He Was A Dog When I Left, I Swear!

He Was A Dog When I Left, I Swear! - Chapter 15

Because the first time in a very long time, I felt alive.

New buds were growing on the trees now; tiny forms of life just starting to push their way into the world. No-one would look for me here – the woods were vast and deep and no-one knew where I was going. Heck, I didn’t even know where I was going.

But something was pulling me deeper and deeper into the trees, leaving the dreary everyday life that I had come to hate behind me. I had no idea where to find the Realm, or even if it existed outside of my head (sometimes I struggled to believe that Bruno existed outside of my head), but I had to know. I had to know that I wasn’t going completely mad.

After a while, I stopped, glancing around as my breath came in short gasps. The trunks were thicker in this part of the woods, shielding sunlight from the undergrowth. Gnarled branches twisted around one another, the harsh aftershocks of winter still lingering here – dead plants littered the forest floor, dampened, once-golden leaves shrivelling and decaying.

“I wondered when you would come, Blue.”

A chill ran down the back of my neck as I looked around, trying to put a face to the voice that was seemingly coming from nowhere. But other than the cries of birds above my head, I was alone.

“It’s been so long. So, so long.”

I stiffened, pressing my back against the tree and letting my fingers curl into themselves.

A rustle from my left sent me completely rigid, heart pounding. If Inga had found me before someone else had…

“Don’t be scared.”

My eyes widened in shock as Tabby appeared from the bushes, a faint glow emanating from her porcelain-like features. Her once dirty-blonde hair now tumbled down in blonde ringlets, past her shoulders and brushing the dip of her waist. What had been mottled, sore skin now shone a brilliant white, and a faint smile played around cherry-red lips. She was shrouded in a snowy-white cloak, made from thick furs; the hood was pulled up over her head, reminding me vaguely of an eskimo.

Where had she pinched that get-up?

“We’re going to get him back,” she breathed, coming towards me. 

Bruno:

The crowd roared loudly, the noise almost deafening me as I tried to stay on my feet. The witch took a few steps back, realising that the audience surrounding us were most certainly not on her side. I crouched, hackles raised, teeth flashing as I prepared to attack.

Warrior.

They didn’t know my name. They didn’t know the story of how I got back, or why I went. The only word that escaped their mouths was the name that all had been whispering for weeks.

Because that was what I was now.

A warrior.

A spell flew past my right ear, the scent of scorched fur filling my nostrils as I pounced on her, sinking my teeth deep into her neck. Screams shot through the air like gunfire, and the metallic tang of blood was all I could taste. Humanity had left me the first time they’d brought me to this place. Feelings and guilt had evaporated the moment they had prevented me from shifting back into a human. All there was now was a shadow of the person I used to be, and in turn, an animal; angry and caged and ready to attack anyone who tried to prevent it hurting others.

This was me now.

Me without Blue.

***

“Come on, Dog; eat something.”

Inga looked at me through the bars of the cage, glowering. She hadn’t informed me that the only reason she wanted me back in the Realm was so that she could have a pet, and now that reality had set in starvation seemed the next best step.

“Philip, I command you.”

If I had been a mutt, I’d have laughed in her face. Nothing mattered anymore. Why couldn’t they get it into their heads? Once they’d broken a wolf, once they’d taken away their only reason for breathing…you didn’t get the fire in our bellies or the howls at the moon. All that remained was a shell.

A shell of a cursed man.

Because in the end, that was all we were. Cursed. Cursed to the Realm. Cursed to love and never be loved by the humans we so desired. And then there was me. The exception to the rule. Punished because I fell in love with a human, and she dared to love me back.

Whoever said that love was kind, and love was pure, had obviously never been faced with Inga – I’d never met a person so full of hate. In the beginning of my captivity, she had dangled Romeo & Juliet in front of my bars, reading extracts and laughing scornfully.

“One of you has to die, Philip, for this story to be true!”

Bitch.

 I turned my back on her, growling quietly to myself. The day I got out of here was going to be the day that I ripped her face off, and I’d take great delight in feeding it to every Tom, Dick and Wolf out there. However, until then, I’d just have to live with the mental image.

She hadn’t yet taken away my freedom of thought.

There were, of course, some days I wished she would. It hurt to think about Blue. It physically pained me to think about the lazy days we’d spent together in her bed, her head against my chest as she read a book, or as we chatted about irrelevant things. I would have given anything to be back in that position again.

“Philip, look at me now.”

Grudgingly, with so much supressed rage that my teeth were gritted together, I obliged, turning my gaze up to meet her eyes, lips curled back in a silent snarl.

“You need to eat,” Inga snapped, throwing the leg of some creature through the bars of my cage. “Keep your energy up for the next fight.”

Next fight…and then the next fight…and then the next. I vaguely wondered how long this would last for, how long she would deem appropriate to train me. I had been stupid to think that my coming back here would result in something as menial as marriage. You could never trust a Mage. A loveless marriage would have been heaven compared to this. But she knew that it killed me inside. That was the only reason she was doing it. She wanted to strip away my humanity, so that only the beast inside reigned.

I looked at the leg doubtfully before curling up in the corner furthest from where it had landed. I wasn’t eating it. Hell, if I ever got out of here, I was becoming a vegetarian. The thought caused a lump to rise in my throat; if I ever got out of here and managed to live as a human again.

All thoughts of living as a human again were mashed together with thoughts of Blue.

I missed her.

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Uploads will be every Sunday from now on; that's the schedule. If I'm late on an upload, I give you permission to pester me for it. I'm back, doing the writing etc. So, yeah...take a read, I'm going to upload some newer stuff as well, because I haven't just...not been writing for the past year; I've got some stories written.

Thanks for the patience, guys!