Taming the Wolf Prince (Re-uploading Edited Chapters)

Chapter 5 The Roses in the Snow

Even in her dreams, she couldn't escape the jaws of the wolf.

From the dark depths of her nightmare abyss, numerous hands reached, moaning, screaming, and crying her name in a single, gross amalgamation of limbs and flesh. Their fingers were ice-cd. Talon-like nails punctured her skin, tearing her into the dark void below.

As she sank into a tar-like substance, a slither of light glared from the moon above. She raised her hand. Prisms filtered though her fingers as she reached towards it, desperate to ascend.

Yet, still she sank deeper and deeper, drowning in darkness...

Just as she was about to be consumed by the abyss, she heard a growl; a deep rumble of a roar like an earthquake. She looked down. The hands were gone. Instead, in their place, was a wolf, rearing towards her on its hind legs like a great white shark. It opened it's maw, revealing fangs dripping with strings of blood as it leapt closer -

In a cold sweat she started awake, finding that same full moon of the dreadful night glared ominously down at her. Her fingers clawedat her hair. Death. So much death, all because of her. The weight of their souls crushed her like a heavy weight on her shoulders.

The message was clear: It should have been you not us.

She heard a spluttering sob. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Tamer rocking back and forth, curled in a foetal ball, face buried in his hands. Despite insisting he needed some time to expose himself to moonlight to heal, he sat in the shadow of a gnarly tree, as far away from light as possible. He looked up at the sound of her commotion. A single red-rimmed eye peaked out the cracks in his fingers. As he rocked forward, the tear rolling down his cheek glistened. For the first time that night, his eyes were back to their usual brown, no reddened blood-lust, no supposed golden light of wolfish affection - just Tamer, drenched in sadness. Despite being the most comforting thing she'd seen that night, it did nothing to still her beating heart.

"Nightmare?" he said hoarsely.

She nodded frantically.

He shifted closer, taking a deep breath. He composed himself, determined to be strong for her.

"What did you see?"

She panted. "Just all the people that are going to die because of me."

The consequences of their actions weighed the air.

"Winter," Tamer eventually called in an attempt at a calm voice. His fingers walked across the woodland floor, giving a reassuring squeeze of her hand; she squeezed so desperately back that his knuckles turned white. "You were frightened and in the vices of death. Those people sacrificed you because they were the same. No one has any right to criticise anyone here. No one has any idea how they'll react in the face of death until they experience it."

He grimaced, letting loose a broken sigh before whispering, "besides. I was the one who cut you down. If anyone, I should take this burden."

"I don't like when you say things like that Tamer," she pleaded.

His features hardened. "I'm fighting for you because you deserve the right to live, to lead an ordinary life without pain," he said firmly. "In other words, I'm fighting so you don't have to, Winter."

Her heart was warmed, but the thing felt constricted, like it was being crushed in her chest. She really wished that he didn't have to do that. She felt so hopeless .

A cloud of mist sheared from Tamer's lips as he stared up at the star-speckled sky above them.

"But... I didn't do this just for you. I...did it for me also." A pained smile lifted his lips, tears sparkling in his eyes. "I don't know how to make you grasp how it is I who is truly dependant on you," he whispered. "I didn't have a family. And the other humans were so deeply afraid of me, I couldn't find any other companionship."