Shielding the Beast (discontinued)

Thirteen | Coming

The warmth of the colorless liquid laps at my bare skin, the porcelain of the bathtub encasing every side of my naked body. Heaps of white bubbles and suds float atop the bath water, like cumulus clouds in a clear sky.

My hair sops from being drowned in an abundance of soaps and other various flowery-smelling gels. My skin, tanned from endless hours spent beneath the sun, is now a lighter shade than previously thought, the mud and dirt expelled from its pores. My muscles are loose, relaxation turning them to jelly.

A bath-- not in a stagnant creek, not in a polluted river, and not in a shallow pond plentiful in dead fish and foul muck, but in a house, with a roof over my head and walls shielding my every side. The true life of a royal.

Eyes dazed behind their closed lids, my vision remains peacefully blank. Contemplative thoughts swim through my mind, all of them in need of the answers which I don't have.

Despite Asher constantly in my head, I go back to the bar on the night of my arrival here after a year of being gone. Remembering the note stuck to the bottom of my glass, and recalling the sight of that miserable wolf's haunches running away from me like a coward, the anger returns to me in near full force.

With no one to see, I allow the silver to flood my irises, the release of my true self a relief from being contained for so long, hidden for Asher's sake.

For Asher's sake...

Those simple words I already know will be the cause of more than one painful event.

That man I will find. And after I do, he'll regretting ever learning my forbidden name.

Distant, muffled voices catch my attention, distracting the burning bitterness of the beast and trading my anger for curiosity.

Through the walls, my inhuman hearing picks out the words being spoken elsewhere in the house.

"Asher, we have a slight, teeny weeny problem," a male voice says, a voice that I'd heard briefly in the past, "We're being attacked at the western border, by a pack we haven't had relations with before. Our lines are falling back gradually, but it won't be long before the enemy reaches the center."

"Shit," my Lifeblood's telltale voice curses in response, "How far are they in?"

"4 miles."

"Take care of it. Do whatever you have to, I don't care if we fill a river with blood, I want them dead," even through the walls the bitterness of his order can be heard.

"Should I hold your position for you?"

With a few seconds of delay, he responds, "No. I'm staying with Amber. She doesn't need to know about this."

With the other male's answer, it's like the mood of the conversation is suddenly lifted, their tones no longer as tense. "Ashy Octavian turning down a fight for a girl? I never thought I'd see the day."

Instead of reacting with vexation, humor is laced in Asher's voice, a shred of laughter even, "Just get your ass out there, Meirrune."

With that the conversation is ended, the fading footsteps barely audible to me.

An attack. One that I shouldn't know about.