| Halt's Ranger Apprentices | This is War | Volume 2 |

CHAPTER NINE

Annabelle swore under her breath. Loran's eyes shot daggers at her own. His clothes were ripped and was leaning to the side slightly, exhaustion threatening to take over his consciousness. Annabelle attempted to scramble out of his grip, thinking he would let go, too tired to fight anymore, but although he was visually exhausted, his grip of iron showed no sign of enervation.

"Annabelle!" Will's voice rang out through-out the woods they were in the middle of, his alarmed tone bouncing off of the trees, going on out different directions. Will went to run toward her and help her, already grabbing an arrow from his quiver, but without warning several Wargals stepped out from bushes near where Loran had come from, recurve bows in their hands with arrows already loaded, pointing straight at Gilan, Will and Horace.

"No!" Belle yelled, fear creeping in her voice, and attempted to scramble from Loran's grip again, but instead of his grip loosening, he tightened it and grabbed a dagger and kept it at her throat. Everyone froze in place, seeing the dagger slightly tilted into the skin of Annabelle's throat.

"If anyone dares move, I won't hesitate to slit her throat!" His voice bellowed, with Belle wincing, after getting a loud ear full of ringing from the yelling. A smile touched Loran's dry and cracked lips, but Will saw it never reached his eyes.

"Uncle!" Devon yelled, trying to sound as demanding as he could. Loran averted his evil gaze from the small group and instantly his eyes softened to see Devon. "Let her go!" Devon would have used her name, but from the amount of confusion that was bubbling inside his head from people calling her Annabelle he was starting to assume that her name was Annabelle, but decided to be safe.

The softened eyes of Loran suddenly transformed into a disgusted look. "Devon, I think it's best if you stay with me and the Wargals. This girl is not worth losing your uncle." Loran eyed Devon carefully, watching everymove he made. Devon looked around the group, the Wargals and Loran clearly outnumbered them, but Devon had made a close bond with Annalise or Annabelle or whoever she was, which was closer than Loran who always kept his space with him, and had never talked to him for longer than 10 minutes in his life. Devon took in a deep breath, making his decision.

"You're already lost, uncle." Loran's eyes lost all hope that was sparkling in his eyes and quickly covered it up with anger.

"Fine!" Loran yelled and made a gesture with his hand to one of the Wargals and the Wargal quickly started to run toward Devon who was still mounted on Beauty. Annabelle quickly looked toward Devon and at that very moment, Devon's eyes locked with Belle's and she quickly mouthed, 'run. Alex and Logan.' Devon gave a slight nod, understanding what Belle meant, before turning Beauty around and giving her a tight squeeze, making Beauty instantly run away into the darkness of the forest.

The Wargal growled angrily, not able to match the speed of Beauty through the thick forest and walked back to the small clearing. Loran threw insults at the Wargal, most of it plunged into Annabelle's ear once agian. Will furrowed his eyebrows suspiciously, he had noticed the quick exchange between Annabelle and Devon before he ran off. At that moment, Belle's eyes met Will's. It felt like it went on for a million years as they stared at each other, a billion thoughts rushing through their minds. Will kept staring at Annabelle's beautiful brown eyes, the eyes he had thought he would never see again and he never wanted to look away. But, it was Belle who broke the eye contact and averted her gaze into the trees.

"So girly, we meet again." Loran began, once he was finished throwing insults at the Wargal. Annabelle bit her tongue to prevent a gag to pass through her lips, hating that he called her girly. Instead she rolled her eyes but chose wisely to not reply. "Oh, are we not talking today?" Annabelle for a moment was going to stay tight-lipped, but a thought was nagging at the back of her mind.