Two Hearts: The Hunt [Slowly Editing]

Chapter Forty-Six

Adrianna's POV

It was the hunger that woke me from my unconscious daze.

My heavy eyelids peeled themselves open, the drowned sound of a perceptively urgent voice encouraging my arousal. My entire body felt heavy and weak; my muscles and joints ached when I attempted to move, as if sore. A dense cloud of fog clogged my mind, making it difficult for me to discern the differences between reality and illusion.

I felt totally wasted. As if I had a really bad hangover, or something.

I gingerly sat upright, my blurred vision clearing out and focusing on a shadowed figure as if I were looking through a camera, its lens zooming in on something.

My heart lept. It was Caleb, his body leaning forwards towards me with prominent worry in his familiar, warm gold eyes, and his mussed up hair falling onto his forehead adorably. He caught my eyes and closed his own, blowing out a heavy breath while his posture relaxed fractionally.

"Thank God you're awake," he said softly. He looked me up and down, and a twitch coursed through his body, almost as if he were purposefully attempting to restrain himself from getting closer to me. "How are you feeling? Are you..."

"Am I what?" I suppressed a wince as my cheek muscles worked painfully to speak.

"Are you... you know. Still loony."

I furrowed my eyebrows; even that tiny action felt as if it required every ounce of my effort. "What are you-?"

"Never mind," Caleb interrupted, darting his eyes to his left, looking skywards at something. "We have bigger things to worry about right now."

I did not like the anxiety coloring his statement.

I followed his gaze, turning my stiff neck to observe my surroundings. My eyes trailed over the dark, rocky walls of a familiar setting; the long dome-like ceiling further confirmed my creeping suspicion. My gaze landed on the mouth of a cave, wide and circular as it opened to an image of countless dried trees engulfed by the shadows given off by a starless sky, the color of murky water.

Alarm bells went off inside my head. I turned to Caleb, who was looking at me with fear in his wide eyes.

My stomach gave a painful squeeze. Only this time it wasn't because of anxiety.

I was hungry. Starving.

"We need to get out of here," I said breathily, talking against the dryness in my throat, my mouth. I forced my legs to stand; they trembled as they attempted to hold the weight of the rest of my body.

Caleb shot up from where he was kneeling on the smooth, cavernous floor. "Cat, wait-"

But I couldn't wait. Every second spent with me not feeding was a second closer to Caleb's death. I didn't care that he was a werewolf who smelled completely unappetizing-I knew, just as my stomach and throat knew, that there was blood running through those veins. Hot, fast blood the enticing color of melted ruby-

I turned away from him and dashed towards the mouth of the cave, eager for that fresh, cold night air, and desperate to run away as fast as I could into the night.

I didn't make it very far. As a matter of fact I didn't even get to have a taste of that clean, pinecone-sweet air. I felt as if I had crashed into a steely wall, solid and tangible, my body falling backwards in response to the force of the collision. A bone-piercing pain shot through my entire body as I lied on the floor, gazing out into the night with dazed bewilderment.

Caleb knelt beside me. I thought I saw him reach out a hand as if to touch my face, only hovering there for a moment before it was gone. It left me to question whether or not it has been an illusion in response to my pounding headache and unfocused vision.