And There Were Wolves

(d) twenty four

Time passed and in all honesty, it almost felt like I was living in a dream. Ryker and I stayed in that flat which turned out to be some sort of his bachelor pad after he'd moved out of his parent's place. This was where he'd stayed during his university days. It turned out that the motel where Tiffany had seen him a few days ago had been one of his victims, not his. We'd stayed there as if it was our honeymoon. He wasn't always gentle, that was for sure, but he was, well, something else. After two years of being apart from him, my heart sort of settled for a lower standard. The fear was still there, the terror appeared once in a while, but most of the time, they were drowned by this bubbly and relief feeling of knowing that he was still alive and that I got to spend another day with him. As I said, it was a dream, and how I loved that dream.

But just like any other dream, one day it would disappear and we would be forced to wake up to a harsh reality. It was three days later when I was awoken by the dip on the mattress. I turned around just in time to see Ryker tossing his trousers on the nightstand and lying down beside me. "Hey," I greeted him.

Ryker blinked, his eyes widened in surprise. "You're still awake."

"Hard not to when you jump on and off the bed every time," I replied with a smile. When he didn't smile back, I pulled myself up and leaned against the headboard. "What's wrong?"

He simply shook his head, not saying or giving away anything. The shadows shifted on his face, and that was when my eyes caught a glimpse of dried blood near his mouth. He'd been out hunting and drinking people's blood. The thought of him having to do that made my stomach churn and I quickly swung my legs to the side of the bed, then got up.

"You know I have no choice," he said, clearly reading my thoughts.

"I thought you said you'd stop doing that." I turned to him, my voice was full of accusation and anger. Then I quickly pulled enough energy to shield my thoughts from him. It was a momentarily weak moment since I had just woken up that I forgot to do that. Now that I was getting stronger, I could use my power again. "You promised you'd leave other people alone as long as you can have my blood. You agreed that we need to find the cure for your Mad Wolf disease. You have given your words to me."

"I know." His bottom lip twitched then his eyes regarded me with the same anger that leveled mine. "But you should know that it's beyond my control. That your blood alone isn't enough!" He looked away as if he was embarrassed with himself. He should be. It was only yesterday that he had drunk from my jugular. It should be enough until tomorrow. I had to eat friggin black pudding and steak tartare and other ridiculous things just to keep my hemoglobin.

I was about to yell at him how his suffering was nothing compared to mine, that I was the one who had to deal with blood loss, but he suddenly asked, "What's this?" He turned around, his hand was lifted close to his face with my charm bracelet dangling in his fingers.

It was the charm bracelet that Eros had given me over ten years ago. It was made of silver and since then I'd attached some small trinkets there including my mother's pendant. Not only that, but I had also put spells in there. Deidre had taught me how to put 'charms' into things made out of silver or gold. The kind of charms I put there were mostly healing charms and also protective charms. It was easier to work with a charm bracelet since I could literally put a different charm on each trinket.

"That's my bracelet," I answered as I moved toward him. I needed to have that near me and the only reason I'd left it on the nightstand was that I'd had a nice, long bath an hour ago. "And you still haven't given me your answer."

He leaned his back against the headboard as his fingers were examining each trinket while I was examining him. Silver should hurt him since he was a werewolf and yet it oddly didn't. "Is this the one from your mother?" he asked, his voice gentle.