My dream faded when I felt someone shaking me.
"Liz, Wake up. WAKE . . ,"
Whap.
My fist cut him off mid-sentence. Kyle clutched his nose as I snarled at him from inside my sleeping bag on the ground.
"Thattt wsss uncalled forr," Kyle mumbled through the bleeding.
Mac looked up from the rabbit, he was carrying into camp with Adora who chuckled sadly at Kyle. He never learned.
"Tried to wake her, didn't you?"
Kyle glared daggers at Adora as he walked out of their forest camp mumbling swears under his breath. I looked over at Mac who just stared at me.
"What?" I hissed.
He shook his head at me, turning away as Adora's hand landed on my shoulder. I growled.
"Easy, sis. He was just trying to help." I felt my body unclench as she removed her hand and thrust a water bottle against my stomach and pointed after Kyle.
I stomped off towards the river knowing Kyle would be their. It was his favourite spot.
I didn't mean to be so sully, but I wasn't a morning person it you couldn't tell and my memory last night just made me madder.
By the time I saw Kyle, my mood had returned to that of my usual self. Silent and wary.
I watched him for a second hidden in the shadows. Being the youngest of us, he was only 18. Everyone treated him as the baby because of his age. He had grown taller in the last month, now reaching 5"10 frame. He was still tall and lanky not having filled out in muscle. He still possessed a childlike innocence even after being enslaved for a few months before our freedom and I was grateful he never experience what I did; it would have broken my heart to see his light disappear. Some of the others, like myself had been privileged to decades of enslavement and torture before we got free. I considered him a baby brother and because of my Sire bond to him I only allowed him to see my soft side.
He splashed water on his face and I sat beside him on the riverbank, "Sorry," I mumbled apologetically.
He gave me an annoyed look.
"Really, I am."
He angrily pulled the bottle from my hand. I decided to try a different approach.
"At least your nose looks better."
He inhaled the water and it came out of his nose making him cough. I sighed giving him a good couple of hits on the back.
Staring at me over the hand covering his face. "That was really the best you could come up with, my nose looks better."
I shrugged, "You didn't like my first approach, so I tried another."
Kyle started laughing beside me. "I have got to say that was one of your worst."
I let him laugh off his anger staring out into the surrounding forest. It was late summer and the leaves were turning. Looking up to the sky and sniffing the air I smelt the change of season rush my nose. When Kyle finally got control of himself, I looked back smiling. It didn't reach my eyes, it never did.
"It worked didn't it. I got you smiling again. Better than last time I tried it."
This started a whole new round of laughter from him easing the tension. His happy aura stayed with us all the way back to camp where Lamarr, Kimber, Cain and Seth had rejoined the pack bringing with them a deer they had taken down.
They all looked up from carving hearing his laughter. Everyone held the same look of love for Kyle, everyone except Lamarr whose face never changed from his impersonation of a statue. We didn't laugh often and when we did Kyle was the driving force behind it, forcing out all the darkness inside us. Dark memories plagued us.
Like the one last night, one cold voice whispered in my head.
Really, your bringing that up now stupid, a warm second voice spat at the first one, Let us live in the moment.
They started arguing inside my head yelling back an forth to be heard over the other, as I set about helping Kyle prepare breakfast.
Live in the moment wolf! the cold voice snapped, we have to prepare for anything. Not that you would understand licking yourself all day long.
The warm voice shrieked, How DARE YOU. I didn't see your ugly bat face when we took down that bear.
I sighed. Grabbing a deer leg and placing it on the makeshift grate I'd set up with sticks over the fire. My head really pounded when those two started up. Being a Vampire had its moments and being a Werewolf had its own benefits, but good god being a Hybrid, you had to have the patience of a saint to listen to their squawking all day long.