Of Blood and Duty

Chapter Fifteen • Trust

Hi friends! I just want to put in a quick note that if there is any errors in this chapter, I will blame it all on the fact that I am getting MARRIED on Saturday and my mind is all over the place with last minute prepping! I also want to apologize because the chapter is of the shorter nature!

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this chapter even though my scatter brain might have been present while writing it! Sorry for any errors in advance, once the wedding is past I will of course go in and proofread once more and fix any mistakes I might have made! Thank you for your patience!

-Loren- 

"Did you hear me?" Mae hissed in his ear when she got no reply. She gave him a not so gentle push when he did not respond this time either. "Hey? Are you still here?" She asked and did a discreet wave in front of his face with her right hand. 

Where is Jade? Did he kill her? Dump her somewhere before getting himself captured? I need to speak to him. Loren's jaws were clenched, his teeth grinding against each other while his eyes were locked onto the deserter. He heard every word coming out of Mae but was not listening. The hand moving in his face was nothing more than a dark shadow as he stared the man down. Burning with hatred and an indescribable urge to kill him with his bare hands. 

Suddenly, the air in his right lung was ruthlessly forced out of him. He wheezed and crouched over while Mae's elbow was calmly retracted from his right side. 

"Get. It. Together."  She ordered him darkly but barely audibly. "Someone will notice." 

Loren looked up at her and swallowed the loud groan of pain that wanted to claw its way out of his body. He was just about to growl something about inflicting pain onto others was her biggest talent and joy in life but Evor spoke before he managed to. 

"Explain." Evor grunted at Hagan. Loren recognized the tone from the one that Mae had faced outside of his burrow. However, this tone revealed that Evor was not demanding an explanation for himself. He already knew whatever it was that he wanted Hagan to say. 

"Found him hiding in some bushes on our way out." Hagan began, turned and grabbed the man by his shirt and pulled him in front of himself. Putting the man in the center of everyone's attention. "He was trying to stay unseen by guards on the road... peaked my interest." He mused before giving his prisoner a push back to where he had first stood. Between him and the woman from his pack. 

"Why is he here?" Mae called out. Her twin's eyes found her at lightning speed and seemed to try and annihilate her on sight. "Why did you bring him here?" Some of the others chimed in with Mae and demanded an answer for why yet another stranger had been brought into their midst. 

"He can provide us with information about future raids." Hagan replied, putting on a patient face in order to make him look like the bigger person of the two of them. "Dear sister." He added condescendingly. "Unlike the one you brought here..." He chuckled. No amusement detectable in his voice. "... this one could actually be of use... and not take up a bed and eat our food." He droned on and waved towards his own contribution to the flock.

"That's enough." Evor grunted. "We all know that you don't get along with your sister or that you don't like the lad very much." He muttered without looking in Mae and Loren's direction. With little effort he unarmed his two children only by using his words. Speaking to them like bickering children, which they sort of were at the moment.

At all. Loren thought, his eyes wandering between Evor and his son. 

 "We'll see if this one will be of use to us." He spoke to the crowd. "He'll be interrogated and kept under watch whenever he is not giving us anything useful. Not until then will we know what to do with him."