MIK

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

My large heavily coated body was grateful to the river. While this coat of fur was amazing and adaptable and all that, running for a long time still made me want to pass out. So I lapped up the chilled water greedily. It washed away the taste of my last kill in my mouth.

Things had been a lot simpler since I took to the forest. Hunting was the only thing that consumed my mind. None of the deaths that haunted my conscious mind could touch me when I was living like an animal. There was no contemplating if I deserved to be alive or not. There was just deer, kill deer and tired, sleep. As simple as that.

However my awareness came back to me as I was drinking. Maybe the beast's bloodlust had temporarily subsided. I shifted back to my human form, it felt foreign and tiny. My clothes were raggedy and had very old blood scabbing off them. I watched the water flow past, trying to hold on to the peacefulness of my wolf form. But my mind wandered.

There were three goals I had left, the first was to find the woman who would bring me peace. This would be a challenge. I would have to go find other myths, and not well... murder them. It was something I really wanted to do but despite my vacation as a wolf there was some small part of me that didn't believe I deserved that peace yet.

The second goal was to find the wolf who had bitten me and demand answers. This was a goal of mine before I even knew it was a werewolf. I had been in the same forest running around as a wolf and I had not caught onto its scent even once. It would take more skill than I possessed to do and would it even be satisfying? Who knows if I was even trying hard enough.

The third goal was to get revenge on William. Though he didn't want to kill Juno I still believed he was behind the attacks that led to my mother being killed along with a whole heap of innocent mortals, including an entire hospital staff.

But the last time I had fought William, he had beaten the shit out of me.

There was no way I could do that alone though out of the three it was the most easily at least to begin. Though maybe the one I was the most afraid of. I had certainly given him enough time to summon back up. But I did know where he lived.

So what was I really doing in this forest all this time?

Procrastinating of course.

Maybe I did still have a bit of human left in me after all.

There was the logical step, the call to action lay out in front of me. Find William. Yet I continued to stare into the ebbs and flows of the river. I extended my leg, shoe gone long ago and the sock just an anklet. The water kissed my filthy foot, its gentle touch carrying away some of the dirt. It was refreshing and sent goosebumps running up my spine. I had long since given up on caring what happened to me. Surely that wasn't what was holding me back from confronting William. Something more...

I relaxed my leg and my foot rested in the mud at the bottom, it squelched between my toes. It also kicked up clouding the crystal clear water above. However with the strength of the water's current even that was soon washed away and my foot was left exposed through clear water once again.

Maybe I wasn't afraid of dying, the beast certainly was as it had been the only thing keeping me alive. But my heart sang out the crystal clear truth. It wasn't death that would haunt me, if I failed against William I would be failing against all of those lives that had been lost. Sure in most cases it was my fault but William played no small role in any of this. After all, the vampires wouldn't have been in that hospital or perhaps even at my house if it weren't for him. Lalla wouldn't have killed my mother if the vampires hadn't turned her. And I would have never killed Orvar, Lalla, Ilona and Sabinus if that hadn't happened. Ruby would have never killed Juno if she hadn't been turned. Sure most of these things were my fault but William was also there, his presence loomed over it all.