I walked with Gabriel to my cabin. He was looking very tense.
I didn't think much of it. He was probably just anxious about meeting alex again, i figured.
When I opened the door, I was greeted by Alex. “So, did it work out?” She asked me.
“Well about that.” I stepped aside, allowing Gabriel to enter the cabin.
“Hello Alex. Been a while.” He said with some toxicity in his voice.
Alex looked at me with a concerned expression and went to sit down at the table. Once we were all seated, Gabriel spoke up.
“So, you wish to seek refuge in my camp. Even after what you did.” He put his hands on the table and intertwined his fingers.
Alex looked pretty relaxed as she answered him. “Well, if we could at least stay until we could pack our stuff, that’d be great.” I could tell by the sound of her voice that she really didn’t like speaking to Gabriel.
“That could be arranged.” Gabriel told us with a serious look on his face. “I still won’t forgive what you did, and I don’t think the rest of the pack ever will either. You’ll be a rouge in our eyes for the rest of your life, Alex. Your parents and the previous alpha were both dearly loved. My dad, was dearly loved.”
I immediately felt my heart sink. She’d killed Gabriel’s dad?
“I understand.” Alex replied. “I didn’t expect you to forgive me.”
“Well, that settles it. You both better be gone before sunrise tomorrow, or I'll be forced to mark you both as enemies to be hunted down and killed on sight.” Gabriel voiced before retracting his hands from the table.
“Thank you, Gabriel.” I told him.
He nodded, before walking out of the cabin.
“So, where do we go now?” Alex asked me.
My mind immediately went to the other city beyond the mountains that Etariel had mentioned to me, maybe they’ll give us refuge there?
“I know of a city past the mountains. If we can make it there, they may give us refuge.”
“I hope so, for our children's sake.” She put a hand on her belly. “I refuse to give birth in unsafe conditions.”
Of course, I agreed.
I went upstairs to pack, while Alex packed downstairs.
We stashed everything that fit inside the Mo’or bag, and the rest was too big to carry, so we left it behind. The furniture was there when we arrived after all.
You didn’t seriously think about stealing the furniture too? Omen asked.
‘Stop acting like you can’t read my thoughts.’ I told him, inciting a little giggle from my wolf.
It’ll be a full moon in three days. I can’t wait to see how our wolf form looks! I could practically see him clapping in excitement.
I let out a little smile. I too was curious as to how we’d look.
-
I said my goodbyes to Azael and Anu before leaving the city for good.
“I hope you can forgive me, Faron.”
I looked at my mate and shook my head in denial. “You don’t need to apologize for anything. All you’ve shown me is kindness and love, and I won’t blame you for something that’s in the past. We can’t change the past, the only thing we can do is be good people here and now.” I gave her a hug. “I love you, Alex. No matter what happens, I'll always love you.”
Alex’s mood was lifted after my little speech. “You’re right Faron. I love you too.” She gave me a little kiss, before we continued walking toward the mountain of Pillan.
“Are you sure about going over the mountain? There are stories of people who’d gone up there and never returned.” Alex asked me with some worry in her voice.
I hesitated a bit. If we went over the mountain, we’d save a good three days of travel, but we’d also run the risk of running into monsters.
“What do you think?” I asked her.
Hell yeah, we’re going over the mountain! Omen answered.
*sigh*
“I asked Dawn what she thought, and she wants to risk it over the mountain. She’s never been wrong in her predictions before, so I’ll trust her on this too.” She gave me a little smile.
“Yeah, Omen also wants to go over the mountain.”
“Well, let's do it then!” Alex said with a smile.
-
Luckily there were paths snaking up the mountain, else we’d have to climb the almost vertical walls of Pillan. There were no handrails, making me a little nervous, but we walked up the trail regardless.
Alice was the only one of us three who seemed unphased by the dramatic height, and she tripped up the stairs without a single care in the world.
After what felt like an eternity of walking, we finally made it to a cave on the side of the mountain. It’d started to get darker, so we decided to spend the night in the little cave. At least it offered some shelter from the harshly cold winds.
