Tom Evanson lay sprawled out on the cold, muddy earth as the rain cascaded down on top of him. His backpack and textbooks lie scattered and sunken into a pool of mud several feet away and his glasses shattered and broken at his feet. The eighteen-year-old, wearing a casual polo and jeans, fidgeted and his chest rose and fell in deep intakes of breath as blood oozed forth from the stab-wounds in his abdomen. Thunder and lightning clattered across the night sky above, drowning out the terrified and pained cries for help that the boy shouted through the downpour of rain.
Tom had stayed after school for an hour or so to finish an assignment for his English class. Having done so, he had subsequently missed the school bus home and had to take the long walk back to his house through the woods. His stepdad was away on business and he had been unable to reach his mother at home because his cell phone ran out of battery; therefore, he had little choice but to hike his way back to his home through four miles of forest.
As Tom had walked along the forest trail, listening to his ipod and admiring the simple beauty of the scenic foliage, disaster struck for the high school teen. Three rugged boys a few years older than Tom had been lying in wait along the trail. The largest had sprinted forth from the trees and attempted to tackle Tom to the ground while the other two followed suit. Tom kicked his legs and fought back his three larger, stronger attackers but to no avail; the three burly boys had him firmly pinned into the earth. Two of the boys rummaged his pockets, stealing his ipod, cell phone and wallet while the other had planted Tom’s head against the ground with his kneecap.
Eventually Tom managed an attempt at fighting his attackers by picking up a nearby rock and hitting the boy that was restraining him. Only after achieving this minor feat did he realize how costly that mistake was. The largest mugger went into a fit of rage, kicking Tom over onto his stomach while one of the other boys threw a couple blows into the left side of his face. The lead mugger then drew a blunt switchblade from his jacket and, in an ignorant attempt at vindicating the minor rock blow that he had sustained from Tom, pierced two wounds into his stomach.
Tom went into shock after that, curling up into a ball on the dirty ground as the three muggers finished their looting and took off as quick as they could along the trail. He pressed his arms into his abdomen, keeping pressure on his two knife wounds as it began to rain down on his pale face. It was getting late by this point and, with the rain having started, the chances of anyone coming along the trail and stumbling upon him was unlikely and he knew it. Nevertheless, when he overcame his shock and began to understand how dire his situation was, he immediately began shouting cries for help in every direction.
A hundred thoughts rattled his brain during that nagging, hopeless amount of time on the ground of that forest trail. Would anyone find him? How bad were his wounds? Would he die there? Would a bear or wolf come and eat his remains? Would his parents ever be able to find or identify his body? Every subsequent thought was grimmer than the last as each hopeless minute passed by. He worried most about his parents; he couldn’t help but feel like he had let his mother and stepdad down by leaving them and forcing them to forever grieve his passing.
He laid there for just over an hour, clutching his wounds as the blood permeated through his white and blue polo, before finally giving up his calls for help and accepting the situation he was in now. All his dreams and aspirations of finding a nice girl, getting married, having children and becoming an accomplished graphic novelist were to be cut short by a cruel twist of fate. This was it, he thought, he was going to die here at the mere age of eighteen on a cold, wet trail in the woods while his mother sits at home worried sick at the fact that he hadn’t arrived yet.
“I’m so sorry, mom. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to tell you both how good you had raised me,” he thought to himself.
Just before he felt blackness numb his vision, he briefly saw with half-open, bruised eyes the silhouette of a dark figure standing over him. With a blood stained hand, Tom reached out to the figure standing over him and croaked out, “Please.”
With fading vision, Tom saw the anonymous figure step closer to him and kneel down beside his huddled-up form. Tom stifled a gasp as he saw two striking, golden eyes staring back into his face behind a dark visage of hair. He felt the figure gently move his arm which had been pressing against his stomach out of the way and then felt a hand exploring the area of his two stab-wounds beneath his rain water and blood-soaked polo.
