Run, Run, Run, As Fast As You Can

Meet

"Rosie, Rosie," Snapdragon said slapping my face to wake me up, "You gotta come see!"

"See what?" I asked sleepily.

"Just come," she said pulling on my sleeve.

I stood up carefully and limped along behind her until we came to the edge of the clearing.

Laying behind the underbrush that surrounded our clearing was a black wolf. He was massive, even bigger than Jambres, and sound asleep.

"He has purple eyes," Snapdragon said flying over to him and lifting up one of his eyelids, "and a bushy tail and the softest fur and can we keep him, please?"

"We might just have to..." I mumbled before carefully limping back to the twins.

I shook their shoulders gently and put my finger over my mouth in a shushing manner when they opened their eyes.  I motioned for them to follow me and stood again.

They both got to their feet, being careful to not make any noise, and walked close enough that I could use them as crutches.

When they saw the wolf at the edge of camp they started to growl deep in their throats. I slapped both of them and made the shushing motion again when they gave me accusing looks. I motioned  back to where we were sleeping and started to walk, leaning on the boys the whole time.

I sat down as soon as I thought I was far enough away from the wolf that I wouldn't wake him by talking.

"Can we keep him?" Snapdragon asked again.

"Maybe," I answered unsure, "Can you go watch him for me and tell me if he starts to wake up?"

"Yes," she said nodding her head.

"Try to be quite; I want him to stay asleep until we know what we're going to do with him."

"Okay," she said as she started flying back, "Just remember that I'm voting for keeping him."

"I will," I said softly before turning to the boys, "Shift, we need to talk about this."

The boys quickly complied with my wishes and got dressed, throwing suspicious glances toward the werewolf as they did.

"First things first," I said after they were done, "Do you recognize him? Is he one of Jambres's or is he Kenrick's?"

"He looks slightly familiar, but I think he's just related to someone I know. I'm going to say he's one of Kenrick's," Armaros said, all business.

"Purple eyes are rare," Arsen added, "I would have remembered him if he was one of Jambres's."

"So the people he runs back to won't kill me if they get their hands on me. Good to know. Next question. Can we get away from him without him waking up?"

"Probably not," Arsen answered, "The sun will be up soon and it will take longer than usual to get the packs on because we won't want to make any noise."

"Shit. Okay, next question. Is it possible to take him with us? We can have Snapdragon destroy his scent trail."

"That would require either his compliance or him getting knocked out."

"How long will it take to get to the nearest city?"

"You mean how long would we have to drag him? We're still a good week out, possibly longer if we have to drag him. Jambres bought the most secluded piece of land he could."

"Do we have enough food for all of us for that long?"

"And him? It would be pushing it, but if you want to go on a grande-sized fairy diet we'd be just fine," Arsen said smirking.