Rogue of Obsidian: The Ultimate Key

Chapter 14

"Welp," Easterling sighed, wringing his freezing hands together, "I truly hope you like your constraints, Audra. Cause you surely seemed eager enough to get 'em on."

Audra wrestled against Saux's spare glitter ropes while simultaneously trying to remove her gag by rubbing her face against her shoulder blade. But it was mostly in vain— Hazalea made sure of that.

Annoyed by Audra's antics, Easterling hit Audra's gut with the hilt of his sword, causing her to let out a muffled oomph. He shook his head slowly while shooting darts at her through his aggravated hazels.

"Just look what you have done to that poor guy," he scolded, nodding toward Saux, "You have a lot of issues, but I didn't think a short fuse was among them."

Feeling a small twinge of guilt, Audra looked at Saux who currently sat bundled up on a snow-ridden rock, his bandaged face pointing towards the Nix Clama. While Hazalea was fixing Audra's constraints, Saux had disinfected his face and awkwardly wrapped a bandage around his injury. It took him a while to stop the bleeding, but eventually the sticky mess ceased to flow.

Turning toward Audra, Saux matched her gaze with his available eye and granted her a lopsided grin. Due to this, he winced, his hand immediately shooting up to his face.

It hurts for him to smile, huh? Why is he even smiling? He should hate me by now, as I do him.

As if he was reading her thoughts, Easterling piped up, turning his attention toward the injured werewolf.

"Yup, he's a strange bird, that one. But he seems to be willing to give you a lot of chances. Not that- I wouldn't say he likes you much, but... he's interested in you. Keeps telling me you have some sort of secret. Weirdo."

He scoffed.

"But I do like him, you know. He seems like a rebel, and I like that trait in a person. I mean, Vix is kind of like that. That's how I..."

He trailed off as Vixen walked over to the duo. He looked sheepish as she crossed her arms and glared.

"Thought she betrayed ya," she sniffed, "Fact I know it, 'cause you would be dead without me. Why talk to one ya no longer love?"

And with that, she wrapped her slender, exposed arm around Easterling's thick, covered arm. As she led him away, she made a point to shoot Audra what seemed to be a warning glare.

Audra rolled her eyes, causing Vixen's grip on him to tighten.

He thinks Saux is a strange bird when Hazalea is literally jealous of someone like me.

Easterling turned back to Audra. She found herself unable to read his expression now, even from his eyes despite him usually possessing some personality scrawled into his hazels.

"By the way, I was talking to Saux and Vix, and Saux says he wants to find a map in the Nix Clama. He says that that pack has the third most
amount of maps among all of the packs in Saxum. Don't ask me how I know, because Saux forgot to tell me."

Audra let out an unintelligible groan.

"Oh, right, you can't ask me," he said, chuckling drily, "Anyway, we're leaving first thing in the morning, so try to get some sleep, alright? We wouldn't want your grumpiness to make you more of a burden than you already are."

He sneered as he said the last sentence, wrinkling his nose.

As he left, he threaded the tent flap closed, presumably to keep the icy air out and Audra in.

Audra sighed as she squirmed against the tent pole Hazalea bound her to. As impressive as it seemed that Saux could randomly pull supplies out of a pocket in the air whenever he wanted, Audra felt that he needed to try to find a better tent pole to store. She swore this one started giving her a rash.