Obsidian Night Pack

40

Ash and I had been running through the woods covered in blood for a while now. We were both injured and sore, but we had to keep running, we both knew that Sander and Alaric would be hot on our trails once they discovered we were no longer at the packhouse. It seemed like forever and with the sun now setting we had to hurry and get out of the woods.

"Stop here," I called back to Ash who was trailing behind me.

"Why? what's up?" She asked.

"There's a stream, we're far enough now that we can wash off the blood."

"Thank the Moon Goddess." 

After we washed ourselves off we continued walking, we had left the Obsidian Nigh pack in the dust and found ourselves in the frightening silence of the unknown.

"Clove, what do we do now?" I was afraid of that question, the one I had to answer. In my head, it seemed easy. Go to the Black Cauldron, meet the witches, ask for help, and then ya...

However, there were many small things that needed to be taken care of first and foremost. For one thing, Ash was naked. After she shifted her clothes ripped to shreds, plus we were both still bruised and a complete mess. There was no way we were getting into the night club like this. The other thing was I didn't actually know where to go to find the Black Cauldron. Somewhere downtown and how we would even make it that far was beyond me. Even though the odds were stacked against us I felt it in my gut that this was what I needed to do. I knew this because for one I didn't think about myself when I made this decision.

"Well let's find a road or something and follow that. That could take us to a town where we can get you some clothes and maybe a real shower?" Ash nodded in agreement. Her wounds were already almost fully healed since we left. I was amazed that Sander didn't even need to be close to her to have these kinds of results. My own injuries, on the other hand, were still tender. My stomach would most likely have a large bruise on it and I could already feel the bump forming on the back of my head. Not to mention the fingerprint bruise marks that I was definitely expecting to form on my neck.

We trudged along for a while all while Ash's face changed from bravery to concern along the way.

"Ash, what's wrong?"

"It's Sander I can feel his concern and anger through our mark. I bet he's really wishing we got initiated into the back when we both arrived."

"Why weren't you? I mean you could have when you came here before I did." 

"I thought about it, but once I found out you were coming and there would be a huge ceremony I wanted to be there with you and take the next big step in our lives together."  Ash outstretched her arms in exaggeration when she referred to the "next big step." 

"Funny how it all turned out. Don't you think? I mean we both thought that the next big step was finding our mates, it turned out it was actually betraying them." Ash didn't respond, but I knew she felt where I was coming from.

"Not to mention we don't have the weapons that you worked so hard to retrieve." I had considered that as well, the one thing that we had both worked so hard to obtain, that would be able to protect us both we lost.

"I found them after you were taken to the medical ward. I hid them in my closet. I didn't know when we would need them."

"Maybe we don't need them." I offered out loud when it was really only meant to be an internal thought.

"What?"

"Well think about it, the Obsidian Night pack no longer does business with the Raven Bone coven..." I waited to see if Ash saw where I was going with this. She gave me a blank look as if to say, "just f*cking tell me."

"Well there has to be a reason don't you think? And you said so yourself that Covens are known to keep their promises and hold up their ends of the deal..." Ash got it now her face widened with surprise.

"So, that means that the Obsidian Night pack screw them over! If we had brought those weapons..." I continued her sentence.

"We might have felt protected, but would have basically been declaring war on a Coven." We both nodded in a silent agreement.

"So, do you really think the witches will ever see us?"

"They have to, if we wronged them we'll just offer to right our wrongs."

"That simple? Really? The Obsidian Night pack screws over a coven of witches and we're just going to walk in on their turf and ask for forgiveness and a favorite?"

"Not exactly, we'll play this in a way that benefits everyone. I have a plan."

"You know I'm really getting tired of you saying that, you're plans make me nervous now." I laughed at Ash as she shook her head at me.

"Come on let's hurry," and we both picked up our paces.

~~~~~~

Once Ash and I came upon a road and even better road signs to tell us where we were we managed to find our way into a small town. It was late now and everything was closed, including the clothing stores. Ash waited on the outskirts of town until I came back with clothes for us. I had never been to a town like this one, mostly because I had only ever been to one town before. This one, however, had many clothing shops that were all connected.

"So, if the shops are all closed how exactly are you going to get clothes. We don't exactly have any money on us."

"Well, unfortunately, we'll have to steal them, we'll pay them back later."  I knew Ash didn't feel great about stealing, but at the moment it was either that or walk into a night club naked and I knew that that would give a lot of people the wrong impression. 

What was worse though is that it actually wasn't that hard to break into the shop. The door was locked by a single deadbolt. It didn't take much strength to bust the door open and break the handle in the process. What was curious about breaking in was that it felt like I had more strength than I used to. 

"Was there an alarm? Are you okay?"  In a small town like this, I doubted if anyone could afford an alarm on a little shop like this.

"No alarm, I'm just walking in now." I peaked through all the racks and found some dresses that fit the occasion as well as some perfume that might help to hide our bad odor as well as our scent. After taking only the things we needed I started to walk out of the shop until I saw it from the corner of my eye. Lying on the counter, behind the register was a phone. I snatched that up too and walked out. 

On my way back to Ash I started messing with the phone, no doubt that the owner of the little shop was old, the whole place smelled like a retirement home. The phone I took also proved it, the owner must have forgotten it at the shop and didn't realize. That wasn't their only mistake though, because the phone wasn't password protected. Thank the Moon Goddess for that.

"Ash!" I called out quietly as I walked around the linning of the trees.

"Over here!" She called back. I quickly ran over to her and found her sitting by a small stream trying to get more of the grime off of her.

"Are you ready?" I smiled at her and carefully set down the stuff I grabbed.

"For what exactly?" She questioned as she examined the contents I had found.

"Come on! Gert dressed we are going to the Black Cauldren!"

"Clove we don't even know where it is." 

"Oh contrare my dear woman, because we actually do!" I pulled out the phone and showed her the GPS location to the Black Cauldron where we would find the Raven Bone witches.