Yes, just leave us to here to die." Fluffy agreed with his masked smile, "You must keep our princess alive at all cost."'

"Stop being melodramatic." Ki scolded, "You're fine. Although some of you would need to rest for a while."

"Stop yapping and start stepping, Ki." Ben pushed me forwards to go, "Cobra lead the way. The rest of you wait here for us."

"Yes, Beta!" Suddenly everyone was on their feet again.

"Take care of each other." I worried about leaving these fools here.

"Don't worry, Alpha." Barry gave me a wide smile and stuck out his thumb, "You can leave things here to me."

Torque thumped him hard across the back, "Don't talk like we are depending on you."

Fluffy smiled and waved, "Bye bye, Alpha. We will wait for your..."

Ben pushed me away before Fluffy could finish his sentence and we were off on our way.

"When I see the warlock, I'm going to kill him." Ben muttered under his breath as we trekked through the endless jungle.

"You're already said that, like a hundred times!" I told my beta, "After you kill him once, I don't think you can hurt him anymore."

"You're right." Ben agreed surprisingly quickly, "Dog, when we see the warlock, make sure you heal him so he won't die too quickly."

Ki smiled, "I'm sure the warlock would survive you without my assistance, beta"

Of course this cheesed Ben off, "Don't look down on me, dog. I WILL KILL HIM."

"As long as he doesn't kill you." I told my childhood friend, "I don't really care anymore."

I was seriously sick of the old warlock's games.

Cobra stopped in front of a door. Oh, we had reached the end of the second floor.

"Shhhh...." He said.

"Good job, Cobra." I told him. I reached out for the door.

"Let me, Sam." Ben pushed the door open in my stead. Ki stepped forward to shield me in case something nasty should pop up. I wasn't too worried though. If there was indeed a trap waiting for us, Boo would had sensed it. I stepped into the coolness of the stone stairway. Ah... it was nice to get out of the humidity!

As expected, there wasn't anything here, just stairs spiraling for miles up. River and Wilhelm were no where in sight though. I checked and picked up their scents at the doorway. They had just passed through here, but I was pretty sure they cheated! There was no way River would've gone far on these stairs. I didn't have to be a genius to figure out that this had to be another one of those annoying and benign traps to keep us wolves walking or in this case, climbing literally around in circles.

"I'm going to kill him." Ben swore again.

"Please beta, if the warlock heard you, we might never see the end of those stairs." Ki warned with a gentle smile.

"How would he..." And then Ben growled, "S***, he's been watching us all this while, hasn't he?"

"So it would seem." Ki's smile was unwavering, "Although I've found no signs of bugs, we are definitely being monitored."

What did he mean "no signs of bugs"? Did he not notice the swarms of mosquitoes and enough creepy crawlies to shoot a full horror film? And then I realized Ki meant "bugs" as in the kind of stuff in spy movies. Oh. #ihatewarlocklands

"Cobra, return to camp, and if the guys are sick of the jungle, bring them to camp on the stairs." I instructed. The temperature was definitely far more comfortable - like air conditioning on a summer's heatwave.

"Shhhh...." Cobra bowed and disappeared like a mist.

Okay, let's go face the warlock or whatever it was awaiting on top of these stairs.

I turned back to my two betas and grinned, "Firstly, let me tell you how glad I am you're with me! Secondly, our pack has been attacked by a rogue army."

Their faces! Priceless! Hahaha.

"Let's go." I smiled, only too happy to leave this jungle behind, "I'll tell you about it on the way up."