I looked at Sean as he came through the bars of my cell, and I growled at him. I was already in my russet wolf form, standing over a light brown, almost russet, female wolf. I wasn’t going to let them get close to my mother again, they’d already hurt her enough that she had fallen unconscious and they wouldn’t give me anything to help her. I was bone tired, and my fur was splattered with hyena blood and some of my own blood. Sean stopped in his steps and smirked at me. I saw Cori in his arms.
“What have you done with Cori?!” I snarled in my mind at him, and he laughed.
“I don’t know.She gave the castle a better look, then passed out,” he said.
“You used her powers and energy?! She has only just learned her wolf form! She could die!” I growled at him. Alarm seemed to flash through him, too.
“Help me save her,” Sean said, and it seemed as if some pain flashed through him, too. I looked down at my mother.
“We’ve had enough out of her, she’s not going to tell us anything. She’ll be right there for when you get back.” I sighed and morphed to human. My face was hard, and my teeth gritted as I said.
“Take us to my mother’s room. If my mother isn’t here or hurt worse when I come back, I will avenge her.” Sean nodded, and then turned and led me out. I followed, and three hyenas came from the shadows, standing on each side of me. He led me through different halls, and then to my mother’s room. He led me inside, and motioned with his hands to the hyenas to stand guard at the door. He took me to my mother’s bed, and I laid Cori there. She was very pale, but looked peaceful. I leaned across the bed and I touched her forehead. She was very warm. I remembered something my mother had told me a long time ago. It was something about shapeshifters going into a state called Between when their spirit tries to leave the body, and results in their body feeling very warm. The spirit is in pain from the hard task of being pulled from out of its body and going into the spirit world, without death first. There are no treatments known of, and only a small amount of shapeshifters have lived through Between. I lightly pulled up her eyelid with my finger, and looked at her eye, then felt her pulse. The symptoms were there. Cori’s spirit was in Between, and she may not return. I sat back in a chair, letting out a loud breath. Sean came up, his eyes slightly worried, though he masked it fairly well under a fake, hard face. I knew that he knew what she was going through. He came to the edge of the bed.
“She shouldn’t be in such horrible pain....” he said. I could tell what he was going to do. He was going to kill her. But he didn’t know something. I stood up in a flash.
“If you kill her, then this kingdom will go back to the way it was, and it will return to me and will prosper for the wolves. You and her are the ones who changed it, and if she is killed in any way other than natural, then the kingdom will go back to the state it was in before,” I said harshly at him, there was a little bit of triumph in my voice, but I felt horrible for her because I knew what he said was true: she was in the most terrible pain one could be in. He glared at me.
“You’re lying.” A crooked grin broke across my face, and I could see his face turn to anger, and I knew that he knew I wasn’t lying. He glared at me again then turned and walked away, his fists balled tight. I watched him until I knew that he was gone from the room, then turned back to Cori. I laid down next to her body, and cradled her in my arms. I laid my head on hers, and whispered to her.
“I won’t let him hurt you. I swear it. He hurts you again, I’ll kill him, even if I die trying.” I then laid my head on hers softly, and started humming a melody that my mother had sung to me when I was younger.