“W-We should g-get a f-f-fire going” Alex told me through shattering teeth. I wrapped my cape around her. “I’ll get right on it.”
I went outside the cave to look for something we could use as kindling, when I spotted a snow-covered bush on the edge of the cliff. I was pretty hesitant on approaching it, seeing as there was at least a 50-meter drop right underneath it, but there were no other options.
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I got down on my knees and began bear-crawling over to the bush trying to distribute as much of my weight as possible, to not make the outcropping shatter under my weight. It looked flimsy.
I got pretty close to the bush, before I suddenly heard a growl coming from behind me. I turned my head around and spotted a brown bear standing there. My knife got out of its sheath, ready to attack.
The bear looked very hungry, and it was definitely eyeing me as a potential meal. I couldn’t stand up to defend myself either, due to fear that the ledge would give way and make me fall to my doom.
The bear began to circle around my position like a hawk would.
my hand moved down to my holster and grabbed my revolver.
Was it a good idea to shoot it though? The recoil might cause the ledge to break, or the bear could fall on the ledge.
I was trapped.
Suddenly, the bear lost its footing as it was yanked backward by a violent force. I didn’t waste the opportunity and uprooted the bush before jumping back onto stable ground.
The ledge fell behind me as I landed onto solid footing.
That was close.
I looked at the bear and spotted a wolf gnawing at its back foot. I recognized it as Dawn, Alex’s wolf. I cracked a small smirk before commanding my knife to stab the bear in its throat.
The bear let out a roar and collapsed to the ground with blood leaking from its now opened neck.
My knife wiped itself on my jacket before sheathing itself.
"Thank you, Dawn."
-
Alex had turned back to human form to fit inside the cave but was still shivering since she was only wearing my cape. She huddled closer to the fire when i finally got it burning and hugged me tightly.
“Y-you’re s-so w-w-warm.” she said between shivers. I pulled her even closer to my body and we huddled around the fire.
A few minutes later, the cave was about as warm as your average medieval household. Alex had finally stopped shivering, and I'd begun carving meat out of the bear we killed and roasting it.
We both chowed down on the bear meat, savoring the flavor. The meat was still teeming with blood, but that just made it all the juicier.
Luckily for us, Mo’or dee must have expected something like this to happen to her, since her bag was full of firewood just begging to be added to our campfire. I said a soft inner thank you to her expired soul and laid down on the cave floor. We hadn’t brought any bedrolls, so we were forced to sleep on the cold stone of the cave floor.
We had each other though.
The last thing I saw before falling asleep was the green eyes of my mate bidding me good night before we both drifted off to sleep.
-
-
When I woke up, I looked down at my feet. Are they... further away? I guessed it was all part of the werewolf transformation, but I didn’t expect my body to change so drastically. I tried to stand up with my back straight but hit my head on the ceiling of the cave. “Ow!” I rubbed the top of my head.
Apparently, that woke Alex up and she let out a tired yawn. “What’s going on- Holy shit, you grew!” She looked at me, up and down. “Well hello big guy.”
I lowered back down to the floor and smiled at her. “I could get behind this whole werewolf gig.”
Man, we’re so tall! I hope this gets translated into our wolf form too, we’d be so intimidating!
“Omen is also excited about the change.” I told Alex with a snicker.
Only two days before the supposed full moon where I'll undergo my final transformation.
-
We resumed our trek up the mountain, but it was a lot colder since all my clothes ripped due to my transformation. The only things that still fit were my cape and boots. Sadly, my belt didn’t fit forcing me to stuff my revolvers into the mo’or bag. This meant I didn’t have them easily accessible when I needed them. My knife still sat snugly on my lapel though.
After walking for around one more hour, I spotted something peculiar. It was a nest of sorts, but the eggs were larger than I'd ever seen before. I was about to approach them, when I suddenly heard an ear-shattering roar from the skies. I instinctively ran behind cover, which happened to be an outcropping in the mountain.
