"You really need to go to work?" He sighs, leaning his body over the kitchen counter. Gertrude was off in the dining area dusting, and she'd every once in a while glance up and look between us.
"Uh, yeah." I chuckle. "I can't just not go to work." I tell him.
"You wouldn't have that job if it weren't for me." He states in a matter of fact kind of tone. When I glance up at him he's smirking at me, which soon turned into a wide grin.
"Excuse me?" I glower at him.
"Some day I'll tell you all about how long I've actually been planning for you to move out here." He smirks, I continue to glower at him. "It was I who suggested that Professor Galloway send you the application for an internship in the first place." He shrugs.
"How long have you been watching me?" I ask him, not really sure if I wanted to know the answer to it or not.
"Many years." He says simply.
"We're so talking about this later." I growl at him, slinging my purse over my shoulder. "See you tonight." I add before walking out the door to my truck. Today would be pretty uneventful, I had a bunch of data that I needed to enter into my laptop as well as a bunch of samples to take today. I'd do it all out in the woods, I was just more comfortable out there than in the office or at the warehouse. An hour or so later I was perched on an old stump in the woods, punching codes and info into my laptop. My phone was sitting next to me along with a bottle of pepsi.
"You must be Annabelle..." Someone says, walking up behind me. It wasn't a voice that I'd heard before, and it made me jump a little. A few seconds later a guy walks around the side of the stump. He was huge. Tall, he had to be around 7 feet, muscular and covered in tattoos, he also had long hair pulled back into a bun.
"Can I help you?" I ask him skeptically. Most people didn't exactly take strolls around the bogg so I was already in defense mode, even though both of us knew I wouldn't be able to force him off me if he tried anything.
"Huh, you are pretty." He shrugs. I narrow my eyes at him, my fingers wrapping around my phone. "You gotta come with me sweet heart." He tells me.
"Yeah, I don't think so." I shake my head, "Why don't you move along." I suggest to him.
"The centaurs were wrong... You're pretty feisty." He chuckles. I'm an instant panic. Who the fuck was this guy.
"Who are you?" I ask him, trying to keep my tone even.
"Baron (Corbin)." He answers simply. "So are you going to put up a fight...? Because I don't want to knock you out for this, but if I have to I will." He says to me, "Up to you." He adds with another shrug.
"I'm not going anywhere with you." I growl at him. "Finn isn't going to be happy when he hears about this." I say, trying to use him as my leverage point.
"That's what I'm counting on." He winks, grabbing my elbow and effortlessly pulling me up to my feet. I yank my arm, and try to wrench my elbow from his grip but it was pretty pointless. "Grab your shit." He tells me. I scramble to pick up my laptop, my keys and my soda. The soda may not life or death but hey, I wanted to drink that at some point. My eyes are wide as he pulls me through a portal, not the same one that Finn had brought me too which meant that they must be all over the forest and bog. We made an immediate right and walked down a narrow path and I skidded to a stop in front of a really, really dark cave. "Come on, princess." He mutters.
"I don't want to go in there." I shake my head in a soft tone.
"You don't get a choice." He mumbles, scooping me up and basically throwing me over his shoulders. He was ridiculously laid back, like he kidnapped women from the bogg all the time, it really threw me off.
"You're an asshole." I smack his back and kick my feet a couple times. I knew it wasn't going to work, so I didn't bother to continue. A few minutes later we walked out into a field, it was littered with what looked like huts.
"Got her." He calls to a group of men that were gathered around a fire. My mind starts racing, were they going to torture me, were they going to rape me, what do I need to be worried about here? Thankfully they don't really acknowledge me, but they all give a grunt or some kind of inaudible response to him. He tosses me down on a bed, "Listen." He starts, pointing a finger at me. "You have no idea where you are, you don't know what land your in, what portals to go through to get home, what kind of dangers you need to face to even get there, so take my advice and dont' do anything stupid." He makes a disgusted face as he wiped my sweat off his arm, when I got nervous I had a tendency to sweat really bad. "Gross." He comments.
"I'm not sure what you're hoping to accomplish by bringing me here. We're not even officially together, we haven't known each other long enough for me to mean anything to him." I say to Baron. He grins up at me, like everything I just said was the funniest thing he'd heard all day.
"He'll come for you." He chuckles. "You're his one promised, he'll go to the ends of the worlds to find you." He states, "Lucky for him you're not going to be that hard to find."
