Chapter 14

Talia's POV

 "Where… Wh… Where am I?!" Every single part of my body hurts. I feel pain in parts I never even knew I had.

As far as my sight can go, I can still see the forest I saw last before passing out, but it doesn't feel like I'm under the woods. 

 "Hello!" I call out weakly to whoever might be near. 

It's very quiet and dark, I can't see much. 

It occurs to me as I try to stand up, that I am laying on a bed. 

 "Hey Kara," I hope she's still there. "Are you there?"

 "Hello, yeah! You little snoozer." She pronounces the 'snoozer' like it ends with a '-zuh'

A happy cackle escapes my lips. I'm battered but I still have her. 

 "Wait, did you just call me little?" I ask Kara, feigning a frown. 

 "Uhm… Little? Have you seen yourself?" She asks back, laughing. 

 "You mean in the forest? Or in this dusty dingy little hut? None of both have a mirror or just clear water, anything that reflects." What I say has her laughing. It's such a pleasant sound. 

 "You are younger, and more beautiful." Kara says, "You'd be pleased if you looked into a mirror, well, that's if you don't miss your green eyes." 

 "What are you talking about?" I asked Kara after patiently letting her babble away. 

 "You should see the mirror." Her voice sounds like she is enjoying the suspense she put me in. 

We were both laughing when we heard footsteps running towards the hut. 

I drag my battered and bruised self up off the bed and squeeze myself under, my hands feeling sand and dirt, with unidentified loads squeezing against me, making pain coarse through my body. 

Running is my first instinct. Whether or not I can, I don't want to stand up to anyone, not right now. 

 "Where is he?" A gruff masculine voice calls out as the owner storms into the hut. 

 "I saw him run in this direction." A younger, less coordinated response follows. 

 "Who does he think he is to be snooping in on our pack meetings?" The former voice asks no one in particular, but I hear about four to five murmurs of consent. 

 "He is a bloody rogue who needs taming." The gruff voiced man keeps tearing the hut apart, obliviously throwing items in my direction. 

Dear Moon Goddess, please don't make them look under here. 

The intruders seem like they are more interested in tearing the place apart than in their search for whoever it is. 

Just when I think they have poured all their rage into turning the place upside down.. 

 "Let's burn it." Someone suggested it. My heart skips two beats. 

 Dear Moon Goddess, rescue me… 

 "That would be going too far. He is a very strong wolf." The gruff voice says in a tone lower than how he had been talking. "An attack like that could make us start counting our losses in pups and weak females, not just leaked pack secrets." 

 "Are Lycans always so creepy?" A young feminine voice asks, sounding a little farther than the rest. 

 "Is that what matters now?" A male hushes her into silence, sounding more like it was out of jealousy that propriety. 

 "How far do you think he heard?" Someone else asks, stealing all the attention from the previous one. 

 "Arghhhhh." The gruff voice man screams out of anger and frustration, before ordering all the others to make way for him out of the hut." 

 "Do you think he heard the attacks we planned against Moonstone?" A man asks from among them. 

A rough estimate, counting from how many voices I've heard, there are about eight of them here. 

One by one, they trickle out of the cottage, each grabbing what they deemed fit. 

Kara lets out a stifled whimper as soon as it becomes quiet again. 

I creep out from under the bed on my wobbly hands and feet. They ache from all the battering and open sores. 

 "How are you?" Kara asks after I let out a loud yelp. 

 "Tough or fluff?" I asked her back. 

 "Tough," she replied, "fluff is more harmful than good." 

 "I feel like I'm going to die." She's scared and repulsed at my bluntness, but there was no good hiding it any more. 

 "Why do you think so?" She asks like one oblivious. 

 "Well, have you seen my body?" We are both asking obvious questions, and to be honest, it's a little funny. 

 "I should be asking you that." Kara says in a pitch louder, making my already aching head bang. "You are not the weak Talia you can remember," she continues, "you are now the daughter of the moon goddess, and I am now stronger." Kara says with so much pride. 

 "I have so many questions, top of it is, how do you know that?" Kara has me thinking as bad as I look. 

 "Talia…" Just then, we hear the door to the cottage open. 

My head hurts badly and is spinning, but I crawl back into hiding under the bed with numerous other things. 

 "Hmph." The intruder lets out a grunt. 

It's really dark here, almost midnight dark. 

Judging from his shadow, the intruder looks like a six-foot-nine. 

He also looks like he knows his way around. 

In the dark, he takes off his clothes in one majestic swoop, letting the very dim light from the windows fall on his sexily toned body. 

I barely out back an errant gasp. 

 He walks around clothless for a while, putting certain things in order, without complaining! 

The show goes on for a moment. 

 "Bastards!" He says finally, after putting back what I think is the last displaced item. "Fuck!" He screams, getting up off the bed and running out of the cottage. He keeps screaming out a name I couldn't pick at first. 

His voice is so loud that he might be setting himself up as bait for the angry pack to come back. 

I hear him screaming out frantically, violently cutting through the woods with bare hands. 

His voice sends chills through my spine. 

He finally starts sounding closer and closer. 

He stomps back in anger and bangs the door shut, I'm surprised it doesn't fall off. 

 "Arghhh!." He yells loudly, falling on the already creaking bed. 

He sits still for a while, with his feet within a hair's breadth from me. 

 "I can't, I just fucking can't." He keeps saying repeatedly to someone unseen, his voice shaking and I coordinated. "I can't fucking lose her again, not this time." 

He gets up off the bed and starts throwing punches at the walls, making the whole place quake and threaten to tumble. 

In his anger, he undoes everything he put in order earlier, making the place look more disheveled. 

He pulls something off his finger and flings it to the wall. It somehow falls and rolls towards me. 

My eyes could barely see anything, especially not with the amount of stuff thrown about. 

As I stretch my hand to pick what he threw, I start bleeding from my nose. 

 "Hey…Kara." life is bleeding out of me, but I'm more concerned about her. 

She's silent in my head.