Mark of the Moon

Chapter 20 - Sudden Occurences

Chapter 20: Sudden Occurences

  "What? Ian who?" he said, his voice was on the lilt of a fake laugh, and my eyes narrowed as I gripped his forearms. 

   "I'm serious, Tristan, I know about Ian Redwood, I..." I couldn't finish the sentence and looked away from his eyes, which had gone as serious as mine. I just wanted to get these skates off and go, go and hide. This wasn't happening, this wasn't happening. My mind was always going a mile a minute, but this was too much, that unfamiliar feeling of freaking out. That was something I was definitely not used to, and my nails were digging into his arms.

  "What do you know about Ian? Sam..." he said this sternly and solidly, and I couldn't take all of this.

  "It all started with the letter and the meeting and ..." my mouth was going about as fast as my mind and he immediately shushed me.

  "Slower, what happened?" he said as he guided me back to the bench.

  In some aspects it was a huge relief to get all the secrets off my chest, well most of them. I watched his face diligently, looking for any sign that his gasket just might blow, which was highly likely. Being a person who didn't usually keep that many secrets, releasing a huge one was like a death wish, especially from someone who could literally snap me in half.

  "What do you mean? How long?" he interrupted me as I was in the middle of saying when I got the first letter from Ian. I hadn't even gotten halfway through the spiel and already the weight was starting to layer back on my shoulders, I just wanted to yell and shriek it in his face, but I bit down on my lip tightly.

  "About a month ago," I responded monotone, as I tried taking off my skates, once we had gotten to the bench. The coldness seeped through the seat of my jeans, and I gritted my teeth against the discomfort. The laces wouldn't come untied. I pulled the material of my jeans up from my ankle, and rolled it over until it looked like I was wearing capris. In the middle of winter, more uncomfortably.

  He breathed in deeply and let it out slowly, a technique I was used to seeing my using when his blood pressure was up; to keep him from yelling or just plain exploding at the cause of his heightened blood pressure. Though, I doubt werewolves worried about blood pressure, the way Tristan was heading, he probably had a normality of high blood pressure, so high strung. I tugged roughly at the boot on my ankle, getting it off with a swift jerk, but also managing to allow the blade of the skate to cut into the side of my other leg. I hissed, but immediately applied pressure to it, knowing it would be bleeding soon. He didn't notice, his eyes were closed.

  "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" his voice was so serious and flat that I almost didn't recognize him. Where was the sarcasm? A shiver erupted down my spine, times like these made me wish that it was a permanent lilt to his voice, it should have been.  

  I glanced out towards the wooded area around the pond; sure Ian was lurking out there, waiting for me to speak the words. I hadn't even told Tristan of the message yet, he was probably waiting out there for me to say the dreaded three words 'I was afraid'.

  I didn't want to give him that advantage over me, no way, "I thought I could take care of it by myself," I lied blatantly, but I didn't care, my face was the same impassive expression as before. He sighed, but I could practically hear the smugness in his tone, saying that practically meant I was giving in and telling him that I needed him to take care of it for me; but in comparison, it was the lesser of the two evils. He was buying it at least, running a hand through his black hair, making it stick up the curls going every which way.