Tom didn’t know who or what this figure was; maybe it was a figment of his feeble imagination, he thought, or maybe it was death coming to take him beyond. Tom felt at the last minute before he lost consciousness an arm reach under his legs and another arm reach under his back and, as if he were weightless, was gathered up into the strong figure’s embrace and carried off.
Tom’s eyes slithered open slowly and he saw only a dark, indistinguishable haze at first. There was no blinding white light or a gathered coterie of deceased loved ones to greet him as he was expecting. Instead, his sore eyes took in the sight of a damp, cave-like room and the reverberant sounds of rain and thunder beyond. He suddenly grit his teeth and let out a sharp breath as he then felt excruciating pain in his stomach and a numbness on the left side of his face. He then remembered his unfortunate encounter several hours before and realized that he was still among the living for the time being.
His awakening had captured the attention of another figure in the room. The newcomer was outside of his gaze as it approached him from the left; he could just barely make out the figure holding a bowl of water and soaking a white cloth into the bowl with a few dunks. The figure squeezed out some extra drops of water from the cloth and brought the damp material up to the bruised area near Tom’s left eye and began dabbing at it.
Tom jolted away at first touch, struggling away from the figure touching him. “I don’t have any money, please don’t hurt me!” he rasped, trying to push the figure’s hand and washcloth away.
One of the figure’s dark hands moved down to his forehead and Tom squinted as he was expecting another blow to his head or worse. Instead, the warm, soft hand rested there and began to stroke his forehead and some of the strands of his short brown hair. He then relaxed himself and breathed a sigh of relief from the newcomer’s gentleness and felt the washcloth lightly return to the tender bruise on the left side of his face; this time however, he didn’t recoil from the touch.
After several seconds, Tom heard the silkiest, angelic, and very much feminine voice speak to him for the first time. “Rest easy, try to stay calm,” she said with sincerity coloring the words, “I’m here to keep you safe, I will not hurt you, I promise.” The soft hand had moved to his right cheek and began to stroke it compassionately. “Shh, it’s alright,” she continued to whisper down to him tenderly.
Something about the soft voice that spoke to him and the clear honesty he sensed along with it put his mind and body at ease. He laid his head back his ragged, frightened breathing regulated to a near-normal pace. The anonymous feminine protector continued to nurse at his facial wounds with the washcloth and meanwhile gently stroked her fingers through his damp curls of hair reassuringly.
She finished with his face for the time being and laid the washcloth down onto his forehead. She then gathered several items out of Tom’s line of sight for a few moments before bringing one of the items into his view so that he could see it. Dangling in between her fingers before his eyes was a small green herb with a bulb-like flower.
“When these herbs are crushed down and mixed with water, they become pasty and sticky. It can be used as an adhesive to help seal and treat your wounds,” she explained to him with a kind yet strong voice. “May I?” she asked him.
Tom coughed and shivered, feeling the pain throbbing in his abdomen. He looked down at the herb again hesitantly but nodded soon after.
She wasted no time, taking hold of some of the herbs that she had, she proceeded to crush them in her hands and spilled the contents into a small brown bowl that she had prepared. Then, taking the large bowl of water that she had soaked the washcloth in, she poured some of the water into the small bowl of broken down plant parts. Finally, she picked up a small stick from the floor and used it to quickly mix together the water and the herb pieces.
As she went to work, Tom kept trying to turn himself around and focus his gaze on the woman that was helping him but she seemed insistent on keeping herself out of his view for some reason. She stayed off behind him and mixed the improvised ointment together, not saying anything as she did.
“Who are you? Why are you helping me like this?” Tom asked her timidly.
She had finished mixing the fluid together and it had now become a sticky off-white paste as she had said it would. She put down her stirring stick and scooped a glob of the fluid onto her fingers and lowered it to one of his punctures on his stomach.
“Relax your stomach and breathe; this may sting a little at first,” she said softly.
Tom was taken aback by the fact that she hadn’t answered his previous question but had little time to protest as the meaning of her last statement sank in. He braced himself and dug his fingers into the dirt as she began to smear the fluid around the outside of the gash. He tried to relax himself out as she had told him but couldn’t help but jolt and clench his teeth tightly as a stinging sensation radiated on the outside of his stomach as her lubricant-coated fingers made contact with the wound. After a few moments however, he began to relax his breathing and he gradually adapted to the pain.