What I saw next I'll never forget.
There was a huge beast flapping its wings about 20 meters from the ‘nest’. It looked like a dragon from ancient mythology, with its huge fangs and scaly body.
“WEREWOLF.” I heard its deep voice ring throughout the mountain. “I KNOW YOU’RE HIDING. COME OUT, AND I’LL SPARE YOUR LIFE.”
I hesitated. There was a good chance the beast would kill me the second I left cover.
Relax, dragons are very truthful creatures. If they say they’ll let us live, they’ll let us live.
I decided to go against my better judgment and listened to my wolf.
“AH THERE YOU ARE, WOLF. WHY DID YOU APPROACH MY NEST?” The creature asked, before landing on the mountain peak.
“I-I didn’t know these belonged to a dragon! I was just curious!” I yelled, trying to overpower the loud winds that were making it hard to keep my eyes open.
The dragon seemed to notice my struggle and spoke some words I didn’t understand before shouting into the sky, dispersing the clouds partly and making the wind die down.
"I'LL ACCEPT YOUR APOLOGY. YOU MAY CONTINUE, WOLF." The large creature rumbled, and puffed out a small cloud of smoke.
I nodded my thanks, and we quickly went onward down the other side of the mountain.
“That was insane!” I heard Alex scream in happiness. “We survived talking to Ragnar, the dragon of Pillan, despite disturbing her nest!”
“You knew that beast was up here??” I asked her.
She cowered a little at the volume of my voice, and weakly muttered a “Sorry.”
I squatted down to get on eye level with my cowering mate and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry for yelling out at you. I’m just concerned for you and our children, that’s all.”
She lifted her face up at me and smiled. “I know, I know. You’ll make a great father, Faron.”
Alice, feeling left out, came up in between us and snuggled close.
“Oh, don’t go thinking we forgot about you, Alice. You’ll always be a part of our family.” Alex said, before picking the cat up. Alice didn’t seem to mind and snuggled into her chest.
After our short pit-stop, we continued onward down the mountain. Somehow, we didn’t encounter anything out of the ordinary and we reached the bottom of the mountain in no time at all.
“So, this is it, our new home.” I sighed, looking down at the small human settlement.
“Do you think they’ll accept us, even though we’re werewolves?” I asked Alex.
No chance in hell! They’ll hunt you down with pitchforks and torches! Omen commented mockingly.
‘You know, you might have a point there, Omen. We should at least get dressed properly before we attempt anything.’
Or we could sleep rough until the full moon and run in there in wolf form. I like that idea better.
That would eliminate the issue of clothing.
“Alex, what do you think?”
She sat down in thought. “We’ll survive off nature if we choose to sleep rough, and in wolf form we could easily sneak into the city under the cover of the night.”
“Did Dawn suggest that strategy?” I asked her.
“Yep!" Alex answered.
“You know what, we’ll sleep out here until the full moon. How bad can it be?”
-
We spent the rest of the day making ourselves a makeshift tent with sticks, leaves and grass. It wasn’t pretty, but it was waterproof-Ish and would protect us from wild animals and the like.
Not that it was an issue, what with my knife constantly keeping guard as we slept.
Our tent was just big enough for it to not be cramped, and small enough to pass as a random lump in the ground to a random passerby.
“It’s cozy.” Alex remarked, lying beside me on the mossy undergrowth.
“And this moss is just so comfortable!” I joked.
Alex gave me a playful punch on the arm. “Seriously though, its way better than the cold cave floor.”
“On that we agree” Alex told me, before laying down on my chest.
“You’re even more comfortable though. Can we sleep like this?”
Her body was soft and light like a human blanket. I had no qualms about letting her lie on top of me, so I agreed to her request. Her body was slowly moving up and down from my breathing.
She gave me a loving kiss, before wrapping her arms around my back.
“I love you, Alex.”
“I love you too, Faron.”
I wrapped my arms around her back and hugged her closer.
I might just be the luckiest man alive, I thought.
That was the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes and began drifting off to sleep.