Can't Be Held

I shuddered beneath him. Feeling his sweat-coated weight dropping over me. Too weak to hold himself up for a moment.

Too weak to hold onto me.

I skid sideways, twisting to rotate his weight onto the bed. And ripping off his relaxed staff, to swing sideways and grab his red cloak. Tossing it over my shoulders as I leapt out the open shutters. Landing on my shoulder on the ground and rolling to my feet like my brother had shown me to leap from the stable loft.

Then I ran. Fast as I could. Praying Gram was somewhere safe by now.

I leapt logs and went further into the woods. Wearing only the cloak for cover.

***

I didn't stop running until I was deep in the trees. Deeply lost having no idea how near or far the trail was.

A trail I need to find to get home.

Then I heard the first wild snarls of the wolves. Howling cries and thudding paws. Twigs snapping beneath them.

The sounds seemed to be coming from behind me. But from every direction at once.

How many of them are there?

I was beginning to feel the first trickles of renewed panic.

The wolves. I knew those sounds. Everyone in the village had been warned to run from them.

But they were animals born of these trees.

I've no chance of escaping them in it.

Suddenly I heard an echoing snarly from further in the trees ahead of me. Louder and more ferocious it seemed to echo off every boulder and branch. Rumbling over the landscape.

I paused and looked both directions, crouched in a run. I have to go somewhere.

I decided to run North as I had been and hope I'd find my way back to the village before that monster of a wolf found me.

It felt like I'd been running for an eternity. My feet ached from things I'd stepped on and I had to clutch the folds of the cloak to keep it from hooking on everything behind me.

It's too big.

But I ran as though the devil possessed me.

Which he had. Just a short time ago, he'd been buried in to the hilt. I mourned the loss of everything I'd been before that horrible moment.

But there was a tiny part of me that was angry. And it grew fiercer as I thought about the moment he'd bit and held onto the skin of my back. Hurting me in the only way he hadn't already.

I didn't deserve any of it. But I'll pay him back one day for what he made me do. I'll find out who he is and he'll pay...

Just then I slammed into a solid wall.

I looked up and met the fierce green gaze of the most vicious looking man I'd ever seen.

"Red." His lip curled as he eyed my cloak.

Then his gaze slid down, and his face softened as his eyes settled on the dark blotches already forming on my arms and legs. "Come."

I followed behind him on leaden feet. Hoping I wasn't leaping from the pan to the fire.

And he looks far more dangerous than whatever that was back there. I grimaced at the thought.

He tugged me around to the back of a huge tree and pushed the side of his hand on one section. Making a chunk of bark the size of a door twist to reveal the gaping opening. He ducked and stepped through. Reaching back out to snatch my forearm and pull me in behind him.

"Quick." He urged.

I stepped through and he pushed the door. Rotating it closed.

I looked up at him as everything beyond the tree became achingly silent.

He stood listening. Staring at the wood behind me as if they might come pouring through the door any moment.

"Who are you?" I asked puzzled.

His eyes flitted to look at me. His gaze fixating on the dark red beads around my neck. "My name is Wrath."

THE END

(Find the sequel, Red & Wrath on my website.)

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kksdarerotica.com

or

https://www.p a t r e o n.com/K_K_S_?fan_landing=true (No Spaces)

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