When she had finished thoroughly coating both punctures with the natural remedy, she scooped up the last of it from her bowl and began to paint it onto the battered left side of his face and his black eye. Although slightly uncomfortable, there wasn’t nearly as much of a stinging sensation as when the fluid was applied to his stomach wounds. Soon enough, he felt that the simple fluid began to soothe his skin and numb the pain on both his face and abdomen greatly, which surprised him.
When she had finished, she removed her hand from his left cheek and allowed her medicinal fluid to take its gentle numbing effects on the boy. She shuffled through a few of her contents stowed off in a small basket to the side and he looked up questionably. Outside of his line of sight, she brought out a strand of thread with a needle at the end. She took off the thread and worked to replace it with an even thinner, wire-like material and tied it to the needle. Having done that, she brought it close to Tom’s eyes and showed him the needle.
“I have to stitch up the wound now,” she explained. “The fluid I provided should make it easier but you still may feel some discomfort.”
Tom cleared his eyes, looking at the needle as he listened to her words. He gulped and nodded his head nervously.
“It’s ok, I know what I’m doing,” she said reassuringly. She brought the needle down and it made contact with his skin right near the wound and he shivered quickly.
“W-, wait, shouldn’t you have more light for this? What if you make a mistake?” he asked her raggedly.
He saw the silhouette shake her head slightly. “I can see perfectly fine. Please, relax and trust me.”
Tom was taken aback by the beginning of that statement about her being able to see fine. It was nearly pitch black at this hour if not for the slight glow of the moon creeping in through the hole of the cave roof. By his reckoning, that would not nearly be enough light to perform medical stitching on somebody. He had little more time to protest as he felt a pinch on his abdomen as the needle pierced the skin just above the wound.
His fingers dug into the rough ground beneath him and he instinctively clenched down as he felt the needle winding its way through his puncture wound, stitching it up as it went. He then relaxed as it suddenly occurred to him that that he wasn’t feeling much pain from the ordeal thanks to the natural salve given to him by his protector. He felt only a slightly uncomfortable throbbing sensation as she stitched up his wound.
He looked down at his naked abdomen and saw vaguely saw the mystery female’s hands stringing her needle back and forth across his wounds as if it were arts and crafts for her. Clearly she had more than just rudimentary experience in medical treatment.
Faster than he was expecting, she was finished. Tom looked down and despite his blurred vision, he could see that the blood and his puncture wounds were gone and replaced by zigzag line of stitches embedded in his abdomen. Although the throbbing and numbness persisted, the pain had more or less abated thanks to her steady hands.
She caressed his forehead for a moment as Tom’s eyes closed peacefully out of satisfaction from her tender care. She then reached off behind him and drew up a warm blanket that she had kept stowed away and protected from the cold rain, and draped it across wounded teen lying on the floor of the room, covering him from his legs to his shoulders.
Tom snuggled into the blanket that she had covered him with as if he were a small child. He gave out a sigh of relief and relaxation and opened his eyes to look up at his savior but saw only her silhouette under the shadow of night.
“Thank you,” he breathed out, giving a contented, gratified smile to her.
She reached down and rubbed his shoulder covered by the blanket and replied, “You’re welcome. Now, sleep, you need to keep up your endurance. Sleep,” she whispered gently, patting him on the shoulder.
As Tom’s eyes drew shut, his thoughts were consumed by the question of who this strange woman was and what he had done to deserve her care. Why hadn’t she just left him there to die on the road? Why did she carry him off to safety and tend to his wounds? Despite these overwhelming thoughts, he quickly found that his wearisome body craved rest above all else at the moment. Tom soon drifted off to sleep as with his newfound protector watching over him.
