Blood & Bone [Book Three of The City of Eternity Series] [✔]

3.5: Desperation

It'd been three days since Dhana had forced me to give up our hunted deer. It'd been two days since Dhana had uncontrollably turned and ran from our home out of pure desperation. Even with Inas feeding my wife a small portion of her needed meat, my wife was struggling to keep in control; becoming more frail every passing hour. I feared if she didn't receive a substantial meal soon, that something far worse would happen than her recent escapade.

The morning of our monthly refill couldn't come soon enough. It was Central's way of keeping us fed and content, filling up vending machines set up around the zone filled with a selection of raw meats - this would be great if it was actually enough to last the month. After the third month of poor collection I'd visited the Central library to inspect the 'survey' they'd done on the area that was meant to tell them the food needs of the zone. From what I'd seen, the surveyors must've chickened out and only done half the zone because they had no data past the midline of Western; they'd completely avoided the east side.

Not that I blamed them - the more viscous of us tended to set up camp there, away from prying eyes and guarded patrols. Even Dhana and I avoided passing the midline, and she was definitely strong enough to take on the east side inhabitants. On a good day, that is.

I'd pulled her out of bed that morning, lugging her onto my back so I could carry her to the vending machine - I debated going myself and bringing some back, but decided better of it when I'd gotten a good look at her. She had become so frail she could barely open her eyes and as soon as she had, she began to cry. I don't think she had wanted to, it was simply a reflex from her body becoming weaker.

Truth be told, I wasn't doing much better. Between my own lack of food, rebuilding our furniture and securing our home again, I'd been run ragged; it was a wonder I could hold her at all.

I slowly twist my shoulders to look at my wife's face resting by my neck, she's releasing shallow breaths with her eyes closed over and a tenseness playing on her forehead with scrunched brows that I could only read as resistance to leave at all.

"Love, we have to go," I whispered gently, the quiet words just enough to get a mild reaction from her; a slight smile playing on her lips but her head shaking lightly. She was grinding her chin into my shoulder with more might than I considered her able to have currently.

"I can barely move, my love. I don't want to move," She responded, and I could hear the emptiness in her voice. There was this vulnerable bleakness lingering in the depths of it that harkened than this strange feeling in me.

This was the stage just before turning rogue. It was a stage that didn't have a specific length of time; it could be days, weeks, or just hours. Werewolves become drowsy and fragile, and just before they're at their ends, the beast they keep deep down inside crawls out of them. The beast finds the best moment of weakness and jumps out, tearing through everything in its path.