Out of the Fryer...

Creeping through the hallways was pretty intense. Every time we turned another corner, I could feel my body tense with the expectation of finding Hunt waiting for me. It wasn’t until we were out of the house that I finally released my breath.

Nanette gave me a sideways glance and a half-smile. “Now comes the hard part,” she smirked.

‘The hard part? Are you kidding me?” I couldn’t resist a glance up at the house and all the windows facing the direction we were heading. “Maybe we should just make a run for it,” I offered.

Nanette stifled a laugh. “Just about every lycan is in those woods, running wild under the full moon.” She nodded her head to the tree line that we would be heading for. “Whatever you do, you have to remain calm. Don’t run! No matter what, don’t run,” she emphasized. “You can do that, can’t you?” Her brows lifted dramatically.

“Yes,” I grumbled.

“That’s not what I heard,” she teased. “Running from Hunt was a bad move,” she stated, the tone of her voice changing dramatically.

“Drake has a big mouth!”

Nanette twisted her head to look at me as we skirted the building. “Drake has been honestly trying. He has been trying to get back into Lord Kolbeck’s good graces since that incident in the hallway.” Yeah, she was a lot like her dad in pointing out all my shortcomings.

“He got what he deserved,” I grumbled, not really believing what I was saying. The cracking of bone still haunted my dreams.

She peered closer at me, a thousand questions peeking around that gaze. “You don’t believe that, I can see it in your face.” Great, now they were lie detectors. “Even you kind of have to appreciate what he tried to do for you. So, why do you try to deny it?”

I cast her a sideways glance. “Deny what, exactly?”

“Well, you wouldn’t have survived this long unless you had good instincts…listen to your intuition. Then, you came here and you started to become stupid.”

“Stupid?” Indignation flared within me.

Nanette chuckled. “I simply meant that you stopped listening to your instincts and started fighting against everything they were telling you.”

“You’re kidding, right?” When I looked her square in the eye, I knew she wasn’t. “Seriously? My instincts told me to run the moment I got here! I just haven’t gotten very far,” I muttered.

Nanette giggled softly. “Man, you are delusional. That, or there is a huge disconnect between your heart and your head!”

“Whatever,” I grumbled.

I scanned the area, my eyes alighting on every bush, brick, and shadow as I avoided considering her accusation. The immediate area seemed clear of all lycan, and the sensation of someone watching me wasn’t present at this very moment. Maybe we should make a break for it.

“Don’t think about it,” Nanette said as she placed a restraining hand on my arm. “They would be able to hear a rabbit bolting from a mile away.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Who do you think you’re fooling here? Every muscle in your body started to tense. We have watched for those signs in our prey long enough to see it in all animals, including humans,” she grinned at me. “You all are the least subtle of the animal kingdom.” She laughed when I gave her an indignant sneer.

“We weren’t raised to-”

Nanette clamped a hand over my mouth. “Shit!”

The hair on my neck started to stand on end. Before I could ask any questions, she shoved me hard into a hedge that ran the perimeter of the building. The branches of the sturdy bush started to prick against my skin causing me to hiss. The pain from their prodding and scraping was stifled as best as I could since she shoved me into this bush for a reason. Hunkering down within its confines, I tried to catch a glimpse of what concerned her. I would curse her out later for all the wounds my body sustained at her insistence.

Nanette’s body prevented me from seeing much as she stood directly in front of me trying to shield me from any possible prying eyes. Though it annoyed me that I could not see what was happening, I understood that she was trying to protect me. But that survivor instinct in me really wanted to see what was happening in case I needed to run. Nanette did not seem like much of a match against most of the lycans I have come into contact with. It definitely made me wish that it was her father that stood in her place.

“Nanette,” a man’s voice rang out. “How nice to see you again!”

“I’m not so sure how nice it is, Topher. Where’s your master?” Ouch, that had to be a blow to his male ego. Yeah, she definitely learned her mannerisms from her father. However, there was a sweetness to her charm and words that made her words sting even more.

The man named Topher laughed. “Master? I am his counsel, not his slave.”

She responded with a sweetness that suggested innocence but eluded to so much more. “Oh, but I thought you were with him a little while ago. You know, when he told you that you were to do what he told you. That wasn’t you?”

The man laughed again, though the confidence that was there initially was gone. “His mood is heavy with the scent of that virgin,” he responded. I could almost imagine the sneer on his face that fell into his words. “No matter, he will bury himself in her, take her innocence, and leave her for the wolves to feed on.” The smarmy snicker made my skin crawl before he added, “maybe I will opt to take a turn.”

“Eww! Can’t find a lycan who wants you so you force yourself on helpless humans? That’s pathetic!”

I was offended by her words and worried for our safety all at once. It stung to hear that even she was raised to believe that humans were subpar to them. Considering who her father was, it didn’t surprise me. But it was the way her words might strike a man’s ego that had me worrying for her safety…and as a result, mine.

