Rory POV

It’s been a few hours since we left Aunt Leah and Uncle Axel in the underground hideaway. With the looks Aunt Leah was giving Uncle Axel, I would say that the next time I see them, I may have a cousin on the way. Other than my handsy aunt and uncle, Elias seems fairly excited for our new expedition, which is worrisome. He only gets like this when he’s plotting a prank or to cause major trouble for someone. His unpredictable nature has made him one of the best trainers among my aunt’s clan. All of his students are always over the top with each assignment they complete for the clan. Hell, he has trained me to be both a warrior and assassin per my request. I wanted to protect everyone even as a kid before I met Jerico.

Emalynn carried a torch as we continued through the caves beneath the Imber Mountains. The caves are dark with stalactites as tall as my five foot two inch frame. The stalactites glistened by the light of the torch. There was a beauty to the empty caves and caverns. Emalynn had spent time asking Elias about his dual life as an elf and wolf beast. She seems fascinated with our whole existence although few wolf beasts actually live with dual identities. The main reason I still have my ring is because I would be dead without my identity as a human. I felt a sigh escape my mouth alerting Emalynn and Elias to my less than thrilled attitude.

“What’s going on, Rory?” Emalynn probed as she walked beside me. She gently nudged me to pull my focus on her.

“Just thinking about how we are uprooting lives. Poor Myrra is going to beat on Elias for what’s happened.” I said with a small smile. I can picture small, amber haired Myrra on the shoulders of the tall, muscular, elvian Elias.

“Ha, ha. Very funny. Just wait until she sees you again. You will be running from an ax like you did less than a week ago. An angry, little dwarf named Myrra will be charging after you at full speed. It will make my beating seem like child’s play.” Elias smirked as my smile dropped realizing Myrra may actually kill me for putting everyone in this situation. Let’s just add to the complicated pile that is my life.

Emalynn’s ears lowered at the thought of facing the ax again. Her face was filled with worry. Elias turned back to see why we were so quiet, and I could see the guilt on his face at Emalynn’s reaction.

Our pace slowed. “Emalynn, you can still out run her. You have no need to worry.” I said letting my hand land on her shoulder.

She shook her head. “I just miss her already. She can chase me with an ax any day.”

“We will see her again. After we are sure we aren’t followed and I can control the shifting, we can go anywhere. We will find a place to call home again.” I reassure her by bringing her into a side hug.

“Rory, you are being a bit optimistic.” Elias cautioned. “Life on the run is not as simple as you believe it to be.”

Before I could react to Elias’s words, my wolf hearing overwhelmed my senses with the sound of tiny legs crawling in the cave walls. The stones on the cave floor bounced with the vibration of the digging. I quickly took my stance back to back with Elias and Emalynn. Did someone follow us? Before I got my answer, the walls began to shake.

Rumble! Crash!

The walls fell revealing two large, brown centipedes, slithering toward us. My blades were drawn, sitting in my still healing hands. All the magic and healing potions speed up the process of healing, but it still takes some time. The sound of their legs running across the rocky floor made my little wolf ears twitch. The centipedes circled us, pushing us closer together if that was possible.

Emalynn fired first, releasing a barrage of arrows. She nicked a few legs off one of the centipedes. A greenish blue substance akin to blood leaked out where the legs once wiggled. In one quick strike, the centipede managed to sting Emalynn’s arm with it's venomous front legs. Emalynn pushed the bug back only to fall to the floor, clutching her throbbing arm.

Elias and I moved to cover her from any more attacks. She let little moans from the pain. I struggled to keep my anger from surfacing. Pain tingles in my jaw where my fangs wanted to sprout. Breath in. The stupid bugs will be squashed. Breath out. I will slice their heads off. Breath in. I can stomp on their guts. Breath out. They will be dead soon.

“Emalynn, are you good?” Elias asks without taking eyes off our bug dance partners.

I felt her shift her body next to my leg. “I will live.” She groans. “Already took a potion to stop the poison.”

Only a few hours out of the safe house, and I have failed to protect Emalynn. What a crap friend I am. “Rest, Emalynn.” I command as a centipede makes a move toward me. One forceful strike into the abdomen and more bug guts spill onto my clothes. The centipede seems to move unaffected by the gash as it tries again to sting me. “How much fluid can this bug lose before it dies?” I ask.

