Proven Heart

Fifteen: Luck

It was all not simple.

No matter how many times Selena wanted to convince herself, fighting with Aurora wasn’t the piece of cake everyone would hope for. Despite the wolf being pregnant, she still could kick and jump.  

She held the hilt of her dagger and ran past the towering trees, nervous but undeterred.

“Come on Selena,” William bellowed, a mocking mask spread across his face as he run away from her.

Adrenaline surged in her depths, a calling to run pushed her beyond her limits.

The wolf within her did not like losing, its canines bared, its claws ready to come out at her will. She used all of her strength to stop it from coming out.

“You can’t shift,” he says. “Control yourself.”

His comment only made things worse for her. Her patience had worn thin, frustrated that she couldn’t catch up to him. In her rage-fueled state, all that her headspace could muster was one cheap trick.

She slid under a fallen tree trunk, held up by two massive, moss-covered boulders, and snatched a pebble from the ground, sending it flying through the air.

The small piece of sediment whizzed past William, causing him to turn recklessly and hit a tree. His body hitting the hard oak and the ground made two loud thuds, something that caused Selena to smile victoriously as she jogged towards him.

“Got you,” she smugly announced, bending down to him and tapping his shoulder.

“Did you, did you just throw a rock at me?”

William remained on the ground, hissing in pain.

“Correction, it was a pebble. And pebbles aren’t rocks.”

She replied.

He huffed, turning himself upright, and stood.

“You think Aurora will appreciate you throwing rocks at her?” His brow raised.

She snorts.

“You can throw rocks at her, too.”

“I wish,” he drawled. “As much as I want to, my aiming prowess sucks balls.”

Selena only shrugged, remembering the moment she and William were at a shooting range. The wolf didn’t manage to get one bullet into the paper target. Although to his credit, he wasn’t a gun enthusiast, but more of a knife expert.

He dusted himself up, muttering something under his breath.

“Selena, you need to improve. Aurora’s a quick runner and I can guarantee you, she’s planning something for us.”

She squared her jaw, silently agreeing with William.

“But there must be something we can do,” she said. “We know we can’t brute force our way into this.”

“Yup,” the wolf sighs. “Unless some miracle happens, Aurora’s going to be a tough nut to beat.”

“Well, we can’t rely on miracles. What we can expect are traps or wolves working for her.”