The Heat #WATTYS2019

Chapter 21

Fenris was slowly starving. It had been days since he'd last eaten, and his muscles were melting faster than snow in the South Lands. He was so deep inside the Wulf Fangs now that the only prey he could hope to catch were the huge mountain goats that populated these hostile areas. He'd tried—and failed—every time. The damned things were too agile for his unhealthy body. They ran across ravines like they were nothing, scampering from rock to rock like they had wings on their long, shaggy fur. And Fenris couldn't catch them.

     And so it was with once more an empty stomach that Fenris curled up in a ball in one of the many cavities in the mountains. He closed his eyes to the world, and fell into a deep sleep even he wasn't sure he'd wake up from.

•••

     Lycaon huffed a sigh as he uselessly tried to shake his companion awake. Her habits hadn't changed in two thousand years, and the stubborn female refused to open her eyes. He rubbed his own, golden ones and sighed again.

"Morrigan! Fucking wake up you little shit-eating mutt! We need your portal making abilities!" he finally yelled in her ear.

She rolled over in her sleep, her fingers moving inconspicuously so that they were all curled except the middle one. Lycaon had a fleeting thought that she was a sneaky minx, before he was suddenly on the ground, a raging she-wolf above him.

Shut up, little motherducker before I fudging kill you, you son a mongrel bitch! she replied, just as ferociously.

However, despite everything, her language was still vulgarity-free.

"Okay, okay! No need to blow your shit!" Lycaon grinned, pushing her roughly off him.

She grunted, a slight growl in her tone, before shifting into her human form. She picked up a random item of clothing from the ground— it turned out to be one of Lycaon's t-shirt and, even though she was quite tall and muscular, it hung off her. Lycaon was a giant of a man, taller than Teras. And Teras was a Beast.

"You ready?" she directed at Lycaon.

He adjusted the strap of his bag over one of his broad shoulders and nodded solemnly, though the small, smirky grin still stuck to his lips.

She narrowed her eyes at him, then waved her arms in a circular motion, words of an ancient tongue slipping from between her plump pink lips.

"Wulfur, fosgail thugainn thugainn agus leig dhuinn a dhol a-steach do na coilltean agad agus do lochan, do na beanntan agad agus do na raointean-mara agad, agus bheir sinn thugainn gu port Wulf Fangs."

And then, with a great whoosh of air, a disc that seemed to be made of some sort of shimmery water, reflecting and absorbing everything at the same time, drew itself in front of their eyes. They stepped into it and disappeared from the Human Dimension.

They expected the cold and the hard stone ground, but not the sleeping shape of a large white-ish Wolf.

•••

The female's mug crashed to the floor and exploded in a thousand shards of cutting ceramic. Teras' eyes followed the movement of each of the fragments with a fascination that could only be caused by an awkward situation.

"What?" her voice was barely more than a whisper in the sudden silence of the nearly empty kitchen.

His head shot up, torn from his trance.

"I am Teras, the Beast. I have felt the tug of the Bond with Amarok and I have come back," he finally sighed.

A flame—no, a whole damn fire—lit up in her irises.

"So you mean to tell me you were alive this whole damned time and you and the lot did nothing to prevent the Heat, did nothing to prevent the degradation of females, did nothing to prevent them from taking my fucking sister?" the she-Wolf was clawing at him now, rage filling her irises to the brim.

It was all he could do to keep the only eye he had.

"You don't understand—" he tried to speak over her sounds of fury, but she wasn't having any of it.

"You mutt!" she screeched, viciously tearing at his chest.

"Can I—" he attempted again.

"Shut up and let me kill you, you son of a mongrel bitch!"

Those words tipped the scale and she was against the far wall, his hands on her wrists as he pinned them above her head. He approached his mouth to her ear and she shivered.

"You can talk shit about me all you want, but know that there are three people you will not badmouth under any circumstances if you cherish your life. Those people are my mother, Amarok, or the holder of her wild, and Morrigan."

She nodded quickly, gulping so hard he heard her.

"Y–yes, Teras," she breathed out in a trembling voice.

"Good," he backed away and sat back down at one of the chairs. "Will you let me explain now?"

•••

The pub the twins had stopped at was crowded and busy, which was exactly what they both needed. They knew how to move like thieves, fading into shadows, and their crowd-walking was on-point. They mustn't be seen, noticed. Their lives depended on it.

"So, what can I serve you, hotties?" the bartender asked.

Judging by her clothes and the multiple male scents that cloaked her like a second skin, she must have been a whore in between shifts. The fact that she had no male meant that her heat had not come, and would not come. She'd been exiled by her Pack.

     Geri spoke first, his smooth, silky voice, low.

"A room, with two beds, Milady. My brother and I will be staying the night. How much will that cost?"

She leaned further on the counter, exposing a view down her decoleté and to the mountains that were her breasts, "It depends. Will you eat?"

Freki intervened, "No, thank you."

"Then thirty Ulfurs."

     Geri slammed a pouch on the bar and nudged it to her.

"Take the thirty Ulfurs, give 'em to your boss and keep the rest. Goodnight, Milady."

     And they left to their room.

A/N) And there. No need for an author's note, everything's in Chap 20, so goodnight!
- Lexie