Marked As His: The Curse Mark (Book 2)

The Pocketknife

I laid awake until 4:27 a.m., desperately waiting for Dale to fall asleep, during the night I planned for all of the items I'd take with me, just the essentials of course. Like my shoes, a few changes of clothing, my toothbrush and toothpaste, an extra pair of shoes and socks and a hunting knife I'd snag from one of the training rooms.

I didn't need much, I didn't need food either, werewolves can go up to 40 days without proper nourishment, though it takes a tole on our human bodies- if anything, I'd be able to change into my wolf form and eat up a small animal as food and be good in either form.

I've always known Dale to be a deep sleeper, so this would be cake trying to sneak away. The only problem was trying to escape out of his heavy arms...

I had no idea how I'd slip through them, other than the thought of timing my movements with every snore he would make.

I snickered to myself about the idea and almost burst out laughing. It was a silly idea but it might work out anyways. I began to inch my way out of his arms snore by snore, the same way people don't realize they snore when they sleep- he wouldn't be able to tell if it was him moving or me moving, unless of course, he didn't wake himself up by snoring too loud.

I finally made it out of his arms without waking him and quietly packed my bag. I couldn't clearly see what I was grabbing so I felt my way around and grabbed whatever felt like it was what I had envisioned needing.

When I was done, I swiftly exited through the front doors and made my way to the training grounds. Looking at the destroyed land, I couldn't help but think back to Luke- the first time I'd ever stepped ground on here I sparred with him.

I let out a deep sigh and realized how much more important it was that I needed to leave, in order to stop causing trouble and pain.

I went into a training room located in a small building to the west of the training grounds and slipped a small knife covered with a thick sheath into my bag.

Just like 3 years ago... when I first got banned from my own home, not knowing where to go, not knowing who I was and not even caring if I survived or not. I began to walk away and roamed through the forest until my legs could no longer carry me.

I watched as the sun slowly rose and the chilly air began to warm up. I had on thick combat boots, black pants, a black t-shirt and a black leather jacket over it, "wow I look like a lost emo kid who couldn't stand their parents at home anymore and so they ran away," I mumbled to myself.

Though I didn't need food, I desperately needed water. In these forests, river banks always ran down along a series of aligned trees. I'm not sure if the forests just grew that way- or if we built it to be that way- but regardless, it made it much easier to find rivers by paying attentions to the alignment of trees.

However, now that the sun had been piercing its light through the thick trees, I was able to quickly spot a river flowing almost 30 feet towards the left of me. Making my way over there, the closer I got, the muddier the ground became. I actually was quite fond of my shoes and didn't want to get them too dirty, so I stepped into a pair of footsteps that were already trailing to the river. "How convenient," I thought to myself.

Wait a second... that means someone else was here, or is still lingering by. I didn't know how to react, should I just act like I didn't see the footsteps in case they were watching? What should I do?
It was too late for that now since I had been carefully tiptoeing into them like a fool.

I decided to analyze the situation- the footsteps were about the size of mine, so I had to assume that it was either a woman or a very small man. The only reason anyone would be out here is to either hunt, gather water or because they were a rouge.

Either way, I couldn't assume that they were a threat.

I decided to continue on and grab a drink from the river- if they were a threat, I'd quickly change into a wolf and intimidate them so they'd leave me alone- and if nothing happened to me, then I'd just carry on.

I didn't see the footsteps anymore after I reached the river, perhaps they had walked straight through it? If so, I wouldn't need to worry about being attacked from the rear, so I just kept an eye towards the front, while I cupped water into my hands and drank.

Suddenly, I heard the slightest noise that felt out of place coming from behind me. It was the soft crackling of leaves, whoever this person was, they were now behind me- unless there was two of them? But that would've been impossible since I only saw one set of footsteps. But it doesn't make sense how they'd be behind me either if their footsteps disappeared into the river?

I acted like I was going down for more water- since it didn't matter at this point, because whoever it was, they were watching me and I now considered them a threat.

I suddenly heard footsteps charging at full speed from behind me, I quickly transformed into my golden wolf and jolted around, standing face to face with the person.

Snarling, I found that I was right. It was a young woman, she looked to be about my age, if not, then a little younger. She had long red hair that was matted down in some places and clutched a small pocketknife in one hand, still raising it at me without fear.

Did my wolf not scare this girl? I was much larger than a typical wolf and  not only that- but I was the only legendary golden wolf of our time, perhaps she didn't know about there being legendary wolves?

Either way, her knife would do nothing against my tough skin, it'd be best for her to just run away now.

But she wouldn't back down.

If she wasn't going to leave, then I'd attack first. I got my hind legs ready to pounce on her- leaping forward with my strength, I decided that I didn't want to hurt her, so midway through my pounce, I shifted back into a human and landed on top of her, clutching her arms down with my hands and securing her body in place by straddling her down.

"What do you want?!" I aggressively asked her.

"I wanted your backpack," she stated with a mean scowl.

"Were you planning on stabbing me to take it?" I demanded to know, staring at the pocketknife, still residing in her hand.

"So what if I was?" She said with an attitude. She was definitely younger than me if this was how she was acting.

Judging from her clothing, they were torn and tattered, though they were of extremely high quality and had rich colors, she had been in this forest so long that they no longer looked rich. "What are you doing out here? If you want food, I have none." I asked.

"It doesn't concern you, now let go of me." She bickered.

"You shouldn't be willing to take ones life just for their belongings." I warned her.

"What would you know about that?!" She angrily screamed. What did she mean by that? I didn't know how to respond. "If you let go of your knife, then I'll let you go as well." I suggested. She complied and released her grip on her knife.

To my shock, there had been a symbol on the end of the pocketknife handle that I had recognized, it was a symbol of royalty.