Chapter 1 - Help!!!

Declan lifted his right hand which was holding on to a couple bags filled with grocery to check his wrist for the time on his watch.

The watch read, 5:49 pm.

It was already the start of fall so he had an overcoat on to protect himself from the cool evening air.

He kept his eyes down as he made his way down a familiar street, ignoring the people that walked by him.

He had spent more than a year now in the small town of Oakwood and yet most of the citizens of the small town knew very little about him and he hoped to keep it that way.

His introverted nature had rebelled at settling down in a small town where everyone knew each other like an extended family but Oakwood town was different in the way that everyone left him to his antics.

They certainly were curious but he was grateful that they never acted on their curiosity.

To the citizens of Oakwood town, he was just an out of luck writer who spent all his time in the cottage close to the woods.

A shut-in who was easy on the eyes and looked like a foreigner.

He only knew these things because of Isla, his editor who had been trying to get him a date for months now but he kept turning her down.

She didn't seem like she was about to give up on him though, he wished she would.

Talking about her, she would be showing up soon to hound him about his most recent novel.

She was the only person he didn't mind but she was too much sometimes.

He took the path that led out of town and in the direction of the woods, there was a lonely path that he had to take to get to his cottage but he wasn't worried about getting jumped, he could handle himself perfectly.

There were a couple paths that branched off on this one, hikers took those paths because the one he was on stopped at his cottage.

He always had impeccable hearing so even though he wasn't paying attention, a strange sound caught his attention.

Declan stopped in his tracks, listening intently, it sounded like someone was getting mugged on one of the hike paths.

He frowned, even though he knew he could handle himself, he had never expected there to be cases of muggings.

It was a bit out of pocket for a picturesque little town like Oakwood.

It was none of his business though, he shrugged, continuing his journey.

The sound of sobbing stopped him in his steps again, he hated to but he couldn't just leave whoever it was to their own fate.

How would he sleep at night if he saw in the news that someone got murdered in the woods?

Even worse, were the suspicions that would rise against him if that were to happen.

There would be people combing through the woods, searching through his cottage, wanting to talk to him...

The mere thought of it made a cold shiver run through Declan.

Sighing longsufferingly, he dropped his grocery bags at the foot of a nearby tree, the bags would only restrict his movements.

He then went off in search of the sounds, whoever it was sounded like they were putting up a good fight but if they hadn't won by now, they were going to eventually fall victim to their assailant.

Declan had come up with a lot of mental images about what he would come to meet but what he actually saw was the last thing he could have ever thought of, actually, he couldn't have ever thought of it.

-*-

Faun couldn't believe he had fallen asleep but they had been on the move for more than a whole day now, not to mention that he hadn't eaten anything during that time.

Their makeshift Pack had to constantly be on the move or they would fall prey to the humans who were actively hunting them.

He had no idea where he was, the last thing he remembered was settling at the base of a tree trunk to get some rest, the others were doing the same.

He wasn't surprised that no one had bothered to wake him up, they were basically survivors of an unending war that was gradually wiping them out so there was very little sense of communion amongst them.

He was probably the last of his kind, he hadn't seen any other Fox hybrid among the others.

His parents were long dead, he couldn't remember how long, he had always been all by himself, alone.

Then he had bumped into a makeshift Pack of hybrids who were trying to sneak into the North, there were rumours that they would be safe there.

There was no guarantee but it was a far better choice than waiting to get killed off.

Someone had woken him up though, he had opened his eyes to find a strange human hovering over him.

His first thought was that he was going to die really soon but he slowly realised that not only did the human not know that he was a hybrid, he was trying to do something else.

He smacked the man across the face harshly, trying to kick him off when he tried to get his pants off.

Faun might have underestimated the strength of the human because he pinned his arms above his head with one hand, Faun's legs getting trapped under his legs as well.

A harsh cuff to his face, followed by the cruel human trying to choke him.

He gasped when his shirt was torn off, tears brimming in his big, soft green eyes when the human tried to kiss him.

He was terrified, all alone in a strange place with the last group of people that he could ever fit in with long gone and there was this human trying to do something strange to him.

He wasn't backing down though, struggling and fighting back.

Crying was a reflexive action because he didn't know how else to handle the situation he found himself in.

He had mostly lived away from people in general, hiding away in the woods so this was a first for him.