Just Lyca Lady

Chapter 9 : Ready, Aim, Fire

Animals were capable of being trained to follow orders; why not werewolves? Because they were human? Not the feral ones, not really. They were near all animal, all beast. But getting a purely destructive and deadly beast to follow orders...it just didn't seem likely. If they were not being controlled, then what logic was there for two of those unruly things showing up in my town be?

There wasn't any...

Gray looked back to me; the stoic expression he wore so well was fractured, his eyes being the betrayer of...what emotion was laced within them? Worry? Was he worried? Concerned? No, it was something more. Before I could figure out what feeling was flared in those ashen eyes of my lycan, Gray darted his gaze away from me and back to the wreckage. Reflex had me following after his stares.

Nothing more than a heap of splintered wood mixed with various ruined goods, the wagon was quite the sight. To think something could do such damage with nothing more than itself, no tools, no weapons, nothing. A lycan was a weapon in itself capable of, well, this: shredding a merchant caravan, its guards included, in a span of no more than a few minutes. In the blink of an eye.

It'd killed, conquered, and fled—wait.

Eyes narrowing on the rubble wagon, I saw a shift in the debris. Was someone still alive? Action before words, or in my case, action before thought. My feet were taking me straight for the wagon, but not four steps in, Gray's arm wrapped around my waist, bringing me to a halt. "There is someone still alive," I protested, looking over my shoulder to him.

He held no interest in my words, it seemed, his all too serious eyes not leaving the heap of wood. "She's right, there was a motion, there," called out a man as he pointed.

"Why's you just standin' there, then?" asked another, moving towards the survivor's location. "We's gots ta help 'em."

"Don't," Gray stated loudly in warning as he pulled me backwards, putting me so I was once more standing a bit behind him.

"Whatch'ya mean don't?" He continued to approach the wagon. Step by step getting closer to the survivor hidden beneath the splintered wood. "I ain't gonna just let 'em--" Too close.

Pieces of wood flew into the air, seeming to explode from the pile they'd laid in, and out lunged the lone survivor. With a throaty snarl, the creature struck fear into the crowd, as the laying-in-wait beast took the wannabe hero to the ground, all happening within the time it took my eyes to grow wide and heart to skip a beat. The pale beast sank its teeth straight into the shoulder of its new screaming victim, and with a few powerful jerks of its head, tore the majority of the man's left shoulder from his body.

Chaos in it's purest form erupted, and it came time for the townsfolk to divide into groups: those who would flee for their own lives, those who were in too much shock to do anything at all, and those who'd decided they were heroes—that they were protectors. I fell into the second. No coward was I, but a hero neither—at least not in that moment. The thing was a monster, a lycan, the beasts that ravaged a whole village in just a nightfall. Me? I was a small, young woman without a weapon. No way was I capable of being a competent hero, and why be one if there was no hope in helping, where the only outcome was my life being taken? Wasteful were the incompetent wannabe heroes, and I was never one to waste things.

Gray, on the other hand, he was the good man in a storm, already drawing his sword and heading towards the beast with swift movements, leaving me to stand alone. The beast turned its head in our direction, black eyes falling upon Gray, crimson oozing from it's jaws. Oddly enough, instead of rushing straight for my lycan as I'd expected the feral beast to do. Instead, it began to do a hastened survey of its surroundings. Was it looking for a way to escape? To run? Was it going to flee instead of fight mindlessly as most feral would?