Distinctly Defiant

Chapter 7 ~ Saved

Chapter 7 ~ Saved

A tree root caught her foot and she fell to the ground. The large root had been too hard to see in the dark. Vivienne whimpered as the pain from her ankle hit her but she didn’t waste time as she pushed herself to her feet gingerly putting weight on her ankle. She bit her lip to stop a cry, she didn’t know if the men who abducted her were already following her. For her sake she hoped they hadn’t discovered her absence yet. She knew that that was a foolish hope.

She was walking just in the tree line listening carefully for sounds on the road. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice and trust any seemingly-friendly people traveling this late at night. She laughed humorlessly at the thought of how convinced those men were that she was a werewolf. That was absurd. She had never once in her life shifted into a wolf so if she was a werewolf she was quite a pathetic one.

They must have heard the rumors that were so commonly spoken about around town. The rumors that said Lord Thorn wasn’t her true father, that her father was a bloodthirsty golden werewolf that had left a trail of destruction in his wake. How ironic that the rumors she had encouraged and helped spread about to were now proving to be more harm than good.

Her head snapped up as she heard the sound of cart on the road and she dived further into the trees behind a bush ignoring the pain as he palms scrapped against some sharp rocks. She hardly dared to breathe as the cart passed by without stopping. She didn’t move for minutes after the cart had left the immediate vicinity.

Her heart beat furiously and she blinked back unshed tears; this was what her life had become. She was traveling by herself, at night; to a town she’d never visited before with a limited amount of money. She didn’t want to think about what she would do once her pouch of coins ran out. She had been saving whatever she could for a long time, not knowing if it would be needed so she wasn’t poor, but she wasn’t rich either. Her money would not even get her out of the kingdom. It likely wasn’t wise to pay for a room at an inn however all she could think about was a warm bath and a soft bed.

Despite the danger having past her heart rate hadn’t slowed down and she took a few deep breaths trying to calm it. The blood pounded in her ears and she squeezed her eyes shut as a splitting headache began right around her forehead. It was a good thing she was already kneeling for the pain would have surely brought her to her knees.

She hugged her stomach as waves of pain washed over her. What was happening to her? Was she dying? She surely must be dying. The sound of her heart got louder and then everything suddenly stopped, as if she had imagined it.

She opened her eyes and waited for some sign that it would start again but everything seemed normal. She was fine, but changed in some way. She noticed something peculiar, her vision had never been perfect ever since she was a child and now things that were farther away were no longer blurry. The tree root that had tripped her up was now more clearly defined, she couldn’t imagine now that she would have tripped over that with her eyesight like this. Whatever had happened had improved her eyesight.

She considered the explanation that this was indeed proof that she was a werewolf but she couldn’t get past the fact that she couldn’t shift. However it was the only explanation that made any sense so she decided to accept that fact that she was descended from a werewolf. Her father had passed down genes that improved her senses but not the trait that allowed her to shift from one species into another. That was probably a good thing although Vivienne could help but feel saddened. Having a wolf form would definitely provide her more protection that she had now as a weak female. Perhaps later on she could find someone to tell her a bit more about werewolves. Maybe someone knew what was wrong with her.

She stifled a yawn as she got to her feet once more and continuing. She would keep walking until she came to the next town. Then she could get some sleep and head out the next day. She crept closer to the road. It was likely that the cart that had just passed by carried her captors so she wasn’t in danger of anyone coming across her. She chose to take the risk that the men were not gone and walk on the road, opting for the easy choice rather than to deal with the difficulties of traveling through the trees. A difficulty that was admittedly reduced now that her senses had improved, but her tired mind wouldn’t hear of it.