Ch.8- Gwen

I slept all night, not sure if I was emotionally exhausted or just exhausted I didn’t dream anything. It was like my brain was tired it could process any information to give me nightmares or dreams. Like the night just disappeared. One minute I was eating and feeling overwhelmed and the next I’m waking up to the sun barely showing over the horizon. It’s early I know that cause there’s still darkness outside. Just as I shift my body to a long stretch a knock sounds at my door. I sit up with the bed immediately making a squeak noise. I step towards the door and open it a little and see Lucian in what seems like sweat pants and a T-shirt. It’s the most casual I’ve ever seen him. “Morning, I have food ready once you eat you can change and we can head out”. He says almost like a request but more so an order. I nod and follow him to the kitchen again. On the table this time is eggs, bacon and sausage and potatoes and a glass of cranberry juice, and what seems to be grape juice maybe. The food smells amazing and I’m so hungry I shovel it in without hesitation, if mom were here she’d scold me for not being very attractive right now. I sigh, the memories flood into my mind before I have a chance to stop them and I think of her. She died to help me live a better life and here I am having breakfast with her murderer. After swallowing that guilt, I finish and and he takes my plate and puts it in the sink and I get up to go change and prepare for what he wants me to do. I come out of the room in fresh clothes that he must of had brought in for me. Lucian nods in approval and walks to the back door leading straight into the woods. “We are going on a walk into the Forrest” I stand there confused as he continues to speak. “It’s a four mile hike and the terrain is a bit harsh, we will be gone for two days, your pack is there along with water and socks and boots.” I look down and see a back pack and boots with socks inside them on the floor. I reach down and put on my socks they go far up my calf and the boots are used not sure whose they are but they fit perfectly. I place the pack on and buckle it in. He nods and puts his pack on and grabs a rope and slings it around my waist and ties it to his belt. We are now tied together and chance of me escaping are decreasing. At least there is still a chance. We start hiking deep into the woods. It smells clean and the sounds are just like home. I feel a little in my element and I smile when I step into the brush and sunlight for once shines through hitting me in the face. I stop to take it in and I feel the pull of the rope almost yanking me forward and falling on my face. I wait for the pain, but it never comes. I open my eyes and realize he’s caught me. “Keep up, we need to be at our destination before sunset otherwise we will be having to sleep in the trees for the night.” “Sorry, I say “just wanted to feel sunlight it’s cold” I rub my arms covered in goose bumps. “There’s a sweat shirt in your pack”. After a water break and I put on the sweat shirt we continue to walk into the Forrest and come across a running river moving fast. No way I’ll be able to swim across, because I’m tied to him he probably has to pull me across. Before I can tell him this he grabs me over his shoulder and walks back away from the river. He puts me down on my feet. “You fall in and we both die the water is deep moves to fast to try to swim not to mention freezing cold already with winter here.” “Well then how do we get across”? I ask placing my hand on my hip. “We are not I’m going to jump with you across”. “I’m sorry what”? He unties his end of the rope and wraps the rope around me like a belt. He grabs my back pack straps and pulls on it with me attached picking me off my feet and then sets me down. He frowns and then unclips my pack and drops it on the floor. “I’ll have to take two trips”. “Since you can’t shift yet you will ride my back and then wait for me to come back with the packs, since it will weigh you down and you won’t be able to hold on tight if it shifts and pulls you off me”. He stands so close to me I have to strain my neck to look up at him. “ If you run, you will die”. Not sure if he means by his own hands or by whatever else is out there in these woods. But I take his warning seriously and don’t plan too, especially without my pack. I Nod to him and he just stares down at me as if he doesn’t trust me, which is good because if I was remotely confident I could make it out I would in a heartbeat. He walks backward and in a blink he’s shifted into the black wolf I dream of, the one who tore my mother to shreds in front of me. He shakes out his fur and approaches me and other caution. I’m frozen in time and my body can’t move. He nudges me with his nose and my hand goes to his fur and before I can’t understand what’s going on he ducks underneath me and I mount his back holding onto his fur for dear life. He runs back away from the river to get a head start and runs so fast the wind hurts my face, he jumps and for a few seconds we are in the air and land on the other side of the bank. He walks me away from the river and I slowly move off his back. He moves me toward a log and before turning back he growls at me to stay put. He then runs back towards the river to do it all over again. I’m sitting on the log and have a clear view of him on the other side, he’s got both packs in his mouth and running back to me, he’s jumps and makes the bank and prances back to me with the packs, his wolf is so large the packs look tiny in his mouth. He drops the packs at my feet and growls at me before moving to the trees I start to walk behind but he growls again and I stop. Realizing he wants me to stay put again to shift back. He walks back out in his human form full clothed and has a little smirk this time, rubbing his hand together. “That was fun, let’s keep moving”. I nod and wait for him to tie myself to his again and we start moving forward again.