The Pack is Restless

[Tristan]

Her story turned his stomach sick. "An innocent boy slaughtered by these hunters, and you call me one and the same for wanting to stop them," he sat up, beckoning her to follow. In the night of the aurora and glow of the fire, her eyes glittered like lost treasure. "Sharpen your soul, Sierra. If we can save even one more boy from such a fate, why would you not want to stop them? Help me in this quest."  She smelled of angst and determination torn, but beneath the smell of fear filtered the heat of attraction. He recognized it in himself and leaned near.

[Sierra]

Tristan took offense to the similarities.  But he didn't see he was becoming like them.  They walked away from the fire and her eyes adjusted to the dimness and the world was at its most beatuiful when the human world was not in sight.  The lights above, the trees around them, the scent of wolves and dirt and the man walking with her.  He was almost as intoxicating as the world she had missed living in the city cramed with oils and rock and people - so many people.

"And how will you know if these hunters aren't like the others?  We are not all the savage killers they beleive us to be.  Will you kill those who are our friends - some even maybe one of us.  Will you kill them too?"  

Sierra looked up at Tristan and she wanted to make him see but she knew he wouldn't, blinded with rage - something she'd remembered in Aaron.  She reached up and put her hands to the sides of the face before her.  He was so much more than she expected to find here.  "I will help you right wrongs and follow your path, but I won't help you kill innocent men and women. I won't become like them.  I won't let you become like them."

[Tristan]

Her touch shocked his skin with sparks. He imagined her hair against his cheek and her hands wrapping his back. “Not our friends,” he said gently, hoping that would soothe her fears. The scents subsided, but determination dominated his own. “But our enemies will quake with fear, until they never dare lay another hand against our kind again.”  

[Sierra]

Sierra smiled in response to his words.  The first words not our friends.  But he was going to protect his kind and Sierra understood, she wanted him to do that to protect those like her brother.  Elyse and Marta would be safe with Tristan.  But Ricky might not.  He was a  hunter.  Sierra ran the pad of her thumbs over Tristan's lower lip, "How will you know friend from foe?"  

Her breath caught in her chest at her own tender gesture even as they spoke about killing and hunting and fighting.  The roar of blood through her ears almost made it deafening but she could still hear the crickets in the night.  "Protect us. Seek those that harm us, but don't look for trouble Tristan.  We are wolf.  We are pack.  We can take anything down if we do it together."

[Tristan]

“You’ll tell me. Friend from foe. Together we fight.”

The scent of warmth and welcome curled his senses tight. Sierra was receptive, and all there was left to do was pull her close. It was easy to imagine her bare shoulders trailing a smooth back, pale in the moonlight. Her eyes gleaming with hunger wet his mouth with his own need to devour. Instinct coursed and his breath deepened, the pulse bounding. She smelled of blood engorged and sweet warmth. The touch to his lip nearly split the psyche apart. He could clamp her neck and hold her beneath him, two animals howling, scratching, nipping and biting, but the man (for now) overpowered instinct. They were not furred beasts and the night air was cold. For the moonlight that hovered upon her cheeks, he did not strip her further.

But he wanted to.

“Come, let us sleep,” he pulled her toward the fire, prepared a pallet, and offered open arms to settle her in for a night’s slumber.

[Sierra]

His words made Sierra's heart pulse faster.  Together sounded more when it was pack.  She wondered what the others would think.  What Elyse would think.  It had been mere days when they parted.  A lover but she was a friend.  And this was human betrayal, but Elyse couldn't protect her, Tristan could and that meant more inside Sierra.

The doubt wasn't long lived as they walked back to the camp.  Tristan made a pallet and welcomed her to the bed.  There was more to what she wanted wasn't something she understood exactly.  But she went to his warmth.  He called to her into a primal way.  But she curled next to him her head nestled against his chest.  "I would like to see your trolls and fairies in the dream."