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Wolf's POV:
Help
"Will you stop shifting like that?" Jacin hisses at me.
I glare at the guard and shift my ears to wolfish points just to annoy him. Petty? Maybe. But for some reason I don't really feel inclined to be respectful to people who have previously tried to force me into a job I didn't want and are currently escorting me to a prison cell. I'm weird like that.
Besides, the shifting is necessary right now. I can't afford to let any of these soldiers and vampires see my limbs just suddenly pop out of their sockets. That would be a sign of weakness. Best to just keep my shape in constant flux like my skeleton seems to be insisting right now. It looks strange, but it doesn't look weak, and that's the most important thing.
Every guard we pass stops and stares with open curiosity. I dutifully ignore their gawking. They're probably just surprised to see a "dead" man walking in front of them, or they're fascinated by the weird combinations of wolf and human my form is taking. Whatever the case, I can guarantee that within the hour they'll have gotten used to both ideas and will completely and utterly resent me for daring to break the skin of their precious queen. They hold no loyalty to my family or to me. They'll probably cheer when the Queen forces me to slit my own throat or something.
"Mind if I ask you a quick question?" Jacin suddenly asks.
"Yes." I growl back.
"Too bad. How in the stars did you end up on Earth? The right technologies weren't even fully developed yet when you went missing."
"You're Queen already asked me that."
"Yes, but I highly doubt that "goofing off with your brother" was what really landed you into another dimension."
"Never get a career as a detective. You'd be terrible at it. I was goofing around with my brother, I got too close to one of your fancy machines, and got zapped to another dimension. End of story." I tell him snappishly.
"Alright, fine, I was just curious." Jacin mutters.
"You think that gives you the right to talk to me like you're not about to throw me into the dungeons?"
"Who says I'm taking you to the dungeons?" he says suddenly.
I frown at him. "The Queen. She ordered you to take me to the dungeons to await my execution and if you disobey she'll probably have your head ripped off and used as a football."
"What's a football?"
Both Jacin and I stop dead (not that I have much of a choice in the matter) and turn to look at who had spoken. Standing right behind us is a girl, maybe about mine and Jacin's age, with dark skin and hair twisted into corkscrew curls. Tracing down from her right eye are three long, uniform scars. She's quite pretty, I have to admit. Not as pretty as Scarlet, but prettier than most girls I've seen.
She smiles at me softly. "Is it a ball in the shape of a foot? But then it wouldn't be a ball, would it, and you couldn't make it out of a head. Is a head a football?"
"Uh, no." I say, thoroughly confused by this weird conversation, "It's just a ball that you kick around."
Her face brightens. "Ah, so it's the ball you use in kicks, yes?"
"Close enough." I say. Kicks is pretty similar to football anyway.
The girl turns to look at Jacin. "Are you going to take him to the dungeons, Jacin? You know the Queen will kill him."
He sighs. "I'm still trying to figure that out."
"You didn't need time to figure it out when you tried to force me to become a guard." I grumble.
"Look, it was either force you to become a guard, or risk Winter getting hurt or killed. No offence, but I find the first option to be the least worst." Jacin snaps.
"Who's Winter, your girlfriend?" I ask.
He clenches his jaw, and his gaze briefly flicks over to the girl standing in front of us. She, on the other hand, is openly staring at him; and it's hard to tell with her dark skin, but I could swear that she was blushing.
"She's not my girlfriend." Jacin eventually says firmly.
There's a flash of disappointment in the girl's eyes, but she manages a grin as she looks up at me. "Yes… we're just friends. Jacin cares very deeply for my safety."
So this is Winter. She looks quite rich, maybe a member of the nobility? The scars are probably from an assassination attempt by an ambitious lower-class member whose body is undoubtedly rotting in a ditch somewhere. But why attack this particular noble? I've only known her for a few minutes, true, but she seems rather nice, certainly nicer than the other nobles. And if her smell is anything to go by, she isn't even a vampire. I'm getting a very strong hint of fairy, even a bit of werewolf, but no vampire. Not even elf. So what is she doing in the nobility?
"We don't have time for this." Jacin growls, "The Queen is already suspicious of me. If I don't bring Ze'ev down to the dungeons, she'll kill me on the spot."
Winter shakes her head fervently, her eyes wide with fear. "No she won't. I won't let her. She can't kill you Jacin, you're a loyal guard, the loyalest guard in the entire palace."
"A loyal guard wouldn't disobey her direct orders." Jacin reminds her.
"We can make it look like he overpowered you." Winter suggests, "Then she can't punish you."