Elias deflects a few swipes from the centipede. “Short answer is until the last drop leaves their body. Cave Centipedes aren’t strong, just annoying and resilient.” He growled, defending his position.

The centipedes charged us head on. The bugs managed to knock us away from Emalynn. She quickly stood holding a small knife in her uninjured hand. I stumble to my feet to assist her, but the bugs cut me off as they strike her. She dodges narrowly escaping another sting. Emalynn plunges the knife into each centipede a few times. The ground is becoming slippery from the greenish blue bug guts making a gross mud around us. Her little knife is sticky from the bug fluid, and becoming less effective by the minute.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Elias is next to me as we try to find a way through the centipede bodies blocking our path and knocking us back. “Any ideas, Elias?”

“One, but it’s a bit reckless. We have to decapitate our uninvited friends. I launch you in the air, and you slice the heads clean off. You have to get both to keep Emalynn from getting another sting.” He said.

He makes that sound easy. Flying into the air and decapitating two giant cave centipedes is not easy by any means. Emalynn slips to her knees, and I know this is my only shot. “Launch me.” Elias’s hands gently grab my wrists as he spins quickly. I start to feel sick as my world goes around and around. Suddenly, Elias lets go, and I fly up to the centipede heads. I quickly chop off its head. The second moves out range causing me to crash into the wall. Sliding down the cave wall, I feel every rock knick my skin. My arms and chest hurt from impact. I probably broke another rib or two.

A thud echoes in my ears while I try to pull myself from the ground. I slip in the muck of bug blood and dirt. Another thud hits the cave floor. My head snaps over to Elias standing over a weak Emalynn. I see dead centipedes next to them and relief washes over me. Elias manages to finish the job. I guess the old man still has a few fights left in him. I stand up, using the wall to walk toward them.

Elias pulled Emalynn into his arms as I resheathed my daggers. We quickly made our way to the cave’s exit. When it’s only Emalynn and myself, will we be able to face such problems on our own? We hubbled toward the light at the end of the cave’s path. I am grateful for feeling the sun on my skin for the first time in days. I look around to see we are in a forest with tall pine trees everywhere we look. I quiet my mind to listen to the forest. The forest bustles with the sound of woodland animals scattering about the trees and grass. There are no signs of any people in the area.

We quickly made our way through the forest, avoiding the friendly wildlife and peaceful predators. I only stopped for a moment as we passed a saber grizzly bear eating berries. A regretful reminder of how our journey started, but the moment passed without a second thought. Like a distant echo, I hear water babbling beyond the trees. The pine trees were packed tightly, causing my skin to itch from the pine needles grazing over my skin. My desire to jump into water was growing.

"Rory, do you hear the river just east of here?" Elias questioned. He walked ahead of me, carrying Emalynn gently in his arms. She looked like a sleeping child in his muscular elf arms. At some point, he shifted from older, warrior wolf beast to wise, strong elf.

"Yes, it's about a mile east of here if I had to guess." I responded, trailing behind his steps.

"Good." He stopped abruptly. "Take Emalynn there. Get cleaned up and patched up. Follow the river to the town. I am headed there now to find us an inn." He handed me Emalynn, and loosened up his muscles. "Be there before sunset, and don't forget to shift." He gave his sly grin and took off.

Emalynn slumped in my arms as I hiked and weaved through the trees. The sun sat high in the sky beating down on the forest. Water kept sounding better and better in my mind. My senses perked up as I heard Elias’s footsteps fade away. The river came into view through the pine thicket in front of me. I wanted to drop Emalynn and sprint into the river. I almost did, but I found a safe spot to lean her against a tree instead.

First, I needed to tend to sleeping beauty before I could enjoy the refreshing water. Filling my canteen, I surveyed the plants around me for anything that could help Emalynn heal from the slow working poison. I pulled out a bowl from Emalynn’s pack and poured in some fresh water. Moving back toward the river, I grab a slimy little frog. It pops out of my hand more than once as I try to walk back to the bowl. Small river frogs produce a slime that can aid in curing venomous stings, which includes giant cave centipedes. I dunk the little frog in the bowl while scaring it with my fingers, so it secretes more slime. The frog escaped my grasp, but I was satisfied with the slimy water in my hand. The last thing I grabbed was an abracia flower on the river bank. I bleed the lavender flower dry of its nectar because it gives the body a healing boost. Mixing my little medicinal water together, I knew Emalynn would hate the slimy, mucus feel of the drink on her tongue.

