"Out! OUT!"
The loud, angry screaming of a deep, old male voice abruptly woke me up. The first thing I saw was a pitchfork, threateningly swinging in the air, pointing toward me and Jerr. The tool was handled by an old man, his scruffy, white beard a telltale sign of his age. His face was wrinkled in anger, his hands were visibly shaking with rage.
"Shit," I mumbled under my breath, shooting straight awake and scrambling towards my bag.
I saw Jerr do the same as me. "Run," he warned me, and we slipped past the angry farmer.
"I've had enough of you teens, rummaging in my shed!" He ran after us, continuing with his threats. "This ain't no damned hotel!" he screamed.
Suddenly very awake, Jerr and I ran towards to forest again, our bags in hand, where it would be easier to hide from this angry old man.
He wasn't nearly fast enough to keep up with us, but his angry rant followed us. He kept shouting, "The town's patrol is involved! I'll catch you fuckers!"
We ran and ran until his loud threats were nothing but a humming in our ears, and we were sure he wouldn't be able to catch up to us. We had no interest in fighting with the local townsfolk and bringing that unwanted attention upon us.
"I think we lost him," Jerr panted behind me. "You can slow down, Sari."
I halted in my tracks and turned around, making Jerr bump into me since he hadn't altered his speed.
We both fell on the ground, the leaves furrying next to us. I saw a squirrel hasting up a tree next to me, but when I looked forward, I stared into the familiar green eyes of the bloody Wise Moon, at a closeness they hadn't been before.
Jerr had fallen on top of me, his panting breaths caressing my cheeks. His chest was touching mine, and I could feel the speedy beating of his heart. My skin prickled in the places where we touched - his arms grazed past mine as he placed his hands next to my face, his legs intertwined with mine.
I was panting too, and for a second, our breaths were the only thing I could hear. Jerr's face was the only thing I could see or smell. I stopped feeling the ground beneath me - the soft, humid leaves that covered it. All I felt was the pressure of his body on mine - a pressure my body didn't seem to take as something negative, or dangerous. He was so close to me, his lips hovering over mine - near, but not touching.
He licked his lower lip as his eyes floated down to my lips, for only a short while, before they reached back to my eyes. My heart sped up at his subtle peek at my mouth - and I held his stare, not daring to say a word to make this moment explode.
His smell washed over me in waves, making me drown in the ocean of spicy wood, with a hint of incense. A smell that warmed me from the inside.
Jerr laughed as he shook his head and then rolled off me, plopping down on the ground next to me.
My eyes trailed his face, but he had broken our staring contest, and was now looking at the sky, his laughter intensifying.
A breath I hadn't realized I was holding escaped my mouth, and I joined in on the laughter.
"That is certainly an interesting way to begin our day," he joked.
"Out!" I mimicked the farmer, and a giggle escaped me.
"This ain't no damned hotel!"
I shrieked another laugh. I thought I was now one of the few people on Zyama who could say they had been chased and threatened by an old, senior farmer. And lived to tell the tale.
"Don't tell Feytan about this," I pleaded. "Or next time I'm hungover, he'll wake me with a pitchfork."
"That just makes me want to tell him all about it," Jerr teased.
"Bloody Wise Moon," I sighed, rolling my eyes. I pushed myself up, urging Jerr with my eyes to do the same. "Come on, we need to get back to our road."
Jerr jumped and threw his bag over his shoulders. "Let's go then," he said.
I grabbed two apples out of my bag and tossed him one before I followed him back to the forest's edge.
"We'll play a different mind game now," Jerr said. "You tell me a story, add some lies into it. I have to catch the lies."
I sighed at the lack of rest Jerr was giving me. "Fine. Why is it only me who needs to tell stories now?"
Jerr playfully shrugged his shoulders. "You were tired of the other game. And I don't need to train my skills, they're already perfected." He added a wink at the end, but it didn't soften his arrogance.
"Be careful with that ego," I warned him. "The facade of perfection can be broken with the slightest tap."
"Then tap it until it shatters."
I rolled my eyes again. There was no way to escape this game, so I just began talking, the conversation we had yesterday being the first subject that popped into my mind. "My parents met twenty-seven years ago, two years after my father had Ascended. They met in Spitta, in the market, and my father always said he crashed into the fruit stall as soon as the mating bond snapped into place."
"Lie," Jerr interrupted me.
"Correct," I confirmed. "He bumped into the cheese stall. Cost him a lot of coin, too."
"That's a lie again, but a clever idea, I must say."
I threw my head back in frustration. "Fine, he bumped into the nuts salesman, who was on his way to his stall with a fresh bag of nuts. Father had to pay for the entire bag. They have been in love ever since, and five years later, they had me. At first, we lived in the better part of town, but as we got through our savings, we had to move to the slums, just so we could have a roof over our heads, and shelter during the colder Moons. It was horrible living in that hovel with three, but it was even worse living there alone."
I heard Jerr swallow next to me, and I could see his eyes were pained at my story. He took it for the truth it was.
"They always bought a bar of chocolate for my birthday," I continued. "I haven't eaten any in over eight years, and I haven't found any in Rahas when I went looking for it. I keep my mother's old jacket on the table next to my bed, so I always have something of hers near to me. Over the years, her scent has seeped out of it. I'm afraid I have forgotten what my parents smelled like, or sounded like. How their laughter would echo through the small room.
