Fire in Her Eyes - Charlie Weasley

Chapter 8 - Wild

The rest of the week went by quickly for her. She was able to get her Fire Mite potion finished and kept the burn salve stable. She was even almost finished with the hangover cure. She loved having the entire potions lab to herself. She was able to get so much work done. She was also very thankful that tomorrow was Friday. The burn salve needed a full 72 hours to rest, which meant she had until Sunday morning to rest and relax.

She grinned at Chelsea as she walked into the headquarters, "Morning!"

"Morning," the blonde smiled back. "Charlie wants to see you in his office."

Kai's grin faltered as her stomach dropped. Was he going to fire her? She racked her brain trying to think of anything she might have done wrong, but came up empty. He had barely spoken to her since Tuesday night behind her house. "Do you know what about?"

Chelsea shrugged, "He didn't say. Just to tell you to come see him first thing when you got in." Kai saw the apprehension on her face, but just nodded in response.

She lifted her chin, trying to project confidence that she didn't feel and headed toward Charlie's office. Knocking on the door to his office, she waited for him to tell her to enter.

"Come in," his deep voice didn't give any indication to what this conversation would be about. Opening the door, she took a step into the office, taking a deep breath to calm her nerves. Looking up from the paperwork on his desk, he nodded for her to take a seat. "We are going to go to Bucharest tomorrow. How are your apparation skills?" He folded his hands together, resting his forearms on his desk.

Kai let out a breath of relief. She wasn't fired yet. "I'm not the best," she looked down at her hands as she took a seat.

"Ok, I'll take us then," his voice perfectly professional. "It shouldn't take long to get everything needed, but I would like to leave here as soon as you arrive tomorrow."

"Yes sir," she really wanted to be able to explore the city, but didn't think it would be wise to bring it up at the moment. "How long will we be gone?" she hedged the question, trying to determine if there was a possibility of seeing the city, even for a few hours. She had truly come to enjoy traveling over the years, and she'd heard wonderful things about Bucharest.

"We should be back by the evening," Charlie paused, "Unless you want to stay the night?"

Kai smirked at his choice of words as he closed his eyes, realizing how it sounded. "I don't think that would be very appropriate, sir," she teased, eyes sparkling with mischief.

"No," he coughed awkwardly, "I just, um, thought you might like to see the city. We could get separate rooms and just come back Saturday." He scratched the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable. She wasn't sure if he had felt the same heat between them since they met, but realized it didn't matter. From what she could tell of him, he was all business. He took a lot of pride in running the sanctuary and his position. She didn't think he would cross that line, even if he felt the same magnetic pull that she did.

Kai laughed, enjoying the confident man fumbling. It was a rare sight to see. "I would actually love to spend the night," she murmured, "Separate rooms of course." She winked at her boss before turning around and going into her office.

She sat down and started looking over patient charts. She had been spending the past few days splitting her time between working on potions and going over patient charts. She wanted to familiarize herself with the people of the town. She wanted to be prepared for anything.

She made sure to grab lunch at the mess hall, but ate her desk. After lunch, she headed to the lab to work on the potions and headed to dinner. She was tired and feeling a little on edge, so she took her food to go again and went home to eat.

Kai sat at her table and ate her food. She had been feeling antsy all day. To be fair, she hadn't done any kind of work out all week. While she wasn't someone who worked out daily, she had always been active with her animal friends. She pursed her lips and slammed her fork down. She had done nothing but work and come home all week. She deserved to have a little fun, even if it was risky. She made sure to lock the door and open the window, then went to her bedroom and stripped her clothes off. She took a moment to close her eyes and slow her breaths and thought about changing the shape her nose, enhancing her sense of smell, changing her vision, and before could take another breath, she was standing on four paws in her bedroom.

She wagged her tail in excitement and leapt out of her low window. She made sure to stick to the shadows so that no one would see her, and then called out to Duke and Rigo to see where they were at.

She heard howling and followed the sounds at a run, stretching her legs for the first time in what felt like forever. She yipped with the pups. Pack! All as one! You are Wild. They took off running just for the joy of it. The two pups showed her around the sanctuary to all their favorite places. Kai loved this way of getting to know the area. And she had the best tour guides.

This always smells interesting, Duke showed her to some bushes. She sniffed the air and Duke was right. It smelled... sparkly? She sharpened her eyesight and saw a shimmer to the air. She couldn't tell the color, since dogs can't see in color. She briefly changed her eyesight to an owls, feeling a little disoriented, dropped her mental shield so she could see magic, and quickly looked. It was the barrier to the dragon area, a strong, shimmering red. Kai looked left and right, smelling the wind both ways.

How far does it go?  She asked the pups, changing her eyes back to canine ones and immediately felt better. It was sometimes incredibly uncomfortable to be two different creatures.

All around the buildings. Come on, so much more to see! They continued on for a bit, showing her all the areas surrounding the town that would take her twice the time to walk as a human. Eventually Kai regretfully bid the pups goodbye and began to return home. As she ran up the path, she saw Charlie walking to his house. She tried to get to the bushes, but he turned around and they locked eyes for a moment, before she darted off the path and raced back to her house.

She cleared the window, and quickly thought about all of the things that make her human, returning to her human body, fully nude, heart racing. Damn it. She could only hope that he didn't really get a good glimpse of her. She knew that was risky. She sighed and got dressed quickly. She knew eventually people might find out, but she wasn't ready for that yet.

Kai sat down, famished, and finished her dinner before crawling into bed. Gus, her tom cat that usually slept with her, wasn't there and she fell into a fitful sleep.

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~M

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