Alone with the Wolves: Running with Wolves sequel

1: Just a kiss

Friday evening, 6:00 pm

The staff comes towards me, a primitive wooden thing with a steel tip. But even as that tip comes towards me, I am able to knock it out of my opponent’s hand, twisting to round to jam it against his throat, knocking him to the ground and standing over him with the tip pressing into his back. I smile and let him up, the smile widening as he turns to me and says; “Good. You’re better at this now.”

I grin. “Not least ‘cause I have you as a teacher.”

Lucas laughs. “Hardly. You have natural talent-it’s just been suppressed for a while, that’s all,” he says gently, referring to my human upbringing before I was bitten and turned into a wolf.

 A smile touches the corners of his mouth and he nods at the staff in my hand. “Again?”

I repeat the exercise again and again until I’ve mastered it, and then the real sparring begins. I’m paired up with three different wolves and they lunge at me, all at once. I deflect then easily, the staff flying in my hands. They’re all on the ground by the end of the match, sweat pooling on their brows.

“Now, let’s step this up a little,” Luc calls, addressing the whole pack. Both of them, in fact.

The Steelfire wolves have decided to train with us for the duration of the war, figuring that pooling our knowledge and resources would do us all good. So far, it has done.

I am paired with Reid for the fourth time in a month, which is how long it’s been since the war started. This is also our fourth training session-and nothing’s gone wrong during one yet.

A mocking smile breaks out on my face as Reid raises his sword. He laughs, mocking me. “You think you can defeat me with that?” he laughs, motioning to my staff. It does seem a little pathetic, I’ll admit. But he’d better watch out-people have died for underestimating me.

I smirk. Slip automatically into a defensive stance. “Bite me.” Just like you did my brother.

Fuelled by the sudden anger that bursts through my blood, I lunge at him, going for his weak, undefended side. He never even sees it coming. He’s too busy trying to block the blows coming thick and fast down on him, all of which take his attention away from his unguarded right side. I lunge for it, and he twists at the last second, bringing my staff into brief contact with the metal of the sword.

A notch is cut into the staff and I use the momentum of the wedged sword to push backwards, flinging the sword out of the staff and the boy off his feet.

I laugh as he sprawls in the dirt, having barely enough time to clamber to his feet before I’m on him again. I rain blows down upon him, so quickly he can barely keep up.

He grunts with exertion and sweat is pouring down his face as he blocks my swings, only landing a couple himself. Even with all this training, he really is still very inexperienced.

Eventually, I manage to get in a punch to his gut, which sends him sprawling yet again. I ‘help’ him to his feet, only to twist around and stab him in the back, kicking him in the new wound for good measure, hard. Several people clap when I send him to the ground again, and I leave him there for a minute before grabbing his hair and yanking his head up. I lean down and say menacingly; “That’s for my brother.”

I let his head hit the dirt again and he stays there till one of his friends comes to help him up, glaring at me. I just shrug, like; what can I say? He’s a jerk. There’s nothing I can do about that.

Luc comes up to me and says; “Well done. You did well,” raising an eyebrow at the boy on the floor; he doesn’t comment, though. He knows how much Reid deserved that, as well as I do.

I just smile at him and pick up the staff I’d just dropped on the floor, and step up for another fight.

*

The next morning, I check Luc’s healing wounds from the attack a few nights ago. It’s the 2nd of April so his wounds have had almost a week or more to heal, but they're still only scabs. I make him lie down on his bed back at the house and remove his bandages, wincing as I take in the red splotches of dried blood dotted around the top half of his body.

I sit down next him and stroke his head, brushing his hair out of his eyes. He grabs my hand and presses it to his lips, kissing my knuckles and making me smile. He sits up slowly, eyes never leaving me face. “Thanks,” he says, and I get the impression that he’s talking about much more than just the wounds.

I sigh and nestle against him, keeping my hand in his. He sighs, too, apparently contented. I relish this opportunity for a little bit of peace-we haven’t had an attack at night since the one a week ago, thank goodness.

 It’s Saturday, so we’ve no school to contend with, although it would have been good to see Fay after ditching yesterday (again, due to luc's wounds) and having training afterwards. I mean, everyone knows by now that if you’re wounded that badly you can’t be expected to get up and act normally-especially in a school full of humans who would just ask dangerous questions that could jeopardize the safety of the whole pack-and reveal our secret.

 “Should we go down to the beach today?” I ask, trying to keep Luc’s mind off everything.

“Yeah,” he says, brightening.

I’ve never seen Luc this wounded and it scares me-his wounds have never taken this long to heal before. I hope it will work out soon though; if it hasn’t, I’ll have to go talk to Raina, my oracle when it comes to all things pack-related, especially since Luc is indisposed. Right now, what scares me the most is the fact that he can barely move without wincing in pain.

And then I realize something. He fought Silverstaffs. I remember Raina saying that if a Silverstaff got into any part of you, a claw or something got embedded in your skin, you would die, but slowly.

Luc fought Silverstaffs, and was probably wounded by quite a few of them.

Might he be dying?

No. I can’t bear to think of that. But at least it sort of explains why he can’t really move.

 For the moment, though, I won’t leave his side.               

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What do you think will happen to lucas? Will he die/ Will he live? Stay tuned to find out! :)