8. Common Goals Makes Allies
CHAPTER 8
Common Goals Makes Allies
ALIA
I coughed, my lungs burning as if I’d snuffed ale. My mind was foggier than a dragon’s nostrils, but I remembered warmth. I had been so cold, dreaming of death and black wolves, but then I was warm and I’d felt… safe.
When I tried to sit up, a hand gently pressed me back. Though I didn’t have the energy to fight, my hand reached for a blade, but neither of them were there. My mind froze, my heart fluttering with panic. I could move my hands and wasn’t tied, so I wasn’t a captive, but where…
“Easy, Little Red,” said a voice. I tried to open my eyes to see who was speaking, but they weren’t listening. “You are safe.”
A whimper met my ears before a wet nose bumped against my cheek and then a warm little body snuggled into the place where my neck met my collarbone. The panic subsided marginally.
My eyes finally pulled themselves open, and I blinked to clear my vision. “You?” I whispered, my lips dry and cracking.
“Me,” he said, a slight smile crossing his face. He looked exhausted. He was covered in bruises and scrapes, but he was alive. And so was the pup.
I didn’t know how to feel about that. I’d stabbed him and would’ve killed him happily in any other set of circumstances, but now here we were. I’d saved his life, and he’d saved mine.
I reached up a limp hand and placed it on the puppy’s warm body, sighing with relief. But how was I alive?
“You should not have done that,” he said at last, his eyes so serious and so... hurt?
“What? Save your freakin’ butts?” I whisper-hissed, though it sounded more like a croak than anything else. Man, I was tired.
He lifted my head and I froze. My eyes tracked his face for emotions that would explain his motives. He could grow fingernails sharp enough to pierce my skull. Did he save me so he could torture me for information?
His eyes, although emotionless, held no ire. He tipped a canteen against my lips. I sipped, coughing most of it back up. His need was once more buried to where I couldn’t feel it. A small mercy. “Sleep now, Little Red. I will watch over you.”
“What if they find?—”
“Shhh. They will not. I am here now. I understand your concerns, but you know I am skilled. I am aware you do not trust werewolves, but you can trust what I have done up to now. I did not escape when you told me to, did I?” he asked, his voice wry and gentle.
A tiny smile crossed my face. Thoughts of my family interrupted my joy. Would they be ok? Mom and Dad needed me. What day was it? How long had I been out? If my sister Anna had an episode without me there…
“I need to get home,” I whispered with a cough that sent a flare of pain through my body. It took effort to hide my wince.
His thumb wiped away a tear I didn’t even realize I’d shed, then rubbed my cheek in a way that felt almost soothing. “So much pain. I see you, little one. I understand. I will get you home as soon as possible. But now we must not move you. Your body needs rest. You can be the warrior tomorrow. For today, lay down your armor, be a human, and rest.”
His words sounded nice. I wanted to do all of that, be all of that so badly. I just I didn’t know how. Relaxing was worse because then I would feel. Panic tried to assail me. All while I was at his mercy. I felt his warmth at my side, felt his body looming above me, his thumb still rubbing my cheek. I felt his power—and my weakness. It sent a coldness rushing through my veins, and my body trembled.
“Please don’t hurt me,” I whispered, my mind going back, finding… I shied from the thought, from the darkness lurking in the depths of my mind.
His thumb rubbing against my cheek froze. His hand trembled. “Who hurt you, little one?” he whispered, his voice gentle but with steel lacing every word as his thumb retreated from my face. He wasn’t looming over me any longer, and I breathed a little easier. My body didn’t have the strength to remain awake. I fell into restless dreams of grasping hands, knives piercing skin, brands that burned, and darkness.
I woke with a start. My mind was spinning, my eyes wide but vision blurry, and my knives were still nowhere to be found. I sat up, trying to determine what had frightened me when I saw a little puppy barking at the werewolf.
Wolfie’s eyes were on me, his brow furrowed and his eyes appearing apologetic. “Forgive us, we were trying to be quiet,” he said, staring down at the pup with his lips twisted in a mock scowl.