"This is stupid." I sigh, crossing my arms over my chest.
"Speaking of stupid... Like I said, don't do anything stupid." He repeats. "I'd hate to have to tie you up and throw you in a closet or something." He adds before walking out the door of the hut. I glance down at my phone, knowing that I had zero signal before my eyes wander out the window. I watched Baron wander out to the rest of the group, sitting down on a make shift chair. The blood drains from my face when two of the bigger men stand up, they were just as big as Baron. At first it just seemed as if they were running towards the woods but in a matter of seconds their bodies started to changed and the next thing I knew I was watching two massive wolves run across the rest of the field.
"I need to get out of here." I say to myself, frantically glancing at my phone again. My eyes darted around the hut but there wasn't anything in here that was going to do me any good. He was right, I was in a strange place and I had no idea how to get back home. All I could do was sit tight, hope they didn't kill me and wait for Finn to come for me... Hopefully he came for me.
***...***Meanwhile...***...***
It was nearly 10 at night when Finn decided to go over to Annabelle's and Kelly's. She'd failed to answer her phone all day, calls or texts and he didn't have Kellly's number. He was sure that she was fine when she left this morning. She'd given him no reason to think that anything was wrong between them.
"Finn." Kelly smiled when she answered, "Where's Annabelle?" She asks him, glancing around behind him. It was right then he knew something wasn't right.
"She hasn't been home?" He asks in a dangerous tone.
"Not since she left for your place last night." She shakes her head. "Is everything ok?" She asks.
"I'm sure she's fine." He offers a rigid smile. "I will go find her." He assures her, starting to turn around for his car once more.
"Hold on, you don't know where she is?" She basically shouted at him. He didn't blame her though, she was only concerned about her friend's well being.
"No Kelly, I don't." He shakes his head, "But it won't be a problem for me to find her." He adds. He changes his mind about the car, turning back to Kelly. "May I please come in?" He asks her.
"For what?" She asks him, her guard coming up. She also leaned her very petite frame against the door, as if it would stop him from barging in if he'd made that choice.
"Because it's late, and I'm hoping she's asleep where ever she's at. It will take me an hour to get back to my own home and longer to fall asleep. Do you want to help me find her or not?" He questions, raising his eyebrows at her. She takes a moment to think about that, but nods and swings the door open. "When I know something I'll come back down." He says to her, retreating up the steps to Annabelle's bedroom. He laid down in her bed, and willed sleep to come.
***...***...***...***
"Move over." He grumbles. I'd watched Baron rummage around the hut for the past hour. He'd offered me dinner, but I wasn't anywhere near hungry, and I definitely didn't trust anything that he was going to give me.
"What are you doing?" I ask him, narrowing my eyes at him as I scooted to the very edge of the bed.
"I'm going to sleep. You should think about it too." He suggests. "Unless you want to have sex or something." He adds, wagging his eyebrows.
"Not with you." I roll my own eyes in disgust.
"Please, Balor has nothin' on me." He chuckles. "Bet you've never been fucked by a wolf before." He smirks.
"Thank god..." I mumble.
"Suit yourself." He shrugs. "Night." He says, flipping over onto his side and pulling the covers up to his chin. I sigh deep, and lean my head against the wall, pulling my knees up to my chest to rest my chin on them. After a couple hours I finally dozed off...
"Where are you?" His voice startled me, and I glanced over to see Finn. He looked exasperated, along with several other mixed emotions. "You've been gone all day. I've called, I've texted and I'm worried." He says.
"I'm with your friend, Baron." I rebut. He narrows his eyes at me, and I can see him thinking the name through in his head. "Werewolf ring any bells?" I ask him after he couldn't figure out what I was talking about.
"Corbin..." He growls. He'd walked over to me at some point, "Are you with him?" He asks.
"Yes." I answer.
"Did he hurt you?" He asks. He was tense all over and his jaw made a few little twitches.
"No." I sigh. "He was fucking asshole, but a nice fucking asshole." I assure him. "Can you come fucking get me? I don't like not sleeping in my own bed and I don't really like being here either, and I freaking miss you." I tell him, making him smirk.
"I will come for you, my love." He nods, palming my face. "I was hoping you'd be sleeping." He adds, pressing a few quick kisses on my lips. "See you shortly."
A/N: So yeah, Baron Corbin is probably going to be a staple in the story but I don't think romantically in any way. With his lone wolf gimmick he was just an easy pick to bring in, plus I like him.