Sly as a Fox {Book One}

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

A/N: The picture above is another picture of Blithe with his eyes of his wolf form. ;)

Heartbreak

noun

-great sorrow, grief, or anguish

-the intense emotional pain or suffering one feels after losing a loved one, whether through death, divorce, breakup, physical separation, betrayal, or romantic interjection

I ran.

Nearly seeing red as I bounded across the room to the exit, I heard many gasps and even a few screams of terror as members of the pack saw my orange body disappear. I ignored the grating sounds entirely, too engrossed with my escape to acknowledge them. I had given myself over to my instincts almost entirely. I couldn't deal with it anymore; I had to escape reality for a little while, and if it meant giving up my sense of humanity for a few blissful moments, I would-and did-willingly oblige. I hadn't onda-shifted, though it had been close, but the way my mind melted into putty inside my head felt as though I had.

Serena and Kyle ran up behind me and pushed open the metal door behind the stage to allow me to escape. They didn't try and stop me and they didn't even so much as try and talk me down; they just let me go. The metal door slammed behind us as we stepped out into the immense hallway that was more fitting for a mall than a pack meeting place.

 The few Lupos that had evacuated out into the hallway after things got heated with their Alpha saw the orange flash of fur and recognized my scent before I even fully stepped into their space. Screams of bloody murder echoed inside my sensitive bat-like ears and I squinted my eyes shut at the sound. The same thing that had happened inside the meeting room happened out here with people jerking away and flinging children left and right out of my reach, not to mention the yells and growls of Lupos that had been casually milling around in the center of the hallway when I ran between their legs.

It was difficult to get my footing on the glossy floors but once I ran on the pads of my paws rather than on my claws, I ran between people's legs, avoided kicks aimed for my small body, and zig-zagged through the small crowd that had gathered outside their meeting hall. Everyone was so afraid or startled by my presence that they seemed to part ways for me like the Judeo-Christian telling of Moses and the Red Sea, and their urgency to get away from me was only increased when a growl reverberated through the walls of the hallway so forcefully, it nearly stopped me in my tracks. Nearly.

There was no mistaking who that growl belonged to and everyone seemed to understand this as there were harsh shouts for action from behind me. What exactly they were calling to do, I couldn't make out over the shrill screams that rattled my brain as I continued to barrel down the hallway to safety. At the same time, I could hear Serena and Kyle hiss for people to move out of their way behind me, no doubt trying to catch up to me and help as best they could. They knew just as well as I did, perhaps even better, who that growl belonged to and how badly I needed to escape.

 With the Panteras quite literally on my tail, I continued on, dodging legs with every bound.

From the angle I currently had between someone's legs on the floor, I could see the doors to the parking lot for the first time since I ran into the mess of this crowd. A smile spread across my lips and my jowls lifted on either side of my muzzle, probably not helping my case to the Lupo bystanders who already saw me as menacing.