Saving Grace

Chapter 2

The sun rose, flashing against the rocks and awakening a wolf. His eyes fluttered open, before transformation took place. In his place, stretched out on the floor, was a shirtless teenage boy. Pushing his shaggy brown hair from his eyes, he stood, stretching and popping his body. 

His neck crackled as he twisted it from side to side. Stumbling from his palette on the floor, he crashed into the dining room table, trying to get to the sink for a glass of water. Groaning as his hip hit the counter, he flailed his arms trying to keep from falling over with the blunt impact. 

He hated waking up, only to find that he had transformed in his sleep. It was like waking up with a hangover. A hangover that made you forget you had even been drunk the night before. Well, until you woke up to find that you couldn't walk straight, and the only place you could walk was right onto your face.

Feet thundering on the ground, caused him to stroll out to the mouth of the cave. As the sun hit him, sweat began to bead down his skin. Squinting, he placed a hand at his eyebrows, attempting to block the rays and see who was rushing towards his home with such an urgent  speed. 

Skidding to a halt, his front paws clawed at the dirt, Trace managed to stop before he collided into the half naked boy. His brown fur, that cascaded towards the ground, shrunk during the transformation until it was a mess of bronze curls on the top of his head. 

"Blake," Trace gasped, in between ragged breaths, "Ally is-" 

Blake cut him off with a growl. He didn't want to hear about Ally. He didn't want to hear about her problems, her pack, or her new boyfriend who she swore she would marry. Trace followed his friend, as Blake made his way back into the cave. 

Blake pulled a chair over to the table and slumped into it. On the wooden surface was a bowl of fruit that he was dying to shove his face into, and ravage the fruit until the bowl was left with nothing but peels and cores. Instead, he held back his inner wolf and used his hand to munch slowly on a red apple. 

"Ally," Trace began, ignoring the glare that Blake shot him, "is very angry with you. Hell, Blake, the whole pack is infuriated with you." Blake shrugged in response. "You realize that you could be the cause of a war between our two packs? You could be the reason that a peace that has been for hundreds of years could end."

Blake's grey eyes turned to his best friend. Narrow wolf slits glared at Trace, nothing but pure animal stared back at him. Had Trace not known who was beneath those eyes, he would have been preparing for a fight, by the look he was getting. 

"Look," Blake began, in between chomping on his apple, "I appreciate your concern, for me." The sarcasm that dripped from his tongue indicated that he didn't care what his friend had to say. Blake's cockiness seemed to be overpowering him lately, like he could do whatever he wanted without a single reprimand for what was sure to come. 

Dating the princess of the enemy pack, against his alpha's obvious distress, was a big no no. Of course, who could deny him the right to a fair romance, although that romance was anthing but fair. 

Ally was beyond demanding. Blake knew it the moment he set eyes on her. Her hands curled on her slender hips as she beckoned to her guard, forcing him to approach the man who sat in her seat. Her blond curls dangled precariously from her scalp, and danced in front of her blue eyes as she swished the strands over her shoulder. 

And those demands didn't just land on her servants, when they began dating she had no problem rolling her outrageous wants onto his shoulders. But that didn't mean he didn't complete them for her.

Lust had caught Blake by the throat and shook him like a rag doll. But lust runs out. And when it did, the consequence wasn't good. Leaving Ally bawling probably wasn't the best way to let her down, but she soon got over it. Declaring revenge to be his fate, and karma to be around the corner in the worst form.

To say he wasn't frightened would be a lie, but he couldn't show anyone that. And he knew exactly what could happen. By breaking the ultimate rule -don't get involved with the enemy- he was starting a chain reaction. Soon, her people would come charging just like Trace had, and the end result, surely, couldn't be good. 

And when that event took place, his people would come charging at her's. Sparking a fight that would last years, and kill many friends and family that didn't deserve to die. The entire world would be thrown off balance as a war that had been ended milleniums ago, would, once again, pick up where it had been paused.

Sighing, Blake turned his gaze back to Trace, who stood glaring him. "Trace, I know you're worried about me. But, I can take care of myself." He tried to make the words less cocky, and more understanding. 

Walking forward, Trace treaded lightly to stand next to his best friend, who had been so since they were both pups. Then he lifted his hand and thumped Blake in the head. Hard. "You idiot!" He howled. "I'm not even one bit concerned about you. I'm concerned about the people that you are supposed to care about," Trace threw his hands up in the air and then let them fall back down, thumping on his thighs.

"Don't you understand that my pack will do anything to kill you. They will break any pact that either pack had ever made. They will stoop to any level plausible just to rip your head from your neck!" Trace tried to get the point through to Blake, but he didn't listen.

"I don't even understand why your pack would do that... No one likes Ally," Blake murmured, fumbling with his hands in his lap. He wished he could just get up, run, and hunt. Leaving Trace in the dust to worry about the problems that would come in the future. 

"Yes, I know," Trace sighed, wondering how Blake could be so stupid, "but everyone loves her father. My alpha. Remember him?" 

Blake's eyes got wide. For a matter of fact, he had forgotten all about Ally's dad. Frank was like one of those prison dads. The man who wasn't afraid to wave a shotgun in the face of his daughter's boyfriend. As far as Frank was concerned, Blake was destined to die. And this was a perfect reason to go after Blake's pack, which Frank had been trying to fight for as long as Blake could remember. 

"You idiot." Trace whispered, when he saw that Blake hadn't.

"You idiot."