The Rogue Slut

One- The Forest at Night

The ground beneath me is cushioned by a mattress of pine needles but they do little to reprieve my aching back. There's only so many nights I can spend sleeping on the forest floor but my back hurts for a different reason.

Two sets of claw marks scarred along my spine still sting weeks after I received them. The scabs that formed over the deep scratches are not protected by a layer of thick auburn fur; my skin is easily irritated by the slightest shift in my sleep or the annoying tiny rocks that dig into my weak flesh no matter how many pine needles I cover the ground with.

This is just one of the reasons I struggle to sleep at night.

The blonde wolf beside me is another.

I hate her for being able to sleep so soundly and peacefully as if there isn't a bounty on both our heads. She shifts her head on her paws and a silver stream of moon light funnels into a thin beam through the tear in the top of her right ear.

It lands just in front of my own paws and I stare at it for a moment before returning my eyes to her sleeping form.

Her back rises and falls in a steady deep rhythm. I try to match my own breathing to her pace breathing in when she does and exhaling when she releases. I feel my eye lids grow heavy and I struggle to keep them open so I can stare at her for just a moment longer. Just before I am about to surrender completely, the sharp snap of a twig yanks my head up.

Alertly, I rotate my ears to listen for any follow up sounds. There is a pause that stretches so long I am about to put my head down again when I hear the slightest rustle of crunchy leaves to my left.

I flick my tail to nudge the blonde wolf next to me and she stirs but doesn't rise.

Deep sleeper, I grumble to myself. She wouldn't last a day without me. She sleeps like she's already dead.

I nudge her harder this time with my paw and she blinks slowly before focusing her eyes on me.

You better have a damn good reason for waking me up, she growls through the mindlink.

Always a sweetheart in the morning.

There's someone in the woods, I ignore her threat and deafly rise to my feet. I don't have to look down to know she is rolling her eyes and I don't have to believe in the Moon Goddess to pray that they get stuck in the back of her empty head somewhere.

I keep my ears trained towards the direction I heard the sound and I raise my snout to breathe in any scents. At first, there is nothing but the overwhelming smell of pine trees; then, as the cool night breeze shifts through the trees, I catch the undeniable scent of wolf.

Sensing this too, Lenora scrambles to her feet as well.

How many?

I turn my head and lock gazes with her wide blue eyes. As much as I hate her I can't deny that she has pretty eyes.

Four different scents.

That's too many to fight, I can see her muscles bunch up readying herself to run.

I don't think we have much of a choice.

Four wolves step out from the shadows surrounding us. Growling, with their lips pulled back to bare their white teeth in the light of the half moon, they look every bit the savage description werewolves often get.

Lenora Anderson and Ethan Warner. Pleasant seeing you here. Do you know your alpha doubled the price on both of your heads?

One of the wolves with smokey grey fur chuckles.

I hate to disappoint you but you won't be getting paid anytime soon, Lenora almost sounds sincere but by now I know her love of sarcasm and sass.

It annoys me to no end when she talks to me like that but I love watching other people squirm under her intense stare and furrow their eyebrows in confusion from her sickly sweet voice.

Without warning, Lenora bolts straight at the dumbfounded smokey wolf and catches him back on his heels. As the tip of her blonde tail disappears into the shadows two of the four wolves take off after her.

Is she always leaving you behind like that? The smokey color wolf asks.

Not when I keep up. I lunge forwards and knock the wolf into the ground. I don't stop to fight because I have ground to cover. She's fast—for a girl.

I weave through the dense trunks of trees like a sowing needle; my sides barely brush against the bark. My paws eat up the ground and I race to catch up with the temperamental blonde and the wolves on her trail.

It doesn't take long for me to catch one of the two wolves who wasn't as fast. I shoulder him into a tree and he hits it at full speed in a loud smack that shakes the branches.

A few lengths ahead of me I see Lenora turn on a dime. The brown wolf's paws slip on the pine covered forest floor.

I leap over his body and chase after Lenora. Four wolves struggle to keep up with us but they run for money and we run for our lives.

The mountains, Lenora shouts in my head. She veers to the right where the rocky tops explode out from the ground in massive shards of rock.

We had scouted the mountains when we first arrived in these woods and we both agreed that sleeping on the forest floor would beat the cold wet rocks but now I'm not so sure.

We scramble to the base of the rocks and begin to climb up the steep slope zig zagging around boulders scattered across the terrain like they are land mines rigged to detonate.

I pause for a moment to glance over my shoulder at the four wolves slipping on the uneven rocks farther down the slope. Thinking quickly, I shove one of the boulders with my shoulder and my bones ache in protest. Still, I continue to throw my weight into the rock until it gives way and begins the torrential plummet down.

The boulder unsettled the bed rock around it triggering a land slide of shattered rock and dirt. The wolves below freeze in fear before they turn tail and try to run down the slope.

But gravity works harder and the rock slide sweeps their feet from out below them. I watch from the safety of higher ground as dust rises in dirty clouds.

When it clears enough for me to see clearly there are no wolves left to run.

I turn to look upwards and see Lenora staring down at me from a ledge about a wolfs length above my head. Her eyes are unreadable as she leans back from the edge and disappears from my sight.

But I know she is judging me for killing them.

She's new to this life. The life of a rogue. It's either kill or be killed, you can't outrun everything.

I know she is fully capable of flipping the switch and killing—I've witnessed it first hand—but now she refuses to acknowledge that. I know she is ashamed of the monster within her; she might even be scared of it. But I also know that we were paired together for a reason.

Two monsters fated to be each other's demise.

Though I disagree with the idea of mates there is no denying that Lenora Anderson truly is something else.

Are you coming, slow poke? Now that we're awake we might as well keep moving.

Yes dearest, I reply because I know she hates when I call her terms of endearment and she knows I hate that she is just slightly faster than me.

But that's what we do: we love to hate one another.