Several hours went by and the storm outside had finally ceased. As Tom slept heavily on the ground of the cave, the protector had carefully drawn back the covers of his blanket and began to apply another coating of her natural herbal medicine to his stitched abdomen. After she finished, she drew up another one of her cloths and began to bandage his wounds. She reached under his side and gently lifted him up so that she could wrap the cloth around completely around his torso, taking great care not to accidentally wake him. After she finished, she worked to tie an accommodating yet effective knot.
With her vulnerable guest having been bandaged, she drew her hands back and looked down at him with her golden eyes. She looked at him up and down as he slept, watching how his chest rose and fell calmly with the gentle tandem of the ambient forest noises outside. She didn’t know what compelled her to do so, but she suddenly reached down, petting at the tufts of his hair right above his bruised eye.
As she stroked his head gently, she looked down into his sleeping face and grew deep in thought. After many minutes, Tom suddenly began to stir from his sleep as a result of her precarious touches. She drew her hand back quickly and shifted her body backward, scooting herself quickly back into the shadowy nook of the cave.
Tom’s eyes drew open slowly and he squinted slightly as the rising sun breached through a small opening on the ceiling of the cave and shone down on his face. He sat himself up, stretching out his arms from beneath his blanket, yawning. He rubbed his bare arms and explored himself up and down with his hands; astounded by the fact that he was still alive and in one piece. His hands lowered down to his aching abdomen and his fingers made contact with the bandage that was wrapped around his wound. His foggy mind tried to reconcile with how he had been bandaged and his wounds had been attended to before his thoughts suddenly flashed to the mysterious woman.
He jolted his head around the cave, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever was with him. “Hello? Is anyone in here?” Tom asked, looking into each of the shadows of the room.
The room was not very large and therefore didn’t leave much room for a person to hide, however, the fact that Tom had just woken up and had a damaged left eye contributed to his inability to see the companion. She moved herself slightly out of the shadows of the back corner behind him, though not completely.
“I’m here,” she said softly.
Tom spun around to the source of the voice behind him and was met with a view of a pair of luminescent golden eyes staring at him from the shadow. Tom gulped as he wondered why her eyes had such a stark, unnatural color to them; however, they were both beautiful and captivating nonetheless. He tried to just get a good look at her but having only one good eye, no glasses and her being cloaked in the darkest part of the cave hindered his ability to see her fully. For a few moments, their eyes met and were caught in an autonomous trance; neither saying a word to the other. Finally, Tom’s confusion and curiosity got the better of him and he immediately broke into question.
“You-, you saved me last night on the trail? You brought me here?” he asked the anonymous pair of eyes and the shadowy silhouette.
“Yes,” the smooth voice replied back.
“And, this,” he said, pointing down to the bandage covering his stitched knife-wounds, “You did this for me too?” he asked.
“I did.”
Tom shrugged, his eyes narrowing confusedly, “Why?” he asked. “Why not just leave me there? Why burden yourself with a wounded stranger?”
She didn’t reply at first, her yellow eyes blank several times in the darkness. Finally she responded, “I’ve lived in these woods for years; I consider it a duty to my home to safeguard these woods and those that dwell here; you included.”
Tom was stunned at the latter part of her statement, and curious as to the former part. Apparently, she considered it a duty and even a privilege to save his life. But why did she? Judging by what she said, she apparently knew that his house was in these woods and she had seen him before. But then who did that make her?
“Wait, you said you lived in these woods for years? How many years are we talking about?”
“Many,” she replied, “I’ve moved off to other areas like this for periods of time but I’ve always returned here to this forest.”
“Where do you live exactly? A lot of the houses up here are kind of isolated, mine is too. Is that the case with yours?” he asked.
She took in a deep breath and replied, “I won’t lie to you; I actually…well…I don’t have a house.”
Tom’s eyes grew wide and his brow furrowed, “Seriously, no house? Where do you live then, if you don’t mind my asking?”
To answer his question, she slapped her hand on the wall of the cave several times and said, “Home sweet home.”
“Here?” He asked, flabbergasted, “You live in this cave?”
In the shadow, Tom saw her silhouette shrug her shoulders. “Sometimes; I tend to be a bit nomadic, moving from place to place in these woods. Who likes seeing the same thing every day anyway?” she mused.
