Just Lyca Lady

Chapter 8 : Who's to Say

Hope you all enjoy!

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"His coming here," Gray said, posture returning to its relaxed state, "was not of any intent."

"You know this because?" I pressured, back now to the table and stare boring into the man. Had Gray claimed to know nothing of the beast, I would have been a bit more apprehensive towards trusting him. Everything was too circumstantial to just fall in line as it had without some nudging.

Gray's eyes, trained to the dusty, stone floor, stayed in place for a few seconds following my question before they veered up to meet mine. "I had been tracking him for a while; had he not been caught in the forest outside of Dermwick for the tavern's show, he would not have come here."

He had been trailing the beast? Lycan, when at that stage of mental decay, were pretty much animals all the way through. "You were tracking the beast because you were hunting it?" Animals were hunted. It made sense, my assumption, so why did I feel the need to get a solid answer? Perhaps just to soothe the notion that if Gray was out for the beast's death, he would have brought it on far sooner than 'a while' after tracking it.

"You are a gruesome girl," Gray stated, a half-cocked smile pulling into place. "Not everything routes back to killing. I was following the feral."

"Ah, following it—but why?" Simon came to a halt in his words. I glanced back to the discoverer, his gaze blank and distant behind the lens of his glasses. "Oh!" Excited, the scrawny man with his wild hair and sharp features took a couple quick strides forwards, but he paused once more, expression turning back to thought. "But...no. It just..." trailing off once again, he seemed at a lose for an answer he believed. "You say you were following it?"

"Oh for the sake of—yes, Simon," I cut in. "Yes, he said he was following it, and I am sure Gray would explain why if asked." Looking to my lycan once more, my brow rose in silent request for him to give the poor scholar an answer to keep Simon from having an intellectual meltdown.

"I wanted to see where it was going." My shoulders slouched mildly, and a humorless, quiet chuckle rose from my throat as I glanced to my thin, leather shoes.

Of course, the man who was quite tactful at avoiding answering any questions that would give lead way would give such a basic and laughable reply. It was funny, really, and I should have expected as such. Getting Gray to talk openly was like milking goat, only so much could be squeezed from the teats at a time.

"Yes but..." Simon's voice was just above a whisper, his mind surely working at a rapid pace to piece together a cut-up painting we had very little strips of.

"Was there anything else you needed?" I asked, standing straight and starting to walk towards Gray and the base of the staircase, gaze going over my shoulder to meet Simon's.

The poor scholar was always one to love riddles, but when the riddle giver was keeping key parts, Simon would yank his hair out in frustration trying to come to a conclusion. It was best I got Gray far away from the discoverer for a while—at least until Gray was more forthcoming with information.

After releasing a heavy breath, Simon ran a hand through his stringy, blonde locks and shook his head. But naturally, as soon as I gave a nod to the man, turned, and began to move passed Gray to advance up the stairs, Simon said, "Oh, yes! There was." I stopped on the second step and waited for him to continue without looking back. "Your mother asked about you."

Everything bouncing around in my mind vanished, and my flesh felt as if it had been kissed by frosted winds. Yet my cheeks were ablaze. The pounding of my heart was no longer in my chest, rather it was in my gut. Those five mere words pained more than any physical wounds.