The Vampire's Requiem [malexmale]

Chapter Seventeen

"Hello?" I asked, confused. What was a child doing out here? And how... filthy. Now that I noticed, he looked as if he'd been running through mud. He also had a couple of cuts on his cheek and a scar that went right down the center of his torso to his navel.

He jumped when I spoke to him. His eyes widened and he looked around for a second, then pointed to himself to make sure I was speaking to him. I frowned and nodded slowly. I started to swim to him, but he squeaked like a frightened mouse and darted back into the woods. I would have gone after him, but it would take too long for my tail to turn into legs and he would be miles ahead of me at the rate he was running.

How odd, though. Was he part of the werewolf village?

No, they seemed too civilized to let one of their children run around naked and filthy.

I shrugged it off and swam for a while longer before climbing out of the lake. I had cooled down enough to return to Newell's side where I belonged. I let my fin melt into two legs before I got up and dressed. I gathered up the trash into the plastic bags I found and picked them up to bring them with me. I went the way the little boy had taken through the woods, hoping to meet up with him, but there was no sign of him.

Oddly enough, there wasn't even a scent trail. I couldn't smell him anywhere.

How strange.

I continued to walk through the woods until I heard a pair of familiar voices, making me turn my head.

"We can't leave the territory. If we do, Scooby's gonna sic his gang on us and I'm not equiped to deal with those meddling kids." Hunter's voice was saying. I narrowed my eyes in irritation at his references that I never understood. However, judging from his tone of voice, he was insulting them. Why couldn't he just speak like a normal person?

"Well, I'm certainly not going back until we find Xed." Newell answered. My cock leapt at that and I mentally scolded myself for it. He did not mean it the way it sounded. While I didn't know why he was looking for me, I knew it wasn't the reason I wanted it to be.

I went in the direction of their voices and came up behind them. I frowned at the way Newell limped and stopped every so often to breath hard, sweat forming at his temples and his cheeks flushed.

"You sure you don't want me to carry you?" Hunter asked dryly.

"Touch me and I'll rip out your jugular."

"Oh stop it you, you're making me all fuzzy inside."

"Ugh." Newell rolled his eyes, then seemed to notice me and whirled around, his eyes wide.

"Xed!" He exclaimed. For a moment, I wanted to believe he was actually happy to see me. Hunter raised an eyebrow at me, folding his arms over his chest as he looked at the bags in my hands.

"Do a little spring cleaning?" He asked. I ignored him and looked at Newell, who frowned at me. He studied my face as if trying to figure out what I was thinking, then he seemed at a loss for words before he cleared his throat.

"Xed, someone attacked one of the werewolves in the village this morning." He stated. I frowned at that.

Someone attacked a werewolf? In the village? That was incredibly dangerous.

Then I realized why Newell was telling me.

They thought it was me. Had the killing been so bad that they had no one else to point fingers at, except me? I would never attack the werewolves. I had no reason to, and while I was starving, I had enough control over myself to not do something that stupid. However, it was the fact that everyone else thought I had done it.