Red String {EDITING}

Red Eyes

The train carriage hit the ground with a small thud which jolted Lyra awake as she lay across the seats of the carriage, her heart thudding painfully in her chest as Frost went to the door. "How long until our next ride gets here?" He asked, glaring at the person on the other side of the door.

"A few hours at the least, sir." The woman mumbled, bowing her head. "Apologies for the delay."

"Well go and secure the perimeter then." He ordered, closing the door carefully behind him. Not that he needed to. Thanks to her proximity to him, the Ice Stitches in her body still hadn't shown the faintest signs of disappearing. "Don't worry, Little Devil." He grinned. "We aren't back, yet... So you've still got a bit of time before you have to face Vlad again."

The name sent chills down Lyra's spine.

"He's missed you, you know."

"The only thing he's missed is trying out his new techniques on me." Lyra growled, wishing she could curl her fingers and sock him one in the gut. She sighed, resigning herself to simply imagining all the ways she could beat him up, whether it being a lightning reinforced kick where the sun don't shine, or a nice satisfying headbutt to that arrogant head of his.

"Well, you'll definitely be spending a bit of time together later, catching up on everything you've missed." Frost grinned.

"Looking forward to it already." Lyra muttered, trying to hide her shaking voice.

"You're afraid." He leered, leaning over her, staring intently into her eyes.

"No I'm not."

"I don't like people lying to me." He grabbed a handful of red hair, blinking when he realised why she wasn't flinching. "Oh yeah... Thanks to my stitches you can't feel pain, right now..."

"And?"

"Careful, Red." Frost warned. "I could easily stop you from breathing by putting in some more stitches..."

"I'm not afraid of you."

"You should be, Red." He grinned, a predatory gleam in his eyes. "You know what... I might ask Omega Taurus's little Council if I can transfer you into my unit..." He mumbled.

Lyra blinked in shock.

"It'll get you away from dear old Vlad, but then you'd have to deal with me." Frost grinned. "And trust me, Little Devil... I'm ten times worse than Vlad." He said. "You know that he's the lowest ranking member of the Upper Echelon, and I'm one of the higher ranking ones, don't you...?"

"Are you going to write that on your gravestone?"

Frost laughed, his eyes darkening. "You really do amuse me, Red." He said, tilting his head as he stared down at her. "And how are you going to hit me with those little fists of yours...?"

Glass smashed above where Lyra was sitting, a hand slamming into Frost's face as Thorn arrived in the train carriage. "Who said it'd be her hitting you?"

"Angel boy." Frost spat, wiping away the blood trickling down from his broken nose.

Thorn grinned. "Surprise."

An icy sword appeared in his hands. "Bring it."

"As much as I'd love to take my time beating the living daylights out of you, I've got other things to do – like getting Lyra back to her mate." Thorn said, his hands crackling with white lightning. "So I'll just have to show you my best move, as payback for breaking one of my wings." He disappeared, moving so fast Frost couldn't keep up. He didn't even have time to use his ability as Thorn slammed his hand into the back of his neck, sending the man spiralling into unconsciousness.

"Thorn." Tears pooled in Lyra's eyes.

"Can you still not move?" Thorn was crouching by her side in an instant.

"Nope."

"Damn." He sighed, hefting her onto his back, tying her to him. "We need to move quickly, so this is the way it's got to be... I'll need my hands free, just in case we run into any of the people stationed on the perimeter."

"It's fine." Lyra mumbled, burying her face in his shoulder. "His stitches should fade quicker the further away from him I get."

"Well tell me once they do." Thorn said, and with that they were off, sprinting into the forest they'd landed in.

"How did you find this place?" She asked, staring at the scenery as Thorn ran, her eyes scanning for any sort of movement, her years of training finally kicking in.

"I didn't." He said. "I just hung onto the bottom of the train when it started flying."

"You mean you held yourself onto the bottom of the train for however many hours it took to get here?!"

"Ten hours to be precise." Thorn mumbled. "Don't worry. I've held myself over a two-hundred metre crevice for twenty four hours before."

"Huh?! When did you have to do that?!"

"In the Alpha Trials." Thorn grinned. "Out of all the Alphas currently on the Council, I hold the record for that... I even beat Rylan, much to his annoyance."

"I've heard that name being thrown about before, but I still have no idea about what these Alpha Trials actually are..."

"They're just some trials we do to prove that we're ready to take command of the pack... There's tests on physical and mental strength... Trials we do together, and separate trials for each Alpha, depending on what sort of position we'll be taking over." He shrugged as he ran through the trees at speed, gaining as much distance as he could. He knew Frost would be on them as soon as he woke up. That was why he was pushing his body to the limit, praying they would find a place to rest before his legs gave out.

Thankfully, his mother seemed to be listening, which was how Thorn found himself in the glade quite a while later, his eyes widening when he spotted the chalky mountain down which water streamed, into the wide river below. The earth seemed to hum with power, a strange glimmering barrier cutting off the way they'd just come.

"No way."

"What?" A sleepy Lyra blinked, staring around the peaceful glade.

"This is my mother's home..."

"Wait..." Lyra paused. "You mean..."

White hair whipped across the woman's face as she stood opposite them, red eyes meeting her son's matching ones. "It's been a while, hasn't it, Thorn?"

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ILLENIS HERE

Lunaria is a completely made up name, taken from Luna... because in one of my other works I already had a goddess called Luna, so I decided to spice things up a bit... in fact, I think there's a goddess called Lunaria in that other series too. Oops. Oh well.

I've noticed that in other werewolf books, people can sometimes be a bit fussy about the name of the moon goddess, so let me clear things up for you.

This is a fantasy world, in which there were no greek gods or titans, so I'm hardly going to call her Artemis or the other name begining with S, I believe. It wouldn't fit.

Just in case you were wondering.

Hope to see you guys next time.

:)

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