Even though every muscle in my body tensed to spring to her defense, if needed, I was grateful when I heard him laugh. The outrage I had expected just wasn’t there.

“Are you offering your services, my little green pup?”

The man stepped closer to Nanette, raising a hand out before him to run along her arm. His steps forward caused me to shrink back further into the bush. Though I did not hear but a whisper of the rustle of leaves from those that brushed against me, he had no such trouble.

“What was that,” he asked, his head moving around Nanette to peer behind her. “Who’s in there?”

There was no way I was about to step out and I held my breath instead. Nanette shifted back into his path. “Are you afraid of a little wind, Topher?”

“That was no wind, Nanette!” He put his hands on her shoulders, intending to remove her from his path.

“What do you think you are doing,” she asked indignantly. She brushed one of his hands off of her and stepped back closer towards where I still sat hidden from view.

“Nanette,” Topher warned, “Whose in there?” This time, Nanette didn’t answer. He stepped closer to her, looming over her. From where I remained in hiding, I could nearly see the features of his face as he glared down at the young woman that was helping me. “You were with that girl earlier tonight,” he spoke as he stood looking down at her. “Don’t tell me that’s who’s in there.”

Nanette raised her head to look him square in the eye. “Man, but your master has gone and made you paranoid,” she quipped. The sweetness from her voice was starting to recede, her nerve becoming more like steel.

The man snarled at her, baring his lycan fangs as he teetered on the edge of his lycan form. His height grew a fraction in size and mass, enough to make it noticeable. “Don’t play with me, girl!”

“Me?” I envied the calm she kept, but I couldn’t imagine the man was a fool. He glared down at her with deadly intent.

Nanette stepped closer to him, moving her body within an inch of his. My eyes scanned around me to determine my options as best as I could without moving and potentially causing more noise to draw attention to where I hid. When she let a hand smooth against his cheek, I nearly felt my chest squeeze with laughter. She wasn’t doing what I thought she was, was she?

“We’re the only ones here, Topher. I know I am supposed to wait one more year to join the festivities, but I just couldn’t resist. I wanted to experience things first hand, but you know how my dad is.”

Topher glanced at the thick bush that I was hiding in and I remained as still as a statue until he looked away. When I say as still as a statue, I mean just that. Lycans can see far better than we can, and I worried that he might be able to peer through the thick foliage to see me hiding inside.

“This is no game, Nanette.”

“I’m just curious, Toph. Are you sure you don’t want me to play with you?” Oh, she was doing exactly what I thought she was. I wanted to both gag and laugh all at once, and I struggled to keep it all from gurgling up my esophagus. Her hand had smoothed against his cheek before she started to trace a finger down his neck, over his collarbones, and was now traveling across his exposed and naked chest in decisive movements. I didn’t even want to think about where she learned how to seduce a man, or even what her father would think of what she was doing. “I was thinking that maybe we could play a game…a game of show and tell.”

My self-resolve was losing its battle. If this guy couldn’t see the real game she was playing on him…

“Nanette,” he warned her, though lust was lacing her name.

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” she said, innocence abounding in her words but not her actions. “Don’t you want to be the one to show me how to please a big, beautiful, lycan male?”

The man’s guttural response alerted me to how far gone he was becoming. If Nanette didn’t stop soon, she would be in danger of him going further than she was intending. Though she acted experienced, I wasn’t exactly sure how innocent she was.

Nanette’s fingers danced around the top of the drooping waistline of his jeans from one side to the other, making it clear what she was doing. The man groaned before he tried to gain control once more. “Nanette, I know you’re up to something. That girl-”

“If that girl were here, wouldn’t you be able to smell her? I mean, you are the counsel to your Lord Hoylan. That must mean you are much more capable than most.” She placed a slender finger over his lips.

He drug in a huge breath into his chest before he looked down at the beauty before him. “No, but-”

“Shh,” she let the syllable blow across his lips as she went to her tiptoes. “It’s just us. Why don’t we use our time wisely? Before anyone else shows up? I really don’t want to be caught by other prying eyes.”

There was a message for me there, but I didn’t grasp the whole thing at that moment. The man before her grunted and moaned as she brushed the tips of her fingers against him, the beast within causing him to lose his senses as Nanette teased him with the possibilities of what would be.

When she let her weight fall back to the balls of her feet, I watched in shocked horror as she started to move lower against the man’s body. The man’s head lifted, and I could now clearly see the lust that had washed all his features in its depths. Bile rose to my throat as I imagined what she was about to do. There was no way I was about to allow her to do something like this for me.