I gently tilted her head back for an easy swallow. My first try spilled out of her mouth. The second was spit back into my face. The third, I poured in her mouth hung with one hand and doused her with water from the canteen on her head, tricking my shocked patient into swallowing and waking up.

"What slimy shit did I just swallow?" Emalynn asked, in a flabbergasted manner. She dry heaved, trying to rid herself of the feeling of slime in her throat.

"A medicinal concoction." I gave her a relieved but evil grin. "You still need more treatment, but that will kick start your healing."

"Blah. It tastes like a slug slithered down my throat." Emalynn whined. She started licking her hands, the grass and the pine sap to rid herself of the slime taste.

"That bad?" I ask, trying to hold in a giggle. She gives me an exasperated nod. "It was only a little river frog slime." I smile widely.

She stares at me in disgust. "If I could, I would shove a river frog down your throat too."

In that moment, I saw her innocent, play facade fall away from her fierce gaze. "Yes! The fierce simian warrior has finally shown her face!" I exaggerated to break her tension.

"What?" The confused innocence returned to her face.

"For a moment, you looked like a threatening hunter and not a little girl pretending to be an adventurer." I smiled at her. She seemed torn between being happy and offended. "Alright sleeping beauty, let me patch your arm with some sap and bandage you up. Elias wants us to get all clean before entering the town up ahead."

Emalynn thrusts her swollen arm forward. I drain the sting with a knife as she bites hard on to the leather sheath for the knife I am using. She groans as quietly as she can while squeezing out every drop of the blue poison I can. "Hang in there. I just need to clean it out and doctor it." Washing it with some water, smearing abracia sap on her arm and binding it with cloth, before I finally finished her mending.

Emalynn stands up slowly, and pulls me up behind her. She wastes no time avenging herself for her haunting slime swallowing by throwing me into the river. "That ought to clean you up." She smiled with her little tail twitching behind her.

The water isn't deep. It reaches my waist, so I easily pop up to the surface. I relish the clean feeling on my skin. All the blue centipede guts have been washed away except for the dried bits in my hair. I dunk my head in the water trying to comb out the bug gut bits. I can hear Emalynn laughing at my display from the river bank. What she doesn't realize is her white fur is knotted up with dried, blue bug guts. Her green tunic with gold edging and black shorts caught more of the bug juice than my black tunic and leggings.

She splashed me as she leaped into the water next to me. Her head popped above water as she began combing out her white fur. I finished rinsing my black hair in the water. Elias’s reminder to shift rang through my mind. I decided to take advantage of the river and inhaled deep plunging myself underwater.

The world around me melted away as I began to focus on the shift. Pain radiated all the way to my toes as claws morphed into nails, fangs retracted in my mouth, ears folded into my head and my tail receded into my spine. The cool water took the edge off the tingling pain along my skin. Human ears formed and my head felt like splitting in half. Had I not been underwater, blood would be running down my neck and back by now. The cold sensation running through my veins faded, and I knew my appearance was completely human. Pushing myself to the surface, I gulped down a big breath.

"What happened down there?" Emalynn paused, staring at me.

"Shifting." I answered. "My transformations are a bit painful and dramatic unlike yours. Elias thinks that it is because I don't shift frequently. I usually stay human until my body or circumstances force my change."

"I suppose you are limited because of your- I mean our secret." She gave me a supportive smile. "Any more secrets that I should know about?"

"When I think of it, I will tell you." I smiled back at her. We combed as much bug guts as we could out of her fur before laying out on the river bank to dry. "We will need to get a job after we get our new travel papers. We need money to buy supplies for the next leg of our journey."

"I guess that we can't just walk into a guild for work like we usually do." Emalynn sighed. "What kind of job should we get?"

"Something that won't miss us when we leave." I responded.

We lay there daydreaming about finding a beautiful place in the middle of nowhere and building a home. Emalynn suggests continuing what Myrra did for us and take in orphans. I am surprised by her idea. She's barely an adult, and I am only a couple years older than her. Then again, we would be lost in the world had it not been for Myrra and the academy at our guild. It's something to think about later. For now, I need to figure myself out, so I can protect Emalynn and my family.