I See Faeries

~chapter three~

Were-Woman

~

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!" A singsong voice rudely interrupted my dreamless sleep. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to pretend that he wasn't there.

Something warm and soft touched my lips. My eyes flew open to find Roman's clear blue irises mere inches away. His lips were the soft thing.

I made some small noise of protest, and felt his mouth smirk against mine. Then, he licked me.

And I mean full-on licked me. As in, dragged his freakishly long, wet tongue across my parted lips and over half my face before rocking back on his heels, looking terribly satisfied with himself.

I recoiled with a disgusted shriek. "Ew!"

He grinned obnoxiously. "Good morning, belle."

I grimaced and vigorously wipe my face on the cloak that had fallen across my legs. "You're revolting," I muttered, trying to push the feeling of his lips out of my head. He was just being Roman.

His mouth quirked up at the corners in a heart-melting crooked grin. "You and I both know you loved that," he said.

"Liar."

He just laughed again, and scooped his cloak from my lap. "Come on, Cass. We don't have time to hang about."

I slowly got to my feet, stiff joints protesting vehemently. My body didn't ache as badly as it did yesterday, thankfully. I imagined that once I started walking, things would loosen up and I might be almost back to normal.

"Come on," Roman said impatiently. "We have places to go, people to see, things to do." He vanished behind the bushes for a moment, then reappeared with a familiar dingy brown object. The knapsack.

Oh, thank goodness. My book was safe.

Roman shouldered the knapsack and strode away, his dark wool cloak flapping in the wind. I hurried to catch up. "Why are you in such a rush, anyway?" I asked, my breath escaping in little huffs of air. He was walking very fast. I was nearly running to keep up. "And I still don't know who you are, really, or why I'm being hunted." I could've continued with a monologue of what I didn't know, but he suddenly held up his hand for silence.

Something rustled in the brush behind us. I froze and slowly turned around, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. Was it a bear? A lucine? Was it going to eat us? I doubted that even Roman could fend off a wild bear.

A massive black creature leapt into the clearing, and I screamed and stumbled backwards. I nearly fell over, but a pair of familiar arms caught me. "It's just Sheba," he said, amusement evident in his voice.

It was a wolf. An enormous, dusty black wolf with ice-blue eyes and long, thick fur. Its dark pink tongue lolled out of its mouth, a disgusting string of saliva dripping onto the leaf-covered ground.

"Is it your . . . pet?" I asked, eyeing the beast warily. It seemed innocent enough, despite its size. Its eyes disturbed me, though. They were clear and intelligent. Too intelligent. Too human.

Roman laughed. "You could call her that, if you like." He paused, his grip abruptly tightening on y arms. "Speaking of Sheba," he muttered. He released me, and stalked towards the black wolf. "I thought I told you to stay." The wolf whimpered, then paced in a circle and barked loudly. She seemed almost frantic about something. I didn't know much about animals, but I didn't think that this was normal behavior for a wolf.

Roman stiffened, his eyes flickering to me and then back to Sheba. She barked again. He narrowed his eyes, and they stared at each other silently for several lengthy moments. It seemed almost like they were having a conversation.