The pup nipped at his fingers, growling and play-snapping. The werewolf’s shoulders slumped. “Fine.” He grabbed the stick at the pup’s feet and threw it into… Is that a cave?
I glanced around me at walls of stone and shimmering rock where firelight bounced and danced. A gentle tap of water somewhere along this cavern was at odds with the crackle of the fire in front of me. My cloak was thrown over me, and I brought it up to my chin, trying not to shiver as my body ached with cold.
“Sorry for waking you,” Wolfie said.
“What can I call you? It seems odd to keep calling you Wolfie in my mind,” I said at last. He hadn’t killed me nor tortured me. I still couldn’t trust him, but we were kinda allies trying to protect the puppy. I suppose the old adage of a common goal makes friends was right after all.
His lips flicked upward in a hint of a smile. “Call me Shen. Do you have a name I may call you?”
“Alia.”
“Well met, miss Alia. It seems we are stuck together for the foreseeable future. How can I help it be more pleasant for you?”
I blinked at him. “Umm… what?”
He closed his eyes as if searching for words. “You do not like to be touched, and yet you need it at times. Is there anything further I can assist with to keep you more comfortable?”
I stared at him, my jaw dropping open. He… how did he… “How do you know that?”
His smile was laced with sadness. “The way you flinch from touch, yet when you know it is coming, you may prepare for it. Is there something else you need to remain calm?”
I stared at him, trying to understand his angle in all this. Where was the animalistic werewolf? Where was the killing beast? Where was the monster who tried to kill me many times over? Did he forget I’d stabbed him?
I had to get away. Against my better judgment that said there was an ulterior motive at play, something in me was relaxing at his understanding. “My knives,” I whispered.
He nodded, going along the walls to where my knives were laid out in a row. He tested the edges before placing them back in their sheaths one by one. Something about that… Did he sharpen my blades for me?
He crouched and handed them plus a canteen to me, his eyes searching my face. “What else?” he asked.
I grabbed a blade from the pile and tested it against my skin. My skin parted easily, and I grinned. “You sharpened silver blades?” I asked, grinning up at him.
He shook his head, his lips twitching. “They were already sharp. Just wished to ensure they remained so in case you needed to stab me again.”
I blinked up at him, mouth gaping. Was that a joke?
This werewolf went against everything I knew about shifters. I awkwardly fiddled with my blades, pulling them in and out of their sheaths to make sure they came out smoothly despite him just checking. “Thanks,” I said, not able to look at him. I’d killed his kind. Stabbed him. Why was he so nice to me? What did he want from me? ‘Cause that’s something I’ve learned in life: everyone always wants something from someone they do something nice for.
“You’re welcome.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked at last, staring up at him. At those unreadable eyes and the imperial black eyebrow with the white streak that lifted when faced with amusement or curiosity as it did now.
“You save my butt and ask such a thing?” His voice sounded weird saying such a word in his posh accent.
I relaxed a bit. Ok, he’s repaying a debt. That made sense. I saved—well, I didn’t really save him; I just stopped him from doing something terrible, maybe? “Who was that woman?” I asked.
His hooded eyes darkened and then glowed with the light of his wolf. “My Alpha,” he bit out.
I nearly rolled my eyes, but refrained. “If I couldn’t deduce such a thing, I’d be a rabbit in a burrow without a head.”
He flicked my nose. My reflexes were dampened, so I didn’t get a blade halfway out of its sheath before he’d pulled back. I wiggled my nose, staring up at him. What the heck?
“You wiggle your nose like a rabbit. But you will not be losing a head on my watch,” he promised.
I huffed out a breath, crossed my arms, and stared at him.
“If you were a werewolf, such a look would be seen as a challenge,” he said, nearly nonchalantly, holding my gaze with his emotionless dark eyes that still sent a zing of cold warning through me.
I lifted my chin. “And if I mean it as such?”
A tiny, dark chuckle erupted from him. “We will spar when you are well, Little Red. Until then, you will rest.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I hissed, scowling at him.
His eyes flashed with his wolf, but he looked away and ran a hand through his shaggy hair. He glanced back, his eyes still rimmed in gold. “You do not know when to rest, do you?”