"What I haven't forgotten, is that hushed fight they had, on the day they both got murdered. Father foolishly wanted to challenge Beckett, mother tried to convince him otherwise. But seeing what our lives had become - all the things they couldn't give me - my father was desperate. He had forgotten all the things he could give me, and soon after he left, my mother followed him out."
Jerr didn't interrupt me once.
This was the first time I could think - let alone talk - about that sunburned day, without breaking down into nothingness.
"I had pretended to be asleep, and in my fear of what was happening, I sneaked after my mother. She was long gone after my father by the time I reached the street, but I knew where they were headed, so I made my way to the Central Building.
"Once I arrived there, the commotion had begun already. Everyone of the pack life that was near, was cropped in the square in front of the Central Building, watching the challenging unfold. Both Beckett and my father had transformed. I was still smaller then, and I had to slither my way to the front of the crowd, where I could see my mother watching in agony on the other side of the crowd.
"My father's wolf was bleeding already by the time I arrived. My mother was screaming and sobbing on the sidelines, while Beckett's threat loomed around my father, unharmed. Father hadn't even been able to scratch him once.
"Another vicious growl, followed by a horrible bite in the neck was all it took to take out my father. I was too stupefied to react. I couldn't believe what I had just seen. Maybe if I had screamed, my mother would have heard me. Maybe that would have been enough to halt her from screaming in agony, shouting the words 'You are not my Alpha', which encouraged Beckett's wolf to go after her, too.
"I think she promised him revenge before he jumped onto her, his fangs ripping her throat apart. But the gurgling sound of her words, mixed with the blood coming out of her, has made that word clouded in my memories."
When I looked over at Jerr, I saw him looking at me, his eyes filled with sympathy. Not the pity or disgust I was used to from other wolves or people - sympathy. It felt refreshing, and not condescending.
"Beckett somehow spared my life. A few days later, I decided I never wanted to meet my mate. I saw what the loss of her mate did to my mother. And that's a pain I would never, ever want to experience."
I could have sworn I saw sadness, or disappointment, or something alike, flicker in his eyes, as his green dulled for a very short moment. But he quickly faced the road again, making me wonder if what I saw could have perhaps been a stream of early morning sun reaching his gaze.
"Well?" I urged. "How many lies did I tell?"
Jerr's eyebrows shot up. "There were lies in that story?"
"Yes, two," I said, proudly. I had been able to fool him. It had probably something to do with the fact that Jerr had been so hypnotized by my story, that he didn't notice the signs of my lies. But either way, I had won.
"Which ones?" he asked, curiously. A small smile slowly began to recover on his face, and mine couldn't help but do the same.
"I never went looking for chocolate in Rahas," I said, victoriously. "And my father was able to wound Beckett as well. Just not nearly enough."
"He went down as a fighter," Jerr consoled me. A hint of respect laced through his words.
"He never should have gone down at all," I commented. "I'm not sure I like this game, either."
"Fine," he said. "We'll do something else. You will think of some basic sentences. Make me hear some, and hide some from me. Get control of when I can and can't hear you."
Alright, I thought, but I had no idea how to hide my thoughts from a Wise Moon.
"Keep your mind clear, like during training, when you don't want me to hear them," he said. "If you do, you could let some of your emotions take over since that's what makes it easier to let thoughts slip away."
"So basically-"
"Eh," Jerr interrupted me.
Right. So basically, I have to focus on my emotions, and not necessarily my thoughts.
"If that works for you, yes," he confirmed.
Okay, but I'm not feeling any emotions right now. Not vividly, and you can still hear me.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked.
Why are you even talking out loud? Can't you talk in my head?
Jerr stifled a laugh. "What makes you think I'm capable of doing that?"
After my Ascension, you and Aven were laughing, but not saying anything.
He shook his head as he said, "Aven was making dumb comments in his head, directed at me. I can't talk into anyone's mind."
Were they laughing at me the entire ride? A sharp sting pierced my chest, but I ignored it. You're not all that powerful, then?
Jerr rolled his eyes. "You want to discover just how powerful I am?"
I might, I teased.
"Earn it."
I sighed and shoved my thoughts away. I got my breathing under control, my heartbeat following the steady rhythm of my lungs. Once I felt it was all under control, I thought, Is this better?
I got excited when Jerr deigned a reply, meaning he hadn't heard me - and all the progress went down the drain. "Keep yourself in check, Sari."
I got my emotions under control again - which was still quite a struggle, but eventually, I managed. I nearly tripped over a fallen branch in my utter focus on my emotions, which earned another comment from Jerr to not let my surroundings out of sight.
We finally reached the road next to the fields again, last night's shed now far behind us.
I made sure my emotions didn't catch up with me every time I was able to keep my thoughts quiet, but then I noticed the difficulty of letting them through any time I said something Jerr needed to hear.
This play of emotions was tiring, both on a mental as on a physical level, so when Jerr said we could take our lunch break, I let the relief completely ebb over me, plopping down on the ground, leaning against a picket of the field's fence.
"Finally," I grumbled, but as I looked up at Jerr, his shirt fell on the ground.
My eyes were glued to his abdomen, and I had to force myself to look away the moment his trousers lowered too much.
The last thing I heard was a chuckle from Jerr before he transformed, and his wolf ran off into the forest, gathering our lunch.