Bound

Worth It

ALEXI POV

The forest around me slowly came into focus, as bleary eyes blinked open to take in unfamiliar surroundings. Dry leaves rustled in a warm breeze, huge brown trunks of evergreen trees carpeted in moss surrounded me, and little beams of sunlight scattered patterns on the loamy floor.

Blood laced the air. Crusted with a rusty tang that spoke of how long it had been since it was shed. Hours. No less than six. No more than nine.

I reached up to rub my eyes and hold my aching head, but found thick restraints barring my hands. They also happened to be barring every other part of my personage from neck to ankle. Binding me wholesale to a magnificently large pine tree.

I struggled against restraints, squirming in an undignified manner, spouting profanities like an overheated tea kettle. The bark chafed at my back, and with each movement the restraints seemed to cut more tighty into bare skin. Because, of course, who would take the trouble to clothe a man before binding him upright to a tree. That was a special kind of 'fuck you'.

Some indeterminable amount of time later, rationality had the chance to slither into a crack in the wall of my insanity. It murmured in a quiet voice - that requires one to lean in to hear it's tones - that this course of action didn't seem to be very effective. In the space it took to inhale deeply and mentally adjust; Three oil slick intertwined voices linked me and told me to calm down. They were happy, satisfaction radiating over the lines of communique. They told me that the Alpha would come and deal with me when she was good and ready.

Alpha Claire? What happened last night? There is so much blood on the air.

No reply.

I tried to link Becky, or any of my pack, but came up against the same infuriatingly slippery wall as last night. The gaping void inspired panic more than my current physical circumstances; It was the first and only time in my life where reaching into the expense of my mind proffered a single strain of thoughts.

Alone.

This was serious. I could be in some serious trouble. I tested the restraints again, they were strong thick hemp ropes. For any other creature this level of restraint would be overkill, for me, well it may be slightly understated if anything.

For I was not most wolves.

There was a underlying pattern to the distribution of tension, and if I used the small muscles to shift infetismal amounts in just the right pattern...then they would begin to slacken around my form. With a lack of any other course of action available, I set to the twitching dance choreographed for escapism. A litany of madness garbled in a panic stricken voice about Claire in the back of my mind, and served to act as a distorted rhythm for the dance.

With time came the knowledge that in a few short breaths, and a full body shudder, then the application of my brute strength would eventuate in freedom. So I breathed. I shuddered. I bunched muscles that longed to be put to violent use and...

"I have been trying to think of something witty to say, but there is nothing I can think of that would do justice to...this." A windchime voice lilted across the space between us, breaking my concentration.

Claire emerged from behind a tree and waved a fat knife at my predicament to indicate the 'this' part of her statement.

My heart leapt to my throat, the garbled voice silenced, and a stuttering flame of relief burned through my chest. It was a relief so powerful my knees buckled, and my ego was suddenly quite happy that my physical body was restrained.

She was ok. My eyes drank in every detail, searching her body up and down for signs of injury. But she looked unscathed in her silky wrap around dress.