I'd Lose My Wolf For You || Wolfblood (Robyn x Katrina)

chapter 6 - driving force

chapter summary: On the road and on foot, Katrina and Jana set out after Robyn, who has just awoken to a blurry haze of darkness and pain.
word count: 1732

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It had been purely a gut reaction, the howl, and perhaps one she would have regretted far more had the pain not been so excruciating. Regaining conciousness felt like a mistake, as Robyn awoke to a world of agony unlike anything she'd experienced before, made even worse by two blatant facts that revealed themselves to her the moment the outlines of the dark forest began to swim into view:

1) The sharp burst of pain had not only knocked her unconscious, but flung her out of her wolf form like a catapult, weakening her body to the point that she found herself sprawled out in the foliage, gangly human arms and legs cast out at all sides. The strength to shift back into the wolf was nowhere to be found, so worryingly lost that in a moment of pure panic, she wondered if it would evem be possible to transform again, and even with all the strength she could muster, she managed nothing more than an intermittent flickering of a yellowish hue in her eyes, flittering like a broken lightbulb.

2) And worse, she could not move.

Wincing, she scrabbled around in the leaves for something to hold onto to pull her body along, to free herself from the cage-like confinment of being trapped in such a vulnerable state, but her attempt resulted in only fistfuls of dry leaves, a pair of muddy palms, and the aching throughout her body to be amplified more than she thought possible. The entire right side of her body felt seized up, the patches that weren't slightly numb were burning with pain, as if she'd been dragged through broken glass and cast aside to lie in a bed of the jagged shards. She whimpered as her arms gave way, collapsing once more, refusing to let herself cry but feeling far too close to letting those desperate tears fall than she ever would have wanted to be.

Everything felt so futile, so painfully pointless. She couldn't even work out what had happened either, what hellish path she had strayed down to progress from then to this, an agonising mess of herself. With her vision whirling and pulsating with every slow blink, she could hardly even make out the dark outlines and shadows of everything around her. Smelling the air brought only the sickening scent of her own blood, a realisation of how dire the situation seemed to be making her gag. Listening out proved to also be useless, as the rushing of the blood in her ears and her thumping heart beat battled and won against all other sound. Running her tongue around her mouth, which felt uncomfortably dry, neighbouring a hoarse throat, she tasted something bitter and unpleasant that she couldn't identify.

All of her senses were replaced by her feelings, feelings that battled their way to the very surface of her conciousness and shoved all else to the side; triumphant, pure, inescapable pain, and worst of all, desperation.

So yes, she thought, grumbling as she attempted putting weight on her leg, barely pushing herself onto her hands and knees before collapsing rather pathetically once more, a despairing, last attempt at an escape, the howl was the somewhat justified though, ever-decreasing as the seconds drawled by, regrettable, final resort that she had come to. She just hoped she wouldn't regret it too much.

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Katrina was always a very careful driver. Overly, unnecessarily careful, some of her friends would say, with varying degrees of (sometimes) light-hearted irritation.

If avidly retaining a habit of driving at half the speed limit, letting people cross the road when there was no crossing or green light, and performing regular, thorough checks on the mirror and seatbelts made you even mildly frutrated, then a drive with Katrina would probably leave you angry enough to grab the wheel from her and swerve directly into the nearest tree.