I was about to move when she spoke once more. “Let me just help you out of these things,” she spoke, trying hard to make it sound seductive. It must have worked. Between his ragged breathing and the bulge that rested between his legs, he was far too gone to remember what he was about. Those black lycan eyes stared down at her with longing and expectation. “I will just drop these things around your ankles, and bring you to your knees with all the things I intend to do.”

I couldn’t see her face, but she must have done something that made him moan as he wrapped his fingers in her hair. “Nanette, I-” He started to twist her hair tightly, and she hollered at the pain it was inflicting.

I had enough. I couldn’t watch this anymore, nor would I allow her to demean herself like this. It just wasn’t right.

As I started to shoot out from the bushes, her words hit me. She told me what she was going to do, and it hadn’t registered.

The sound of the branches cracking made his eyes fly to the bush where I was. Nanette had already unfastened his pants and now plunged them to the ground as she cursed out loud. The man’s feet tangled in the mass of clothing that was now pooled at his feet as she grabbed my arm and flung me clear out of his reach.

Topher lost his footing, his face smashing to the ground as his hands eagerly sought to release his legs from their unnatural binds.

“Look away, Sedona,” Nanette said calmly. “You don’t need to see this.”

I was stunned. See what, exactly?

Nanette pulled out a huge, sharp silver dagger-like blade that was appeared to be glowing. The weapon was more slender than a dagger but longer than an icepick. It was certainly more deadly than either.

“What are you doing?” Topher’s eyes grew round as Nanette approached him, fear from the man causing the black depths to start to bleed out. His hands were frantic in their efforts, but it also made his efforts futile. Claws started to eke out of his fingers as he tried to shred the material binding him.

Nanette straddled his chest, letting the blade gently glide over the exposed flesh of his chest. Topher stilled his movements, his eyes searching her face before moving them to the blade. “What the hell,” he asked, his gaze moving over the blade with a horrified expression on his face. “Who are you?”

Nanette decided against answering his question. “I am going to miss our little talks, Topher. But I can’t let you tell anyone what you saw here tonight.”

Panic moved to realization, then to acceptance. “It’s too late, Nanette. I have already sounded the alarm. I’ve told them who you are. You won’t get away with this!”

Nanette didn’t look like the same sweet girl that she had in my room. The way she was looking at Topher was anything but innocent, and the calm in her voice was enough to set off alarm bells in my head. “Nice try, Topher.” She slipped her dainty hand into one of her pockets and pulled out a small, metal device. There was a single, small light that flashed weakly on it. “But this would have blocked anything you tried to send out. Just know, this isn’t personal.”

With her last words, she rammed her weapon beneath his jaw and straight into his head and twisted the blade. My stomach twisted right along with that blade as the acid tried to rise into my throat. Our world had become more cutthroat over the years, but this was not something I was prepared for.

When she removed the blade, there was no sign of blood stemming from the wound as I would have expected. Aside from the shocked expression on his face and his cold, staring eyes, I would not have known the man was dead.

My mouth moved on silent words. “The weapon cauterizes the wound from the inside so that no marks can be found externally to trace it. It would take them a while to figure out what happened to him, longer to figure out how, and impossible to figure out who.” She looked sadly at the blade before slipping it into a hidden sheath at her side. “It doesn’t get easier, but it is necessary.”

She stood from her lifeless perch and turned to face me. My head dipped, not sure I could look her in the eyes after what I had just witnessed. The man wasn’t armed, nor was he in any position to fight back. It just seemed…off.

“Sedona,” she said my name quietly. “Look at me.” I lifted my head to gaze upon those features that I once saw as innocent. “I hope you can understand that what I did was necessary. If he had gotten word to King Hoylan, it would have put the entire kingdom in danger. Hoylan would have turned his forces on our home for this treachery. He has to believe you escaped on your own…without anyone’s help. Do you understand?”

I nodded my head, though I wasn’t sure what I was nodding for. It seemed an appropriate response to what she was saying. But the image of the lifeless corpse was dancing in my vision, haunting me before his body turned cold.

“Shit,” Nanette whispered. “You’re in shock.” She threw her arms around my shoulders, urging me to move forward, and my feet obliged. “We have to move faster if we want to be long gone before the body is found.”

A thought had started in the back of my skull and was now starting to become more pronounced in my head alongside the image I couldn’t shake. My eyes involuntarily moved to take in the entire tree line. Did anyone see?

Nanette smiled reassuringly. “There is no one there, Sedona. We’re safe.” How did she know that? Even more, how could I trust that I was indeed safe? “But, you need to know we are still not out of the woods, so to speak. We have to move faster,” she said, pulling me along behind her even faster than before.

My feet kept pace without my will. At one point, I had started to think that life with the Lycans offered more safety and security than living our nomadic life. After what I had just witnessed, I was reminded even more harshly just how deadly life with lycans was! At this moment, I wasn't sure who I was safer with: Hunt or Nanette.