Wolfpack

The Consequence

The night was cloudless. It was as if the stars themselves were reaching down to embrace the three wolves that moved stealthily through the wood.

Roux was silent as he led them further away from the camp. His expression was unreadable. His clear grey eyes only flicked to them from time to time to make sure that they were following him.

He's going to kill us, Emme said to her mate over their private connection. Whatever he said to convince you to follow him, he lied.

Be still, vitago, Noah answered quietly, giving her arm a gentle squeeze. He sounded confident, but the tightening of his body betrayed his suspicion. Emme knew that Roux could easily overpower them. The wolf did not seem to abide by any laws that did not sit well with him, and obeyed Cryo out of desire rather than necessity. No one knew where Roux had come from when he had stepped out of the woods to join the pack, only that he seemed to answer to no one but himself.

Roux stopped suddenly in his tracks. He took a deep breath and glanced around before turning to them. He fixed a heavy gaze on Noah, and without a word, Noah extended his arm.

"No," Emme breathed, jumping before her moonmate. "I'm not going to let you kill him."

Roux's grey eyes seemed to hold the knowledge of the moon itself.

"Your mate brings you honor," the wolf said calmly, flicking his eyes up to meet Noah's if Emme had never spoken.

"Listen," Emme bargained, drawing Roux's attention back to her. "Why don't you just let us go? Noah can give you a few bruises, and we'll go our separate ways. We won't come back."

At this Roux laughed, inciting Noah to reach out and draw his moonmate flush against his chest.

"I have no desire to carry out Cryo's corrupted will," Roux answered calmly. "You will be safe beyond this brook, but you must move eastward as soon as you are able. Though I have no intention of allowing Noah to 'give me a few bruises'."

Without further comment, Roux grabbed hold of Noah's proffered wrist and cut deeply with a shifted claw. Noah's dark blood drained into the earth until it seemed to Emme that Roux intended to bleed Noah until he was dead.

"Enough," she ordered firmly, drawing Noah's wrist away from the wolf and to her mouth. She licked the wound from edge to edge, the healing properties of her saliva sealed the skin. Noah looked a little pale. She gave Roux a hard glare. 

Roux glanced at the moistened ground and frowned but made no complaint. He stooped low and scooped up the blood stained earth, pocketing it in a brown leather bag.

"May the moon's light touch you," he said quietly to Noah before breezing past them and disappearing in the direction from whence they came.

"The cabin is not quite as large as the home we had on the grounds," Noah said as he led her through the brush. Emme wondered how he knew which direction was correct, but she supposed that he knew the northern as well as she knew the eastern. Instead of letting her doubt claw at her, she focused on the way her hand felt in his.

"I don't care," she answered truthfully. "Besides, you never saw that place as a home." Noah was silent for a moment. Suddenly, he drew her flush to him, forcing her to tilt her head back to peer at the hard planes of his face.

"How is it that the moon has gifted me so?" He whispered in a ragged voice as his thumb traced the contour of her face.

"I'm hardly a gift," Emme replied, leaning into his hand. "After all, this whole predicament is my fault."