“But why though? I mean, do you...do you not have a lot of money?” he asked hesitantly. “I’m sorry if that’s too personal, but I’d just like to know the person who saved my life.”
She nodded. “It’s quite alright, I appreciate your interest. No, I don’t have very much money, to say the least. But that isn’t the only reason why I don’t own a house or live in town. Honestly, I find that people feel a bit disconcerted around me. I stay isolated away from others here in the forest because I don’t want people to see me.”
Tom could at least remotely understand her reasoning because he considered himself an outcast amongst his peers. He didn’t really have many friends nor did he play sports or get involved much. He spent much of his time at home writing his stories or out hiking in the woods rather than catering to a social life. He was surprised that she had taken isolation to such an extreme level though. Did she think herself ugly? Different? Her voice sounded clear, articulate, gentle and kind. How could a voice like that belong to someone as hideous or alien as she claimed she was?
Tom played off that previous statement in attempt to assuage her serious change in tone. “Come on now, what do you have to hide that’s so bad?”
She sighed, “If you saw me, you’d understand perfectly.”
In response, Tom withdrew his blanket and spun around to face her. “Well, let me see you then and I’ll be the judge of that,” he replied with a kind smile.
She slunk back further into the shadow so that she was against the back wall. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she timidly replied.
“Oh come on, it can’t be much worse than me. I’m short, scrawny, I’ve got a black eye and hell my zits still haven’t even cleared away yet and I’m eighteen!” he joked, shuffling himself closer a few more inches.
She pressed herself against the back wall till she could go no further. “It’s really for the best that you don’t see me. Trust me, you’ll be glad you didn’t,” she replied.
Despite this, he continued to inch himself closer on his knees until her shadowy figure was about to be revealed to him before she stopped him.
“Enough; don’t come any closer I beg you!” she blurted, getting frantic. “It’s too soon…I, I’ve never…no one’s ever seen…” she stumbled over her words as Tom looked at her confusedly.
“Look, you saved my life and cared for me in my time of desperation. All I’m asking for is just one look at the person who I owe my life to. I promise that despite whatever it is you think is wrong with you, I will not laugh or scream or cry or run away or whatever,” Tom pleaded, looking up into her golden eyes.
She was frozen in place, her glowing eyes darting from place to place as she debated with herself. Tom sat there patiently, eager to see her yet not wanting to cross boundaries out of respect for her.
Finally, she relaxed herself, stepping forward from the wall and said, “If I do this, I want to warn you that there is no going back. You said that you would not react rashly after seeing me and I am holding you to that,” she said rather sternly.
Tom nodded his head. “I won’t say a thing,” he said.
“I want your word.” She ordered, her eyes narrowing on him.
Tom nodded again, “I promise.”
She sighed, straightening herself out within the shadow. “Very well; keep in mind that I did give you fair warning.”
As slowly as she could allow herself, she inched her way into his line of sight, her eyes fixed on his as she did. Tom sat there, focusing his good eye and his swollen eye up at her. What he saw next made him blink several times to verify that what he was seeing was really there. What was revealed to him from out of the shadows first was a very hairy foot with arched toes and extraordinarily long toenails.
Gradually, her entire physique materialized itself from the shadows; bit by bit of her was revealed to the near-comatose form of Tom sitting before her. His eyes traveled upwards as his confused mind simultaneously tried to make sense of what he was seeing before him. Above those feet that he had initially seen were a pair of equally hairy legs; so hairy in fact, that Tom couldn’t even see her skin. By this point, it finally dawned on him that this woman didn’t just have a mere outgrowth of hair, but that something was seriously unnatural about her. What he saw behind her shocked him the most and finally made everything sink in for him. There, behind her legs, was a swishing furry tail.
As her torso was revealed to him, he was met with an entire coating of more thick brown hair. Tom sat there with a slack-open mouth, doing his best not to fall over in shock. He had become so enthralled by the full, beast-like coating of hair surrounding this woman; an incarnation of wolf and human female blended together.
