Bambi

Chapter 33

KAYDON POV:

I followed Bambi through the thick woods. Leaves and branches cracked under my feet, seemingly loud in the silence.

Bambi's movements were completely silent. Her feet stepping through the forest floor with expert precision to not make a single sound.

She's a perfect predator, Axle said, proudly.

We walked for miles outside the border of her territory. The sky was turning purple as the sun started to descend and the stars were making their appearance and still we continued walking.

"How long are we going to be walking? Weren't we supposed to be talking?"

"We're almost there."

Just as she said this, the forest suddenly went quiet. There was completely no sound, no birds, no squirrels, not even the sound of the river and then I smelled it.

Fire.

Ashes.

I rushed passed her cursing, fearing the that there was a forest fire. I didn't even think of the fact that there was no smoke in the air. I focused solely on what I smelled with my nose.

I broke through the trees and entered a clearing, that was like nothing I had ever seen in my life. The trees surrounding the area, the grass, the bushes were completely blackened. They were all burn and yet it had a skeletal appearance. Yet it gave off a sheen like shimmer like the appearance of metal.

"What happened here?"

Bambi walked pass me, "My first shift."

I stared at her back as she stood and looked around the clearing.

"This is where father took me for my first shift," she faced a tree and pointed to a tree, "he stood there to watch over me. I tried to hold her back."

She turned towards me and shrugged, "I wanted to wait until I found you first. She wasn't having it."

"She wanted to be let out. She wanted to hunt you down herself. God, she was so impatient."

I swallowed, thickly and looked around the clearing, suddenly grateful that I wasn't hunted down by whatever did this.

"She exploded from me in a gigantic ball of this oddly unique flame that spread out and engulfed the whole clearing. Dad had to make a quick getaway."

"Azriella howled. She was super excited to be free. The fire had evaporated leaving behind what you see here. Dad ran back and called me an idiot. They suddenly appeared as if answering my call. The shadow wolves. Dad jumped into a tree and told me to kill them, since I was fool enough to let them know my location."

Shock and anger  overcame me, "He let you fight them by yourself? How many were there?"

"I was to busy to count, you know since, I wasn't trying to die," she rolled her eyes, but she seemed amused by my little outburst.

"He couldn't have helped anyway, only gifted wolves can kill them. They can only come out at night, in the light of the sun, there bodies fade and they weaken. They're bite gives you an infection, it slowly kills your wolf and any connection that comes with it, and then eats away at your soul, killing you and leaving behind an empty shell of a wolf that craves anything. Everything. Goes around to kill others so they too can share the miserable emptiness within them."

Slowly, things were starting to clear up. I did remember one night mom had came back from a late night at work wounded. She had said it was some odd creature, it was a wolf but it didn't feel like one. Weeks afterwards, she had gone paler and her expressions became less happy. It had started to go blank. Empty. Until one morning she was gone.

"She had left all her clothes and belongings behind, we thought that maybe she had been kidnapped. The pack searched for months," I murmured.

"Shadow wolves have no need for materialistic things, it does nothing to fill that emptiness where there soul should be."

"What about their families? Their kids? Their mates?" pain was lacing my voice, the sudden feeling of not being enough for my mother.

A gentle hand carressed my cheek and I looked at Bambi standing in front of me, her brown eyes warm and comforting.

"Your mother loved you and your father. With everything she had just like any mother and wife would. She got infected against her will and her soul died against her will. The woman that abandoned you wasn't your mother. It was just an empty shell that had her face. But I think enough of  her soul was left in her for her to leave the pack grounds."

A tear slid down my cheek, "What do you mean?"

She wiped away the droplet with her thumb, "Had she lost her soul completely in your house, she would've gone shadow right there and attack you and your father. You both would've been dead by morning and just like her by nightfall. The whole pack too. But there was enough of her soul left in her for her to leave before that happened. That's how I know she loved you guys and that love made her strong enough to do what she did."

She left us to protect us? She used her last piece of herself...to avoid killing us? I felt my heart break in my chest at the realization and the relief that she hadn't abandoned us because she stopped loving us. It was her love that saved us. From herself.

A sob escaped my mouth and Bambi's face crumpled in saddened concern as she wrapped her arm around me and brought my face into her neck. I cried in her arms as we crumpled to the deadened forest floor and I poured out my pain and relief into every tear.

After I finally quieted, we sat there for awhile in silence. She held me as I wallowed in quiet despair. What was I going to tell dad? He was probably on the other side of the world right now, still searching.

Did he even have a phone?

Suddenly, a howl in the distance broke the silence and Bambi was on her feet, her eyes on fire as a look of furious confusion settled on her face. I was on my feet in the next moment, as I waited for whatever threat that alerted her to appear.

"What is it?"

Her eyes were focused in the distance and her head cocked as she listened.

"Bambi, what is it?"

"Shadow wolves, but I didn't give my location."

"That's bad?"

"I can hear them coming, but..."

"Dammnit, Bambi, talk to me, I can't hear what you're hearing," I strained my ears but I couldn't hear what had her attention.

"They're approaching slowly, that isn't normal for them. It's too-controlled."

She stepped in front of me and squared her shoulders, bracing herself, "You should get in a tree."

"I'm not leaving you."

I was going to stand and fight with her, even if I wouldn't be much help, I'll do my best.

"I don't want to have to worry about them biting and infecting you."

I frowned.

"It's too late now, anyhow, they're here."

A growl sounded from the edge of the woods and Bambi stiffened and her eyes widened as someone stepped from the trees.

He was stocky and well built and just a bit shorter than me. Red eyes glowed from his face and held a shadowy sort of complexion. His eyes were stuck on Bambi as a rumble sounded from his chest.

"Mine."

Shock overtook me and I turned to Bambi to see how she would respond.

I took a step back in horror as her eyes, too, glowed red out of her confused and shocked face.

"Mine," she responded, quietly.