Just Lyca Lady

Chapter 12 : Not Lost

David reluctantly let go, allowing the guard to take him. All but Gray and I were on their way back to daily life—well, as daily as it could have been. There would be gossip, a flood of it, revolving around me no doubt. As long as they kept to their whispers and stayed far from their torches and pitchforks, everything would be fine. It always was...though I had never given them this scale of a show.

I've never been one to notice eyes on me—or perhaps I did. I just never cared that I had an audience. It was a problem, or so my father said. Living life without worry of the image you cast, it was the dream...but it was dangerous. Take Gray, for instance, if others caught wind of his hidden half, they would no longer see him as some strong willed swordsman. The way they saw him would be tainted, darkened...deadly. With each word exchanged, my reputation was getting blacker and blacker.

And still...I didn't care. How could I? I couldn't, not with the knowledge of there having been three of the normally scares lycan within my town in less than two days. Was it possible that Gray was right? That there was some sort of 'trance-state' the ferals were being pulled under? Was such a thing possible? And if it were...who was their puppet master, and what sort of show were they planning to put on with their strung-up dogs?

There were so many questions demanding answers, answers that I couldn't feed them without more digging. Lucky for me, I had a source right in reach I could draw from. Turning to Gray, my lips parted in expectancy that words would come out on their own like they always did...

They didn't. They were frozen within my throat as soon as I meet Gray's eyes. My shoulders fell and brow furrowed as the feeling so vibrant within Gray's all-telling eyes began to crawl under my skin. Disappointment. He was disappointed...with me? He had no right to be. If anyone should be feeling let down, it should have been me. He'd turned his back so quickly on David...on life over death.

So...why was I feeling the nearly foreign feeling of shame? What did I have to be ashamed of?

His eyes left mine as he turned towards the forest, not a word given. "Upset he wasn't put down?!" I called—ah, yes...there were the words that normally came all on their own. I damned them for making themselves heard in the way they had. It wasn't something I wanted to say, a fire I didn't want to stir. It was his back turned on me—it angered me. He still believed himself in the right on this.

He came to a stop, standing as still as I'd ever seen a man capable of. If not for the quiver of his arm, one that traveled to his now clinched hands, I would have believed him a statue. Another crawl of shame beneath my skin, a nasty feeling. Why was it eating at me? I was right, in everything I had done and said, I was right... Right? Another crawl.

"Gray--" he turned on his heel as soon as I'd began to speak, holding an opened hand in front of him in a way of silently telling me to shut my mouth as he quickly closed what distance there was between us.

"You speak as if you know everything," a near animistic rage stirred within the glare he'd locked on me, "as if you actually have a grasp on what it's like to be this way." He took a pause, his breathing sharper and shake of his muscles less restrained. Anger. He was mad, an almost predatory edge gleaming within his silver eyes. Though I'd seen him in his lycan from, I had never actually seen a glimpse of animal in him...until then. I could see it, the wolf stirring in him.

I could feel my heart skip a beat. Fear? Had he managed to strike the fear that should be swelling within from standing before a 'monster'? I should have ran; that's what the frightened did. Run away and never look back. Yet I stayed. It couldn't be fear.

Then what was it?

With a deep breath, he shook his head and looked away. "I never claimed to say I understood what it's like--"