He had little to comprehend what he was seeing before finally, her head moved forth from the shadow lastly and she was completely revealed to him head to toe. Her head too was covered in a brown mane of fur and her mouth was sculpted like that of an animal; jutting outward like a muzzle and complimented by black lips and a black button nose. Her ears were not facing outward like those of a human but rather pointing upwards like those of a canine. To complete her already miraculous and supernatural appearance, those two beautiful golden orbs glared down at him; their striking, illuminating glow burning a hole into the staring human’s soul like two piercing beams of light.
Tom sat there in silence with an open mouth. His mouth salivated and his lips pressed together as he fought to form words in that moment but was unsuccessful. She stared back down at him, rubbing her arm with one of her hands, or rather, claws, as she tried to read his expression. Her tail swished back and forth behind her as she awaited a response from the human whom she had just revealed her secret to.
He gulped as she approached him slowly, her golden eyes focused on his face as she went. He brought his gaze upwards toward her as she was towering right over him, she herself measuring about half a foot taller than him in total. She then lowered her hands/paws down so that they were resting on his shoulders. He jolted slightly at first contact with her fur and the close proximity of her sharp claws, but didn’t fight her grasp.
“Are you afraid?” she suddenly asked him softly.
He gulped, not taking his gaze off of her face but finally regaining control of his frozen motor functions. In response, he slowly nodded to her.
She lowered herself down before him so that they were knee to knee with each other. Her hands however, were still gently resting on his bare shoulders.
“Do you have any regrets now?” she whispered to him.
Tom thought about the events that had unfolded. It took him only a few seconds after the question had been asked of him to realize that he really had nothing to fear. If she had wanted to kill him, she could have done it long before this point when he was weaker and more vulnerable. He cleared his throat and finally gasped out an answer to her.
“No,” he softly replied, “No regrets at all. I’m sorry; I had no idea that something like this was what you were talking about.”
She cocked her head to the side slightly, her intense gaze capturing his again. “It’s alright, there’s no way you could have anticipated this,” she said to him. “I think you should know that you are the first human that I have ever revealed my secret to in my 183 years of existence.”
Tom’s eyes grew wide at this revelation. “You are 183 years old!?” he blurted out. “How is that possible? You sound like you’re only in your twenties!”
She nodded her muzzle at him. “I am technically 183, but I was twenty-one when I made the permanent transformation into this. I have not physically aged at all since that point.”
“What-,” he gulped, “What are you exactly?”
“I am a Wolfen,” she replied to him simply. “Became one in the year 1848.”
Tom scratched the side of his head. “Wolfen?” he asked astonishingly. “Is that like…a werewolf or…?”
She by now had removed her hands from his shoulders now that she was absolutely certain that her guest would not flee from her in a terrified frenzy. She sat herself down before him and tucked in her knees as her tail swished around behind her.
“Not quite,” she replied. “Werewolves transform back and forth between human and beast. Wolfen are different; we never transform. As you can see, my appearance is a perfect melding between human and wolf, but this is what I always look like. I am never completely human just as I am never completely wolf. I am both at all times,” she explained to him.
“Wow, really? But since you are a combination of both human and wolf, doesn’t that mean that you have certain animalistic urges that you can’t help?” he asked her. “Can’t you lose yourself to bloodlust like they do in the horror movies?”
She gave a wry smirk, saying, “Come now, I’m not a serial killer. As I said, I am a perfect melding between human and wolf. My human conscience is always there to balance out my animal instincts. This is one of the benefits of being a Wolfen rather than a werewolf; werewolves that transform into beasts often succumb to their urges because their animal side takes control over their actions. This is not the case with Wolfen; we always have full, conscious control over our actions at all times.”
“How did you become a Wolfen?” he asked her.
