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I shrugged and my fingers danced along his bare chest. “I was just thinking about the nature of it. Think about how many people have been bonded together by this feeling. It must be one of the most common things to have ever existed. Everyone has felt some form of love at some point in their lives, and yet it always feels unique and real. Perhaps it is self centered of me to believe this, but I don’t think anyone has loved someone the way I love you. Yet how can that be true? With all the souls that have passed through the world surely our love cannot be that special, and yet it feels that way.”
“Because it is always different depending on the people involved, I suppose. The feeling might be the same, but the people make it special. That is what I like to think anyway. After all, what is life without people? What is love without there being anyone to love you in return?”
“Now who’s the poet,” I teased. He laughed and leaned his head against the grass, staring up at the sky. It was easy to lose ourselves among the stars, for a little while at least.
“Can I admit something to you Willow? I’m scared.”
“Of Amara?”
“Of what she might do.”
“We shouldn’t think like that. We’re together, and I’ll keep you safe. I know she’s this all powerful vampire, but I’ll fight to the death for you.”
“And that’s what I’m afraid of. When we agreed to have mortal lives together I never thought that we would only get so short a time.”
“I suppose we can never guarantee how much we get. It’s just important to enjoy all the moments that we are able to share. A life that is enjoyed is a life well lived, no matter if it lasts for a day or a hundred years.”
Cassius nodded sagely and kissed me on the head. “I just wish I knew what to do. I have always prided myself on being one step ahead of things, but now I feel so lost. I can’t even rely on my arcane knowledge.”
“You’re not useless just because you’re not a vampire anymore, Cassius. I know it must be hard for you to think of yourself as mortal again, but just because you can’t do all the things you used to do it doesn’t mean that you’re less than you were, and it certainly doesn’t mean that I love you any less.”
“I appreciate you saying that Willow. But like you said, sometimes knowing a thing is different than believing it.”
I realized then that we were struggling in the same way, just for slightly different reasons. If we couldn’t help ourselves, then maybe we could help each other. I leaned into him and kissed him softly, tenderly.
“I suppose we should head back to the pack,” I said.
“I know you’re finding it difficult to adjust to living in this place again, but it doesn’t need to be so hard. People have made mistakes, but if they’re trying to be better then maybe it’s okay to give them the chance to do just that.”
I knew he was talking about my father. “Maybe,” I conceded. He rose to a sitting position and reached for his clothes. They were still sodden.
“I can’t wear these!” he protested, and playfully glared at me. I looked guilty.
“Well, if you need something to wear you could try on my dress,” I teased, and he just gave me a look in reply. He felt all of his clothes and tried wringing the water out of them. It cascaded in thick drops, but they were still too damp to wear. “It’s lucky that it’s night. At least nobody will be able to see you.”
And so we returned to the pack without wearing any clothes. We clasped hands again and this time we ran more quickly, because Cassius felt uneasy about showing this much of his flesh to the world. I was laughing. He clutched his clothes to his groin, hiding his manhood as we grew closer to the village. He muttered that he hoped nobody was going to be around to see him.
“I don’t think you have anything to hide,” I said.
I did not feel the same self consciousness as he did. As a wolf I was technically always naked. It just seemed to be a natural state for us and there was no sense in trying to hide from it. I didn’t think anyone would see us anyway. Most of them would have been sleeping by now, so we should be able to slink back to our new bed and cozy up for the night, ready to face another challenge.
But there was already a challenge waiting for us, and I was so distracted by Cassius that I allowed my senses to lose focus. I caught the scent of wolves, but I did not think anything was amiss because it was only natural for there to be wolves. They often hunted and sprinted through the world at night, and on a night when they had been given deathly, doomful news it was only natural for them to want to embrace time with each other.
However, they were not hunting prey, at least not in the traditional sense. They ran up to us and before I knew that anything was amiss they were already attacking.
Chapter Seven
Cassius
They came from nowhere, as though they had just been summoned into the world and came into being there and then. There was a gnashing of teeth and then a strong weight slammed against my head, knocking me away. I lost my grip of Willow’s hand and crashed to the ground. The impact made my teeth chatter and pain lanced throughout my body. I groaned as I tried to push myself up. The darkness blinded me, the pain crippled me, and there were so many of them that I could not fight back. I was kicked in the ribs and doubled over, clutching myself to try and shield myself from further damage, but I was too late, and I guarded the wrong thing. Another kick slammed into my back and I cried out, twisting and writhing on the ground like a helpless child. Someone got hold of my legs and dragged me across the ground, the grass burning my skin.
“You damned monster. You’ll doom us all!” one of them growled, his voice low. I looked up. My vision was blurred. The world seemed upside down, and when I looked at his face I saw nothing but a shadow. I wondered if it was death that had finally come for me after all. It was only fitting, I thought, since I had been goading it for centuries, taunting it and escaping its clutches, while it had silently stalked me through the years, through all the lives I had lived. I should have known it would be waiting for an opportunity to strike, waiting for the moment I became mortal to finally sink its claws into me.
But Willow… where was Willow? Did they have her? Was she fighting back? I tried to defend her, but I was so weak. My trembling hands searched the ground for a branch or a twig or anything that I could have used as a weapon, but I found nothing but air. How I longed to be able to shift into a bat or cast a spell, to bear my fangs and send these wolves reeling with bloodied noses and wounded pride. Instead I was the one who had to bear the wounds, I was the one who could not defend the woman he loved.
And, as it happened, the attack had been so swift that she could not defend me either. The wolves disappeared into the night, leaving us aching and bruised. They had swarmed around Willow and made sure that she could not attack. She crawled towards me, blood dripping from her lips, making her look like a painting.
“Cassius,” she breathed.
