Bloody and Wild

Betrayal and Loyalty

Lauren's eyes widened in alarm and she looked down at herself. Her trousers were torn, her elbows crazed and she felt all over slightly singed.  Internally was a different story, she was more alive than ever. Her muscles felt supple, her nerves high wired and her senses were in overdrive. She could understand how people became addicted to the thrill of the kill, she was powerful and deadly and that personal knowledge strengthened and emboldened her very soul.

"What?" She asked him, unable to detect anything strange. Ryder continued to stare at her in awe.

"You're not human, Lauren, nothing like." He murmured breathlessly. Lauren crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a hard look. 

"Of course I'm human." She stated bluntly causing Ryder to shake his head.

"Then how do you explain what you just did?" Ryder countered, gesturing wildly. "You jumped an impossible distance, dodged bullets like it was nothing-"

"Lauren!" She turned to see a pale and trembling Wade stumbling over tree roots and ditches toward them.

"Wade!" She ran to Wade and pulled him into a hug. Wade's thin arms encased her and she breathed in his wonderfully familiar scent that would always remind her of her true child hood home. "When I saw the state your room was in I nearly died!"

"My mum always says that," he mumbled trying to make her laugh and calm down but she ignored him.

"I'm so, so sorry for dragging you into all of this, it was the last thing I wanted." Wade hugged her tighter.

"I think you need to tell me everything now." Lauren nodded her head before burrowing her face into the crook of his neck. She caught the sound of Ryder grinding his teeth and reluctantly pulled away. Ryder's face had gone snow white in contrast with his obsidian glare.

"Yes, you've got a lot of explaining to do, kitten." Ryder's tone was threatening and his bulging muscles were tensed aggressively. Lauren shivered but nodded.

"We need to get out of here first."

*

They walked deeper into the forest, with Wade leading whilst Ryder slowed his pace, persisting in keeping a possessive arm around Lauren. 

Lauren paused briefly when her eye caught something on the thick bark of an oak up ahead. She rested her palm against the moss as her fingertips traced the deep gashes sliced through the bark that was weeping sap. Claw markings, she shivered as she estimated the size of the beast that created them but a small tug wrenched at her heart and tears threatened.

She allowed herself to imagine that it was Lewis' wolf that had made those marks as he howled to the moon in his anguish and pain at her betrayal. But then Ryder's strong arm urged her onward. She gritted her teeth and stopped day dreaming. She couldn't think like that. Lewis was dead and his killer was all she had left.

*

They broke through the tree line out onto a fresh stretch of the meandering road, where Robin was waiting in a hefty truck as arranged. Robin's eyebrows shot up on recognising Wade and he quickly glared between the three, trying to gage the mood.

Wade got the front seat beside Robin as Ryder pulled Lauren into the back seat with him. His hand rested lightly on her knee but to Lauren it felt like a branding iron as adrenaline morphed into lust. She just wanted to jump him right then and there.

As they pulled out onto the duel carriageway the fire engines blared past them swiftly followed by police. A skyscraper of black, billowing smoke rose from the tree tops growing as the blaze spread though the heavy timber trees.