Thorn (Werewolf) ✔

Chapter Eighteen

THORN

I start to slow down when I hear Devon waking up. Her pale face starts cringing and her hand softly taps against my chest. It's around another mile until we reach the camp and we have enough time until the sun sets.

"Ugh. I should have known that you'd abduct me."

I smile down at her. "Are you okay? Are you in pain?"

"I need to pee."

I don't know why I look around first but I check all directions before I tip her to the ground. She stumbles for a moment and holds a hand to her head.

"How long have I been sleeping for?"

"Six hours," I say.

"Those drugs are hardcore." She yawns and rubs her eyes with one hand before heading behind a bush.

I circle around some trees while I wait for her to return. It takes her a while, mainly because she's only got one arm that is working correctly. I can't tell her just how sensitive my sense of smell is but I've travelled at least twenty feet from where she left me. I can still smell it no matter where I am. I've never been a fan.

She wanders back and finds me gone. Her eyes look around in confusion before she sees me and slowly makes her way over.

"You didn't have to wait so far over here," she says amusingly. "I'm not that bothered if you accidentally look."

"That really wasn't the reason," I say. "Are you okay to walk?"

"I haven't fallen over yet."

She observes the top of her arm as we walk, becoming fascinated by the small hole through it. She's slowing me down but I don't complain, out loud anyway. I keep glancing at my watch, we only have a few hours until sunset. How do I explain to her that I have to leave her again? What if she wakes up in the night and tries to search for me like she did the night she was shot?

I had to drag her across the ground by her ankles just to stop her without hurting her. I know that I need to try and explain what's going on but keeping our secret safe from humans has always been my kind's number one priority. It was drilled and conditioned into Kiara and I since we were children.

I trust that Devon wouldn't run and tell anyone but there's no way to know how she'd truly react or how any human would react if they saw the transition with their own eyes. I doubt that anyone would even believe her but if the humans already suspect that something isn't right with these woods then it might be the fuel to start a hunt.

I am all she has in the world and the last thing that I want is for her to be afraid of me but inevitably that is what's going to happen. This curse has taken everything from me and it'll take her too.

"So how long until you throw me away to fend for myself?" she says as she swipes a few leaves from a bush. She picks them apart as she drifts behind me.

I sigh. I was fooling myself to think that I could actually let her go. I wasn't planning on leaving her alone completely. After finding her shelter, I would have stayed close, watching her for however long she needed me to even if she didn't know about it. But then how is this any different to that? They'll find us together no matter what I decide to do.

She can't go home. I know that much. I heard her tell the hunter to shoot her the other night rather than be captured by him so I know that she'd choose death before ever leaving these woods. The thought of her being harmed makes my stomach sting uneasily. I replay the moment I attacked Lyle over and over in my head and it still doesn't feel like enough. His screams might have been enough, violation of his body like he violated hers would have been enough.