Chapter 18 - Ambush

When Caleb passed out chaos ensured in the field. His friends helped him get to the pack hospital while Ashton just watched from far. He wanted to follow them but he had to keep his cover safe. 

In the hospital after thorough examination they declared that Caleb was poisoned with wolfsbane. The injury was not severe and the amount of wolfsbane was very less which is why it took him longer to pass out.

The doctor also suggested that running around in the field like that helped spread the wolfsbane and did much more damage than it should have. While he was put on antidote, his recovery was still an uncertainty. 

His family rushed to the hospital when they heard the news. His father, the head Alpha, demanded an explanation for the incident, but the only one who knew about it was Caleb. When he found Matt he asked him hoping maybe Caleb told him something before he passed out.

"I have no idea, Sir". He told Mr. Wrisberg. "He showed up in the field bruised. I thought he got into some minor fight so I let him play. If I knew he had wolfsbane in his system I wouldn't have allowed him to play. He must have hidden his injuries with the football Jersey". Matt spoke in a hurried manner hoping to avoid trouble. 

"Mnn" Mr. Wrisberg didn't say anything further. He mostly kept wondering what could have happened. The rest of the time he kept wondering will Caleb be okay.

(Few hours ago)

Caleb was driving late to school since he woke up late. He was tired after patrolling the whole night so he finally gave in to sleep when it finally hit him this morning. He would have missed the whole day if it weren't for the tournament. He already let down the team so much, he couldn't disappoint them further.

He put on the song 'I am gonna be (500 miles) by proclaimers and drove with a little over the speed limit in the empty roads of the warm afternoon. Suddenly he found a huge tree blocking the road. While that won't be such a big surprise usually, given how it hadn't stormed for days, and it was not there the last time he drove, it seemed more that suspicious. 

He got down, and tried to check out the road. He pondered whether or not he should move it. The tree was too heavy to be lifted by just one man, but Caleb was a wolf. With his strength here could easily do it. Problem? What if a human comes by while he is lifting it. Not that it would change anything, they won't be able to prove that he is a werewolf just based on that. 

He finally decided to do it, and as soon as he touched the surface got fingers burned like it was put on a red hot iron. He recoiled his hand and stared ayyy the wood as he realized it had wolfsbane in it. 

He looked around the root of the tree to see any wolfsbane plant lying around. Not that out would matter, because a plant won't reach the height where Caleb touched it.

He was examining the things around it when he heard rustling of bushes. That caught his attention. He turned around abruptly to see two men standing there. He could make out that they were human, but their faces were hidden beneath. It made sense since those two wanted to ambush him. They were both almost as tall as Caleb, but had a much sturdier built.

Caleb adapted an alert stance as he got ready to fight them. He was sure if he was careful enough he could avoid getting attacked by wolfsbane and take them down by his strength itself. All he needed was proper tactics to win this fight.

One of the men tried to punch him but he caught his fist in the midway and twisted his own arm to cause pain. The other man attacked him soon enough as he saw an opportunity to take Caleb down. As both his hands were busy to keep the man in position, he felt outnumbered. 

To overcome it he threw the man he was holding onto the other man he was going to attack. They both fell down on the ground at the same time. Caleb looked around for an opportunity to escape but unfortunately he found none. 

Both of them attacked him at the same time and an intense fight amongst them ensured. The men turned out to be stronger than usual humans. It was a miracle that they managed to give a few bruises to Caleb given his tactics. 

Frustrated he growled at them as his eyes shone a lighter shade of blue and his canines grew in size. It was like his face morphed into mid transition for a moment. He had hoped that his scary face would catch them off guard, but when they didn't he remembered that those men knew who he was already. 

He knew that whatever weapon they were carrying must be loaded with wolfsbane to give him the final blow of death. He got more cautious and looked out for their hands in case they took it out. 

Those men overpowered him after fighting for a while, but he would not give up so easily. He tried removing their hands and in doing so, he tore the sleeves and it revealed a certain mark that only a few selected members of human's community have. They were the hunters.

The sightings of hunters weren't rare, but after a long time the wolves managed to live in peace with them, in exchange for not hurting any of the humans. Then why were they being attacked suddenly. 

All these thoughts flooded his mind which was enough to distract him and thus pushed him down. His skin over his abdomen on the right side started to burn. That's when he realized that his shirt was torn too and it was lying directly over a piece of log that belonged to that wolfsbane soaked tree.

He heard clanking of metals which could mean only one thing. The final blow was here. He closed his eyes and accepted his death as he had no options left. 

Suddenly a lot of howling noises distracted the three of them at the same time. The man tried to hurry and plunge his weapon into Caleb, but that moment of distraction was enough to make Caleb evade that and soon he flipped the tables. 

While he held down that man who was holding that claw like weapon, that other man punched Caleb hard and he fell down. The howls got louder and those two men made the run for it.

He breathed as he saw the direction they went into. His instincts dictated him to follow them, but he had also promised Matt that he would show up no matter what. He had already disappointed him too many times.

His abdomen was still burning a little so he looked down and saw tiny abrasions. Normally they would be healed by now, but the wolfsbane was slowing the process down. 

A strong familiar Alpha smell hit him so he quickly covered his abrasion and decided to talk to his brother.

"Are you alright "? His brother asked him while he gave him a tight hug.

"I am fine, they were almost about to kill me. Thanks for showing up". Caleb smiled at his brother through the pain.

"Of course, I would never ignore a distress signal. Especially the one that came from you". Christian patted his younger brother. Turns out Caleb alerted his brother by the app they had in their phones before he got out of his car. He had anticipated something like this beforehand. 

"You should go back home, get checked by the doctor". His brother suggested. 

"No, I am alright".  He sighed. "I have a match to play, so I will leave this to you" he patted twice. "They ran there". He pointed towards the direction and ran to his college.

His brother shifted and commanded the other wolves who came with him to follow him.  

Caleb on the other hand washed all his wounds as soon as he reached the locker room. While his injury didn't hurt anymore, it was still not healing yet. He changed into his Jersey and started playing the match.

His burn was back in the mid game and started to increase in intensity while he played. He wasn't sure if he would make it till the last minute, but he was himself surprised when he made the last goal. He felt too weak to move any further and soon everything went dark for him.