She smiled at him, “I thought you might want to know,” she replied. “It was the year 1848; my father and I were settlers of English descent from Delaware Oregon
“My father was a greedy, sadistic bastard. He prided himself in slaughtering innocent Natives in his foolish quest for fame and fortune, and I utterly hated it. Eventually, his dirty deeds caught up to him and a group of Native warriors ambushed him and his miners during their expedition. They slaughtered my father and his business partners and took me and the other families hostage. During the night, the Natives held some sort of ritual in honor of their victory against the white usurpers. As a final act of justice against the cruelties that my father committed, the tribe soothsayer painted me in wolf’s blood and chanted some manner of voodoo that I couldn’t understand. I woke up the next morning in the middle of the woods, alone and naked, as…this,” she said, referring to her current appearance.
“As the years went by, I realized that because of what I am, I no longer had any place amongst normal human society. And so, for decades, I have moved from place to place as a nomad, watching humans live out their lives from the shadows of forests and caves,” she concluded.
Tom had listened to the entire story laid out before him and didn’t hesitate to break into question. “So you became a Wolfen as a result of being more or less cursed by the Natives for what your father did to them?”
She nodded, looking down at herself, “It would seem so,” she replied. “I don’t really blame the Natives though. They deserved retribution for what happened to them and if I have to pay the price for my father’s sins, then so be it.
“How many Wolfen are there in existence?” he asked her.
She shook her head, saying, “Not very many. By my reckoning, there are likely only a few hundred of us out there in the world.”
Tom shook his head in astonishment. “This is so amazing,” he replied with excitement. This discovery was like something out of science-fiction, or the graphic novels that he prided himself in writing. He looked up at her and found that she was nodding but not necessarily equalizing his enthusiasm. He frowned as the implications of what she had told him before sank in. “Oh…but you have to live alone because of this?”
Her eyes dropped to the ground and she nodded. “Sadly, yes. You are the closest I’ve ever allowed a human to really be to me in 162 years. And it’s been half a century since I’ve encountered another Wolfen. Unfortunately, most humans would cower in fear or try to kill me as soon as they look at me,” she sighed. “Not that I blame them. It is a natural reaction after all. I just wish the world didn’t work that way.”
To her surprise, Tom reached down and cupped her clawed hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. She lifted up her head and stared into his face, smiling. They sat there in silence for a few moments, both of their chests rising and falling in relaxation and comfort at the fact that she had just lifted a huge weight off of their shoulders. Finally, Tom suddenly asked her as the obvious question popped into his head.
“By the way…what is your name?” he asked her, his hand not leaving hers.
She reached up and stroked a long curl of brown fur out of her face, her golden eyes sparkling at him. “Amberlee H. Cutting,” she replied. “But you can just call me Amber,” she said with a serene smile.
“Tom Evanson,” he said, addressing himself. “Pleased to make your acquaintance Amber; and, thank you for saving my life.”
She returned his smile with one of her own. Tom tried to stand himself up but found that a sharp, jabbing pain shot through his lower abdomen. It was then that he was reminded of the wounds that he had sustained not so long before. He hissed and reached down to clutch at the wrapped bandage. The sudden jolt of pain nearly made him tumble over had Amber not jumped up to aid him from falling.
“Don’t force it, it’s only been a few hours, your wounds may be stitched but they are nowhere near healed yet. We should clean the wound and re-bandage it soon. Come on, there’s a secluded spring not too far from here where you can rinse off and we can clean the wound,” she said, directing him to the entrance to their alcove.
Tom heard what she said and tried to move himself but found that the pain of the still-recent wound hindered his ability to walk on his own. He tried to fight his way through it but ended up stumbling down into the dirt again.
She came up behind him and helped to hoist him up onto his feet again. “Relax, don’t exert yourself or you wont be able to heal. Come, I’ll carry you to the spring,” she offered.
Tom’s natural masculine pride got in the way; he gasped out, “No Amber it’s alright you really don’t have to-,” he protested before he was cut off by Amber abruptly reaching under his legs and scooping him up into her soft, furry arms. He gasped again in surprise as she carried him out of the cave effortlessly, as she had on the trail hours before. He wrapped his arm around her neck to brace himself against her as she carried him, staring up at her with his cheeks red in embarrassment.
“You are really strong,” he laughed.
To be continued...
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