Feral Bonds

Part 2: Gretchen Chapter 24

One year later.

Wind ruffled her fur as a stray bullet passed by, much too close for comfort. Natania flinched away, momentarily leaving the unconscious body by her feet. "Watch it! I didn't sign up to be shot at by my ally," she shouted, without any real venom. While painful initially, the human's weapons did little damage. A clean wound healed easily.

Instead of shifting again, Natania withdrew the pistol tucked under her pant leg and fired off a few shots. Her position allowed her easy visual of her targets and the gunfire died down as several bodies crumpled to the ground, though not before another stray shot nailed her in the shoulder.

Natania growled as her shadows curled out of the wound, creating a thick, black webbing over the hole that pulsed against her skin. There was a small ping as the piece of lead dropped to the ground, and Natania rolled her shoulder to return feeling to the damaged limb. It would heal soon enough.

"You all right?" Gretchen asked, moving away from the dumpster she'd used as cover while they'd faced off in the harbour.

"I'd be better if you stopped shooting at me," Natania grumbled, meeting her human companion halfway.

"But that just means I get to take care of you later," Gretchen purred, curling an arm around Natania's shoulders and ruffling her hair. Natania scowled, she always seemed to end up with women that liked to mess up her hair. Just because it was short, didn't mean it was open season.

Natania swiped her hand away and ran a few fingers through her hair to fix it. "You can take care of me just fine, without getting blood on your couch."

"I've had worse things on my couch," Gretchen responded with a snort, giving her a sly grin that left no doubt about what she was referring to. Gretchen had had more than a few guests over since they had teamed up. They had a mostly open relationship, by which she meant, Gretchen slept with whoever she wanted, and Natania tried not to be jealous over it.

She hadn't intended to start a relationship with the human, but living in such short quarters for so long had made them friends, and that had progressed into being casual lovers. She hated being stuck in the same dynamic she had been in with Lily, but she figured by that point, it was that or nothing. And being entirely alone was depressing. The amount of guests Gretchen invited over had steadily decreased, but they were by no means exclusive.

Natania glanced away as blood rushed to her face and Gretchen planted a light kiss to her forehead, before spinning around to survey the damage. The dock was riddled with bullet casings and bodies, some Natania had killed as a wolf, and others that were taken down cleanly with a bullet to the skull.

Gretchen seemed to have two modes of shooting, deadly precision, or way off the mark, depending on how stressed she was at the time. Natania dropped down to inspect their dead, fighting to push back the raging bloodlust. It had only been getting harder to ignore.

Their hired goons, that Gretchen had reluctantly agreed to hire after some insistence from Natania, had been taken out like cannon fodder, and she hadn't seen them take out even a single one of their ambushers.

Oh well, she thought, at least Gretchen won't have to pay them now. She rolled back to her feet and jogged a few steps to catch up with her wandering companion. "Anything?"

Gretchen sighed, and the scent of frustration hit her full force. "Nothing, this was a setup. They wanted to ambush us." Gretchen glanced over the bodies and frowned. "Thanks by the way, if you hadn't scented them, we'd probably have died."

"Always happy to help a damsel in distress." Natania danced out of the way when Gretchen moved to give her a shove.

"You're a real knight in shining armor," Gretchen muttered, voice thick with sarcasm.