Kara turned her head to the side in a peaceful sleep. Never, since her parent’s death had she slept as soundly and undisturbed by chaotic dreams or the tossing of her body as she did now.
The sound of a hard thud on the wagon floor beside her head woke her from her slumber. Her blue eyes fluttered open to see a large shadow sitting beside her. She sat up quickly hands looking for her nearby sword, until her sleepy eyes focused on the man that sat by her.
"What are you doing here, Marko?” she whispered relaxing and sitting down across from him.
He sighed tiredly. "I was helping you sleep." he gave her a smile. But she could see better than he thought, she was observant. For the last three nights she has had unusually pleasant sleep in contrast during the day Marko looked tired. He had dark rings under his eyes and was always yawning. She thought it was stress at first but now she knew why he was so pale and short tempered.
"Have you been sitting there while I sleep?" she asked louder than she should have in a camp full of sleeping wolves.
"Yes, you toss a lot in your sleep. The first night on the road you were having a nightmare. “He scuffed lightly "You called me in your sleep, so I came."
"Yeah and now you are so tired you look like a walking corpse." she moved to sit beside him. "You need to sleep."
He nodded looking down at his hands "I know, but I cannot." he looked back at her "sleeping would require me to leave your side for the decency of it.”
"Decency?"
"Yes, it is expected that we sleep on the same bed but you do not want that yet and I will not ask for it-"
"But will it help you sleep?"
"Sweetheart, you have as much calming effect on me as I evidently have on you." he said leaning into her so that their shoulders met. "But what I need right now is for you to talk to me. Why can you not sleep?"
She looked up at him weighing his question. What he needed was to feed and sleep. Yes he had not fed since they blood bonded and part of her was afraid of repeating the even. She did not want her vampire side to manifest again, not if it was going to lose control and try to drink all of his blood.
"I will tell you but you must agree to two things."
"Okay" he said slowly, with a skeptical look
"One, you need to go to sleep."
"Fine I can go do that-"
"No if you go you will not sleep peacefully. If I apparently sleep well with you sitting there then you will also sleep well in my presence. You will stay here and you will sleep. I think I can manage waking you up if there is any real danger. You know like a bear runs into the camp, every brave wolf panics and the wagon catches fire."
He laughed lightly. "I see I have no option then?"
"No you do not." She said with an as-a-matter-of-fact voice.
He looked at her letting her see the dancing wolf in them. The fact that she was ordering him amused his wolf, had it been anyone else he would have made them back down. Unless that person was Yenive or his mother, they were scary.
"So then. What is your second request?"
"I will tell you latter, you will agree to it so do not worry about it too much."
He gave her a skeptical look. "Okay, fine, so tell me about your dream then."
Kara scuffed, "which one, the one where I see my parents die, or the one where I am standing in a field of corpses?"
YOU ARE READING
Mixed Blood (Wattys2015)
WerewolfAfter the bloody death of her parents when she was eleven, Kara Dosnia has lived in more than four different Villages. All of which have been decimated by cannibalistic vampires. It seemed to Kara that the vampires were following her for some reason...
