Claws and Fangs

The Great Escape

The chirping of birds rouses me the next morning followed quickly by Mark's scent. Sometime in the night we changed position, me laying against Mark's chest, his arm around my shoulder. I sit up sharply, scrubbing away a bit of drool on my cheek. Mark rubs his eyes before opening them, and I cover my chest with my arm. He looks away (what a gentleman) and pulls a bundle of clothes from behind a rock. There are small bruises on his back, I guess from sleeping on pebbles. I have a few on my arm and hip. He pulls out a second bundle and passes it to me.

"These were meant for Crystal, but they should fit you."

I unravel a thick black cloak and slip on the tight blue tank top that tumbles out, then the baggy grey jeans. My navel is left exposed, something I suppose Crystal likes but I despise. Mark has tugged on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt when I turn around. He passes me a bottle of water, and I use a bit of it to wash the dried blood from my face. I don't remember the night very clearly, but day-old raw venison has a very distinct smell.

We are both careful not to look at each others faces, but the tension is less from waking up together and more from what happened last night, before we changed. 

"So..." I begin. "What happened while I was chained up in the basement?"

Mark bristles. For a minute I think he's mad at me, which is ridiculous, but then I realize that's not the case at all. I wouldhate to be at the recieving end of the glare he's shooting out into the forest right now. Even if I were, I need information more than I need to keep this blimsy rope bridge intact.

"Father and I had a falling out." he says simply, and I'm ready to start the interrogation, but he continues. "He didn't tell me about what they did to you."

"He did it to protect his pact," I protest, for whatever ungodly reason. Maybe I don't want to see someone else lose their father. Maybe I can't handle conflict. Who knows, maybe I'm just crazy. "He saw a risk and did his best to keep me in your territory. I can't control where I go as a wolf, for all he knew I might run back to Half Moon and get myself killed. I'm sure anyone would have done the same." Ech, that's some grade-A bullshit right there. I'm making a run for it ASAP if that's the kind of treatment guests get.

Mark scoffs. "No. Anyone else, and they would have at least had the courtesy to kill you to your face."

"What do you mean, kill me to my face? Yeah, the chains malfunctioned, but Bethy was the one who put them on me. She wouldn't hurt me."

"Bethy? Oh, you wouldn't believe what she's done," Mark laughs dryly, leaning his head back against the stones. "She's Father's little lapdog, running around doing whatever she's told. All of them do. I was so blind..."

"Mark, what happened? Tell me." 

"He told her to kill you," Mark snapped, grabbing my shoulders with a pained look. "She came to me after she... after she left you, and told me everything. You're not the first person he's tried to kill. According to Bethy, he's never failed before, and he made her clean up the mess every time."

"Who has he killed?" I'm terrified to ask, but I'm more terrified of not knowing.

"I'm the seventh son of a seventh son," he begins. "Where are my uncles? My brothers? I was five when the last one left, Bardou."

"Bethy told me about him," I interrupt. "he started a fight as a wolf that he couldn't win, right?"

"A lie. He thought they were a risk, that they could steal his power somehow. I was told that he was going off to some school, a boarding school with rigorous training that conveniently couldn't be interrupted by trips home. We should have realized... He took them out into the woods, and killed them in cold blood. He came home and slept in the same bed as my mother, after murdering her children. I think she figured it out, after he wouldn't let me go to the school. She killed herself few weeks after that argument. No one dared challenge him, because no one was strong enough to." I'm too shocked to say anything as he flops his head into his hands. "I didn't know about it, any of it," he says suddenly, turning to me in a panic and grabbing my hands. "I swear I didn't know what he was going to do, Mona. Bethy told me what she'd done, chained you up. Then she told me about the rest. I'm so sorry."