The Rise of Carolyne Magna

Chapter Ten

Lance Orson

It's been two days now, and Carolyne hasn't woken up yet. Lance paced in front of the little hospital bed where she was lying, keeping an eye on her. After the doctor cleaned her wounds- which were covered in Reduft- she shifted into her human form, and she hasn't stirred since. Lance couldn't even reach into her mind, everything was just... quiet.

The long gashes on her face and body were slowly sealing closed, and it took them a while to stop bleeding. She would definitely have scars. Not to mention the fact that half of her ear was missing, something that would never heal back. But despite the way her body was torn to pieces as if she'd fallen victim to a Tasmanian devil- and in a sense, she did- she was still beautiful, lying there, so still. Her skin was drained of all color, her dark hair surrounding her head like a black halo, standing out starkly against the thin white sheets of the bed, her pale pouty lips a very soft, tainted pink, her dark lashes kissing her cheekbones.

"It's possible the sudden stress on her body was too much for her-" The doctor had said, but he didn't finish after Lance interrupted him.

"No! She's alive, she'll wake up soon." He repeated himself, the same thing he'd been chanting in his head.

"Her body may be awake... but her mind may not. The amount of Reduft that she had in her system would have killed a normal Lycan, it's a miracle she's still breathing. But the stress of it all could have caused her mind to... collapse." The doctor hovered in the doorway, watching with that medical way of his, relaying the news from a distance, his dead voice only making the news sound harsher. The doctor was keeping his distance from Lance, given that he has been more restless and irritable... more likely to lash out ever since Carolyne went under.

Lance sighs and runs a hand through his hair, sitting back down in the chair, his leg bouncing impatiently as he stares at her marred angelic face, her chest very faintly rising and falling, her heart fluttering in his ears. The usual pink tint was gone from her cheeks, and for a brief moment, he feared that maybe she would never wake up.

He needed to get out. The sickening sterile scent of the room was driving him crazy, as Carolyne's weak, slow heartbeat flooded in his ears, the only noise in the room, aside from his agitated tapping. He leaped from his feet suddenly, and all but sprinted from the room. He needed out, he needed to run, he needed to hunt. He was restless and anxious and his chest felt tight, and the light outside was just a little too bright. He squints as he rushes out of the house, shielding his eyes from the sun with a thick hand.

Julius Magna was still to be taken care of. His body had been left behind after the fight... Lance's head spun at the thought. His mate, his Carolyne, had drugged him and then left him behind to fight a monster on her own, and now she was- not dead. She wasn't dead. Half-dead, but still breathing. That's all that mattered, all that he cared about. As long as her heart was beating, his would be too.

There was only one place that he could go where he would have something to do. There was business to take care of, and he was the only one that could do it. To take care of Julius Magnus's body.

Lance trudged to the clearing in his human form, walking slowly. The sun was simmering high on its throne, hailing down on him in merciless waves, causing heavy drops of sweat to roll down his spine. As he came into the clearing, the stench of the rotting corpse made him gag. There, in the center of the clearing, was Julius's carcass, swollen and bloated from the heat as his intestines stewed into a sticky brew of flesh and juices, just waiting to pop. Buzzards circled overhead.

The atrocious smell made his toes curl, and he could feel the hairs in his nose singe away as he covered his mouth and nose with the neckline of his shirt, the damp fabric stifling the stench, but just barely. The mangled corpse of the man was attracting the local wildlife and other predators, but even in death, the world could sense the danger of his being.