"If I fight right now, my mother will be forced to bear the punishment." I tell her, "I can't risk her life like that. Especially for a son she thinks is dead."
Jacin glares at me. "Now do you see why I had to force you into being a guard?"
"Jacin, that's enough." Winter chides him, before turning to look at Wolf. "I don't think Levana will personally check to see if you're in a prison cell, and none of the guards will want you to be recaptured, right Jacin?"
"You are seriously underestimating the level of corruption in this place Winter." He says dryly.
"But a lot of the guards will want him to stay alive, right? They're loyal to the Alphas."
Jacin heaves an exasperated sigh. "I guess that the other werewolves here aren't too happy about Levana wanting to kill you-"
"I didn't think anyone here was that loyal to my family." I say, surprised.
"Oh it's not about loyalty. You'd just make a much better Alpha than the one we have now."
I frown, confused. "Anyone can challenge the Alpha though."
"Yeah, but nobody wants the job. Too much responsibility and being used as a scapegoat." Jacin explains.
"But it means that no-one will probably report him missing." Winter remarks happily, "Which means we can hide him! Ooh, maybe we can paint him white and keep him in the menagerie!"
Jacin shakes his head. "There's no way that'll work Winter. Ze'ev is huge, even by werewolf standards, and the other werewolves will smell him."
"No they won't, the paint-smell will be too strong." Winter argues.
"Still, he looks different from a regular wolf. It won't work."
"I might be able to make myself look more like a regular wolf." I say.
Jacin eyes me sceptically. "Oh yeah? How?"
I shut my eyes and inhale deeply. This is not going to be comfortable.
I let myself slip into my wolf-form, the new skin and muscles forming as easily as if I was simply changing clothes. I shake my new coat of fur and glance up at Jacin and Winter.
Jacin looks decidedly unimpressed. "That doesn't look anything like a regular wolf."
I huff out a breath, steeling myself for the next part.
My torso shrinks and thins, the skin stretching uncomfortably around the unfamiliar shape. My legs grow thinner, and my front toes grow just a little longer. My fur shrinks into my skin and I wobble, my own body feeling suddenly unbelievable heavy to my weakened legs.
Every cell of my being seems to scream at me the wrongness of the shape, to adopt something easier, more natural. But, looking at the shock written across Jacin and Winter's faces, I knew that this form was perfect for hiding.
With some struggle, I manage another shift, altering my throat so I can speak. "I've basically fused my human and wolf skeletons together." I explain, my voice sounding unusually hoarse, even in my wolf-form. "Should make me look smaller and weaker."
"Yeah it does that, but I seriously doubt that's healthy." Jacin mutters.
I narrow my eyes at him. "I can't say I know why you care. Why are you helping me anyway? How do I know you're not trying to claim some extra credit by saying I escaped and being the big heroes who eventually catch me again?"
"We would never do that!" Winter gasps, "You have done nothing to deserve the Queen's wrath!"
"I nearly bit her hand off." I remind her.
Jacin growls in his throat. "Believe me, she deserves that and more."
I flick a quizzical ear in his direction, but don't comment.
Winter crouches down so that she's eye-level with me, her golden-brown eyes practically glowing. "You are right to be suspicious of us." She murmurs, never breaking her gaze. "In this castle there is an assassin around every corner, and the blood of their victims stains the carpets and tapestries. Everyone ignores it, because if they don't, then their blood will join the mix. But that means no-one can clean up the blood and heal the wounds inflicted on the palace. So the palace is always bleeding with the blood of all the betrayals and plots that happen every day. I don't wish for your blood to join it."
"…Thanks?" I venture. I really don't know what to make of that tirade.
Jacin groans exasperatedly. "Look, you have two choices: you can let me escort you to the dungeons and certain death, or you can take a chance with Winter and I for the slim possibility of survival. What's your answer?"
I look at him, his expression as blank as uncarved stone. I look at Winter, hope and desperation written all over her face as clearly as if it had been painted. My shoulders slump and I sigh. "Alright, I'll go with you."
A/N: I'd just like to say that the thing about how literally everyone in the books is totally struck dumb by Winter's beauty except for Wolf is one of my favourite Wolflet moments. I can just imagine the girls having a contest to see who has the most devoted boyfriend by having Winter flirt with each of them and all the guys get all nervous and flustered except for Wolf because THAT'S HOW DEVOTED HE IS TO SCARLET! *Ahem* long live Wolflet.
Also, when I say football, I mean the soccer kind, not American football.
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