Just My Luck

13○ Spared Up The Ass

V E R Y A N

Maybe I should have considered staying in the closet.

I have encountered rogues before, but none have ever felt so...hungry. Wretchedness rippeled off this makeshift battlefield giving off the same smell Tate had on him: a home I have never had the chance to live in.

They didn't attack first, always withholding their snarls until our side made a move. Though they bore weapons, their teeth were the most used, the most dangerous.

Out in the open they stood, not bothering to hide behind trees, prowling the perimeter. Though considerably outnumbered, they swatted away the snapped the necks of Landon's pack members like twigs beneath a boot.

As soon as Landon assessed the situation, he left me at the door to probably use his dull gaze to stare them to death or something.

I stood with a spear in my hand, feeling terribly under armed and watched the one sided battle play out.

I would have intervened, putting the spear to use, but Nicoletta had things under control, ripping and slashing like a rogue herself; the only person lessening our casualties.

Small and nimble and rabid. That was Nicoletta.

Out of the corner of my eye, big and brown, climbing out the window, was a wolf running towards the forest, fleeing.

I followed it, my eyes adjusting much quicker than it did when I usually shifted. My nose picked up it's scent, but it was all disregarded when I saw it, hidden behind the trees.

I saw it from far away. The animal confusedly retreating further as I advanced.

I saw it, something so impossibly familiar. Dark fur that covered an agile body. Eyes that glow green in the last minutes of the setting sun. Eyes like mine.

I stalked towards it. My wolf torn between the threatening aura and the affinity he felt. I trekked faster, running towards it. The closer I got, the more vile I felt, the more it bubbled from the depths I pushed it into.

Faster I ran towards it, my teeth bared, an amorphous need to get closer and closer. A couple more steps. A leap out of my grasp.

I jumped.

I fell.

A pain filled my nerves, the impact onto the ground knocking the wind out of me as I cried out. The wolf backed away from me, an indiscernible gaze marking my movements before it ran, leaving me with a hunger for something I can never get a taste of.

Laying on the forest floor, I watched the wolf disappear behind my sight descending into it's usual fog like state.

I let the closeness of the mud that I was accustomed to, cool my burning body and closing my eyes, blocked out my wolf's urges to get up.

I numbed the pain and the noises of the forest, ignoring it all, wiping those green eyes from my memory, pushing the innate feeling of heinous lust further away and laid in the hug of dirt wondering if Landon was okay.

----------------------------------------------------

I keep waking up in Landon's bed. When will it stop?

I was coldly greeted by his face above mine with steel eyes staring down at me.

"I really should have chained you up."

"And I still would've gotten a spare up my ass," I pushed his face away and sat up, the pain significantly less than I had prepared to experience.

The night hovered heavily, much darker, much more impenetrable. I stared outside, seeing the faint glow of flood lights as Landon clamored around.

"You will heal soon, but you cannot move about. That'll be a pain in my ass, and yours too." He placed something resembling porridge that someone regurgitated on the table at my side.

"Did you just make a joke?" I almost laughed just from the sheer insanity of Landon making a joke.

He just sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to hold in whatever emotion was impossibly present within him.

"I'm sorry I let you get hurt. It was my fault."

I pushed out a laugh, "It's not your fault. Okay, technically it is your fault and I'd like to blame your for it, but I'm letting you off just this once."

He seemed to want to glare, but his eyes softened just a touch when he saw me.

I had seemed to unlock another constant emotion within Landon. Annoyance or maybe it was anger; I'd go about collecting each one until he's entirely vulnerable in my hands.

He got up from the bed, building up his mask of nothingness once more.

"I'll let Nicoletta stay with you, don't cause her trouble."

"Where're you going? Leaving me to suffer with a spear up my ass."

He twisted his face, "To clean the corpses of my soldiers off my lawn."

"That's depressing..."

"Life's depressing Veryan, so very depressing," he gave me one last look of something mixed with displeasure and ire.

Before he left, I called out to him, "You know, life's not that bad and if I'm the one saying it, then that must mean something."

He left, shrugging off my words and trudged towards his depressing life, likely to waste away all on his own before I had a chance to do it to him myself.

But that's not my problem; yet I felt the need to say all those words to him, to reassure him.

Such a cursed bond wrapped in such a pretty bow. It's always easier to blame something else than yourself. And I'd rather blame this bond or my wolf, who I always pushed aside, than myself for the things that happened to me. But that's what makes life less depressing: nothing will ever be my fault.