Chapter 13 Feral
RONAN
His face was far too close. So close that our breaths mingled. But when a slight noise came from the darkness, his head snapped in that direction.
We stayed crouched among the branches, but when Seth’s entire focus was on the ground, and instinctively yet subconsciously trying to pull away from me even if there was not even an inch to move, I found myself looking at his back. Slander with slight muscle unlike other males. My gaze was then drowned to the back of his neck. fair and smooth. I could. not tear my eyes away from it for some reason. When the swear trailed down disappearing in his collar, the sight of it made my breath run cold. And my heart started taking a sudden race, the desire to glimpse a little deeper into his collar and of his smooth skin grew inside me.
I immediately tore my eyes away from his neck. Had I fucking lost my mind? Staring at a man’s neck and wanting to see what was beneath his collar? Why was this sick desire growing inside me? I clenched my fists and took a deep breath. I needed to think straight. It was all because of the proximity. I couldn’t even remember when I last let a man this close to me. My skin crawled with others‘ touch but with this boy…
Leven went out of my way to pull him up before I even realised.
“Hey,” I murmured in a low voice.
He flinched and placed his hand on his neck, his big bright amber eyes snapping at me. “Why are you breathing on my
neck?”
A frown crossed my feature when he had a look in his eyes that called me a pervert. “How about you worry about yourself and check your audacious ass before acting innocent?!”
His eyes immediately snapped down and the color drained from his face when he found himself brushing against my manhood. As if he was struck by thunder, he immediately jumped down from the tree.
I remained seated, watching his red ears. Such an intense reaction over something as silly as his ass brushing my cock?
I also jumped down without making a noise and stated. “We need to move.”
He gave a tight nod.
Slowly, carefully, we slid away from the tree, our feet touched the earth in near–perfect silence, and together, we began to move through the twisted remains of stone walls and vine–covered pillars. The ruin stretched out in all directions, overgrown and half–swallowed by time.
As we crept along a crumbled corridor, Seth suddenly stopped.
I followed his line of sight to find something half–buried in the dirt, a rusted weapon rack, the remains of long–forgotten blades eaten by corrosion. Symbols were etched into the stone behind it, crude carvings of wolves mid–shift, their eyes hollow. Bones lay scattered nearby, old, weathered, some gnawed clean.
“This wasn’t just a ruin,” Seth whispered, crouching beside the markings. “It seems it was a training ground.”
I stepped closer, eyes narrowing as I scanned the scene. “For rogues,” I murmured, “Wolves who defied pack law ones too dangerous or broken to be claimed.”
Seth brushed dirt off one of the carvings, the image of a wolf pinned to the ground by spears. “Some of them never left”
As he was checking the carvings, my wolf sensed something in the distance. I glanced into the darkness studying it
“But the question is why this place.” Seth’s voice was cut off as a low snarl split the air.
Seth spun around just as a feral figure lunged from the darkness
It was the rogue from the earlier, half–shifted, his body grotesquely caught between human and wolf, his red eyes gleaming with madness as he looked at both of us, skin clinging to bones. His scent hat like a blow rot, blood, and death.
Seth reacted first, dropping into a crouch and dodging his clawed swipe. I moved in an instant, intercepting the rogue with a powerful punch to the jaw, sending him crashing against a wall.
Chapter 13 Feral
Dust and debris rained down but more snarls rose around us.
Seth’s head snapped at the snarls. “There are more rogues!”
I watched Seth’s changing expression to this unexpected discovery and the corner of my lips curled up.
They’re in the walls.”
He turned to me,
“How c
can you
be so o sure?
+8 Pearls
“If you want, you can wait and confirm it,” I put my hand into my pants pockets, watching him frowning.
“What’s with you acting so cool?” He raised an eyebrow at me. “You are going to be hunted by them as well.”
I chuckled and decreased the distance between us. This predator is just shifting into his wolf to wipe them all out. But what about you Seth?” I leaned forward towards his small face and smiled, “Still not shifting?”
He froze for a moment and gave me a blank look, “I don’t need to.”
He turned around to face the arriving rogues.
He
My eyes flashed with amusement, “There are at least eight to ten of them that you are planning to take down without shifting. You wanna die that desperately!”
“Yeah, I am desperate but not to die but to cross that finishing line before anyone else does,” he glanced over his shoulder and met my gaze. “So don’t get in my way, Alpha Ronan. I will fight for you as well to pay back the unexpected and unasked for help you showed me earlier so stand there and have a good show.”
The amusement within me instantly dropped, my eyes boring deep into him intensely as the rogues pounced on him. He wanted to fight for me? To pay off what I had done earlier? The hand at my side shook, my wolf growling lowly in my mind watching him fight without flinching, his moves like lightning finishing one and then instantly heading to another.
However, the moment a drop of blood dripped from his arm, my patience that I did not realise I had been holding, snapped.
I jumped in beside Seth, instantly taking care of one of the rogues. Seth glanced at me for a moment as we fell into rhythm, moving as one. He slashed through a rogue’s flank while I landed bone–breaking blows non–stop. The air filled with the sounds of snarls, the clash of claws and fists against flesh and stone.
One rogue lunged at me. I flipped it and he pinned the creature to the ground, my claws poised for a killing blow to finish
him at once.
“Wait!” Seth shouted, stepping in, “Don’t kill.”
I growled, my killing mode already activated and not stopping before I finished all of them, “They’re feral. I’ll end him.”
“This is their territory.” Seth snapped. “We trespassed. We are in the wrong here, they are just protecting their land. I don’t kill out of anger or for fun! Let them go. Don’t kill!” The defiance and the mercy in his gaze that I had never witnessed before did something inside me.
But no one gave me orders. No one.
I was always in control. In command yet… I found myself letting the rogue go.
“There is no way I don’t kill a person who comes at me with the same intentions.” Getting up, I strode up to Seth and grabbed. his wrist, “If you don’t want me to kill then we are leaving.”
We bolted, weaying through the ruins as the rogues snarled behind us. The feral figures chased but didn’t stray far from their haunted grounds. I glanced over my shoulder as they stopped. Why? Why did they suddenly stop? It was as if they were bound by old, unseen chains and could not cross the ruins.
The moment we crossed the broken archway marking the ruin’s edge, the night air changed. The oppressive weight lifted. He kept running alongside me, matching my speed. “This is the way I saw on the map!” he exclaimed, turning down the correct path
I was unaware that I had my hand firmly grasped around his wrist. And together side by side as we were about to break
O
Chapter 13 Feral
through the final clearing, crossing the finishing line of the trial, he got his wrist slowly out of my grasp.
I stopped in my tracks and glanced back at him. “What’s up? Not crossing the finishing line.”
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He relaxed his wrist and glanced up at me, “Is it not funny that the hunter and prey cross the line together?” I froze at his remark where the look in his eyes over actually labeling me in his Prey. My wolf froze in my mind, as he walked past me towards the finishing line, locking our eyes for a brief moment. “Make sure to cross it, Alpha Ronan, don’t just stare at me.”
Watching him cross the line, my lips curled up, “Indirectly warning me to not eye him, huh?” my eyes once again drawn to his hips. “Well, that seems…a little too hard to ignore.”
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