My scowl deepened. How dare he! “I’m fine .”
“Are you?” he asked, challenging me with a stare this time.
“Yes,” I said. I wouldn’t show weakness. I drew a blade in case he decided my challenge should be met with claws.
His lips twitched. “You would be a fine werewolf.”
I blinked, trying to figure out what he meant and if it was a compliment or if I should be offended, and I realized my nose wiggled. My nose wiggles ? Now he’s made me subconscious about my nose . Wonderful. “Was that a compliment?” I asked at last.
“Take it as you will.”
I wrinkled my nose, then smoothed it out. Apparently, my nose moved much more than I thought. “You distracted me.”
“Did I?” He glanced up from where he was turning something over the fire.
“You are?—”
“A cur?” he asked, his lips twitching and eyebrow raising.
“Nope. An incorrigible idiot.”
The way he smiled and his eyes sparkled with amusement just then made him seem human. “Thank you.”
“Infuriating incorrigible idiot of a cur,” I muttered.
“Glad to be of service.”
“Why are you like this?”
His brow furrowed. “Pardon?”
“You—you—you’re being a kind werewolf.”
“Excuse me, was that a compliment?”
“Nope. It’s infuriating.”
“Ahhh. So your brainwashed mind is having trouble understanding that werewolves can be somewhat kind , correct?”
I gritted my teeth. How could he so nonchalantly pinpoint the echoes of my soul? “You’ve returned the favor, done your duty, whatever. Your debt is paid. I’ll just go home, you go home, and we can forget all about this.”
“I should be offended you think so low of my kind, but some of us are, in fact, exactly as you think. And I have a feeling you have encountered more of the rotten-to-the-core murderers who have given themselves to their animalistic sides than those who are peaceful, yes?”
I think of the rabid werewolf we put down last month. He had taken to hunting children in the woods outside of the city. The scent of ten dead children decomposing still haunted my nightmares and my soul. Shen nodded, as if my face had given away my thoughts. I clenched my fists. I had to stop giving him that edge when I could read nothing on him.
“If you’re so good, why not stop those who are evil?”
His eyes shuttered, malice filtering into that look. Fear traced an icy path up my spine, causing the hairs on my neck to stand on end. I was reminded of all the times he’d nearly killed me in that single look, of all the times I was prey and he was hunter. “I am not good, little one. I am merely one who will not harm you.”
“Why? Because you can’t?” I quipped, trying to lighten the mood, but he shook his head.
“Because the only one who can protect you from me is myself, and I will die before I harm you.”
I saw the animal hiding in the depths of his eyes—one which hungered for blood and freedom—and I realized then and there that this man wasn’t good. But he wasn’t evil, either. He had bathed in darkness and came out a monster. Yet he didn’t allow that creature to harm others.
His self-control was what protected me. And while a part of me was terrified, another part was exhilarated. As if I were jumping off a cliff. And trust me, I knew exactly how that felt.
“Why? Why the change in wanting to kill me? Just yesterday we were enemies. And today—” I didn’t know what to call us, but it wasn’t enemies. Nor was it friends.
He stared at me as if he were just as lost on what to call this as I was. He clenched his fists and turned away. “Because that is my freedom, Little Red. You mean me no harm any longer. You went so far as to free me to save a wolf pup, and I can choose not to harm those who cross my paths in these times. So I will not.” The last words came out a low growl, echoing in the cavern.
His need pulsed, craving freedom and taking it wherever he could. He could have chosen to hurt others as a form of control over his life. Instead, he took his power by controlling himself and the circumstances he could hold. He chose honor over himself.
Never before did I think I would actually respect a werewolf.
Yet here I was.
Again, his need washed over me, and I felt another, secondary need . One to be around a pack, to be close to another soul. I dug deeper, trying to determine the meaning. A hug ? This big bad werewolf needed a hug?
Whelp at this point, why not?
I jolted forward. He stepped back, eyeing me as if I were a kitten about to bite his toe, and he actually jumped when I wrapped my arms around his waist. It was awkward as heck.