Shadewylf

2 - Poison

I can't be late.

Lexi sprinted through the woods, her golden paws kicking up dirt as she flew towards the town. Although her muscles already ached from the exhaustion, she pushed herself to keep going.

I can't be late. Not again.

As she finally burst from the trees, her pace slowed suddenly. She glanced back into the shade of the woods.

But I don't like leaving him.

With a sigh, she turned away and kept running, her paws now beating on the compressed soil that formed the twisting paths. The wooden walls of the houses blurred her vision a pale brown at the sides. Why did this path seem so long today?

Eventually, the path widened out into the main square - the plaza - and she took a sharp right, heading for one of the larger constructions. This building was split into several sections, each with the name of a Thunderwylf scratched above the doorway. She threw herself in the direction of one of the signs, the one that read 'Lexi', second from the left.

Another gold-coloured wolf was waiting beside it. Her green eyes flashed with concern.

"You're not too late," the wolf called as Lexi approached. "He hasn't come yet. But it could be any moment now." Her expression switched briefly to one of amusement. "That Peltless really does distract you, doesn't he?"

"Not the time, Storm, not the time," Lexi muttered in annoyance as she staggered through her own doorway. Storm mouthed something she couldn't make out, before vanishing into the lab next door.

It was only moments later when he appeared. Lexi had barely managed to regain a steady breathing pattern when his heavy footsteps began to thump outside. An orange glow flickered through the empty doorframe. Hurriedly, she grabbed for the document she'd been working on yesterday, and bent over it, her eyes scanning the pages.

She wasn't really reading. Her heart thumped far too fast for her to be able to concentrate.

Soon enough, she felt his heat radiate throughout her workspace. She gave it a couple of seconds, for realism, before she looked up from her document and dared to meet his eyes. They were a firey amber, almost red, and they sparked like embers every time they rested on her.

"Sergeant Joeonto," she addressed him, submissively lowering her gaze to his coral-orange paws. Every inch of his fur was perfectly smoothed out, and not a spec of dirt was in sight.

She wished she could say the same for herself.

Eyes scanning the room, Joeonto only grunted in acknowledgement. He knew her name. But he chose not to use it. After a moment, his gaze snapped forcefully back to her. "Have you finished the research I requested?"

"Oh. Not quite," she admitted, hurriedly reaching for a small vial containing a few droplets of blue-green liquid. "This is the prototype, but it is untested. There's no guarrantee that it will..." Before she could finish, he'd already snatched it off her. She winced. His rough claws could easily crack the delicate material and send her last week's work splashing uselessly on the floor.

"I'll test it for you," he growled, shoving the vial carelessly into a belt around his chest. "Your next assignment is this." Reaching back into the belt, he pulled out a scroll of paper. She took it from him slowly. Only a quick scan read made her gasp in shock.

"Poison!" she exclaimed, dropping the paper. It floated, gradually, with graceful sweeping motions, to rest on the wooden floorboards. "But... you don't want to... to kill?" She stared at him, suddenly afraid for different reasons.

Joeonto was the current leader of a group of mostly Flamewylves called the Wylfire. They had been originally created to monitor the enemies, the darker wolves from the old war, but now they mostly kept an eye on the criminals of this northern section of Sylvera. But they had always been peaceful. They didn't kill. They didn't harm. They just... protected.