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He Will Be Loved

A Renier Laroche Love Story

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"Life's all about moments of impact, and how they change our lives forever." – The Vow

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"Tomato, tomato, tomato…"

I turned my head to see Ansel holding a handful of the same kind of seeds and inspecting them one by one. I couldn't help it, I had to say something.

"Hey Ansel, you know that those are all the same kind of seeds, right?" I chuckled, resting my elbows on the granite counter. Tess and I had finished our third of the pile around half an hour ago. Right now, she was grabbing the three of us some coffee.

He held up a finger to shush me. "Shh…I'm just being thorough. What if there was a stray squash seed in there? What if they planted it in the tomato line? That would cause severe disorder, Ness."

I let out a great sigh, rolling my eyes. "God forbid!"

Ansel shot me an injured expression, his bottom lip sticking out. "I'm serious."

My gaze softened and I cupped his face in my hands. I hated that how he knew that this expression was my weakness. "I know that. I believe you," I replied. Except for the fact that I don't. "And yeah, it's important that none of the seeds get mixed in with the others, but you don't have to double check every single one. Here, why don't you split your seeds with me? We'll get it done together."

He nodded slowly, and I took that as an invitation to take half of his seeds, putting them into the rightly marked boxes. A couple minutes of later, we were faced with four full and separate boxes of sorted seeds.

"Oh good, you finished." I turned around, graciously taking my coffee from Tess and sitting down on one of the sofas in the outpost. Now maybe I could relax.

"Yeah, it just took us a couple more minutes."

"Hmm," Tess commented. She gave me a sweet smile. "Thank you so much for coming to help on short notice, Vanessa. I know how grueling the life of a healer must be. I really appreciate that you came to volunteer, directly right after your shift too. I know that most people would rather relax instead."

Well, I was about to do that before Ansel dragged me into this… I kept the pleasant smile on my face, despite my discouraged thoughts. "Oh it was no problem. I mean, just a onetime thing, right?" I shrugged casually, taking a huge swig from the mug. The coffee was bitter, and it burned my throat on the way down, but I was too tired to care.

"Right," Tess agreed with a smile.

No one said much after that. I would've thought it to be awkward, except for the immense drowsiness I was feeling at the moment. The coffee was piping hot in my stomach, and just what I needed in order to fall asleep—ironic since it was also full of caffeine as well.

"I've never known anyone to fall asleep right after having a huge mug of coffee," I heard Tess chuckle. I could feel her gaze on me. "Is she normally this tired?"

"Pretty much," Ansel muttered. "She's no fun anymore."

Tess clucked her tongue. "Now Ansel, the job of a healer is pretty difficult. The sights they see, the pressure they have to deal with…it's enough to make a person tired when it's all over. Give Vanessa some time to rest, and she'll be back up again in no time."

"I guess…" Ansel mumbled awkwardly. I inwardly smiled at his discomfort. Although I felt a little miffed that he called me boring, it was nice to hear him realize how unfair he was being by accusing me. I felt a rush of gratitude for Tess as well, silently thanking her for sticking up for me.

If there was any more conversation past that point, I never heard it. I was far past the point of drowsiness, almost in sleep's clutches. Any minute now and I would be past the point of waking up—for at least a good couple of hours.

My body started to relax, my breaths evening out. I could feel my mind start to wander off into dreamland, the beginnings of a dream forming—

Then a sudden bang ruined everything. I jerked upright, stifling the yelp that was just about to come out of my mouth. A bright light suddenly illuminated in the center of the outpost and I had to shield my eyes in order to keep seeing.

Voices started coming from the light.

"Calla, put Ren through first! He'll die if he stays any longer out here, he's losing too much blood!" a frantic female voice called out. I recognized it to be Adne, Monroe's child. Monroe had died tragically a couple of months ago in the midst of a Guardian attack, leaving Adne as the only one left in her family. I had never met her officially, but Ansel had said she was nice so…

"Hurry! He's losing more blood!" Adne hissed. The light suddenly increased in brightness, and this time I had to close my eyes in order to avoid the risk of becoming blind. When I could finally see again, a crowd of eight to ten people had entered the room—the only ones I recognized were Connor and Ethan, only because I treated them a fair number of times.

Nobody noticed me. All of them were clustered around a tall blonde girl who had a charcoal colored wolf in her arms with panicked expressions on their faces.

"Why can't you just feed him Guardian blood?" Conner asked. "Won't that help wolfie get right back up?"

Feed? I wrinkled my nose. Ugh. What were they? Vampires?

The blonde girl shook her head sadly. "Guardian blood won't be enough. The wounds are fatal enough that the blood will only lessen the damage, not heal it completely. He'll still need to be treated in the infirmary."

The infirmary. I knew where that was. I could help take them there. Before I fully realized what I was doing, I said: "I know where it is. I can help you find it."

Nine pairs of eyes flashed over to me, shock registering in every single one. Clearly they hadn't realized that I was here.

I shifted uneasily on my feet. "Really. I'm a healer, I work there. I can help you."

"Really?" It was the blonde that spoke again.

I nodded, then gestured at the unconscious Guardian in her arms. "Yeah. Just feed him the blood, and I'll notify the others. We can start the procedure immediately."

We? I blinked. Crap. I had just volunteered myself for another task. So much for sleeping.

The blonde nodded, leaning down and setting the wolf down on the floor. I winced as I saw how deep the gashes were on his side, and how much the blood had matted his fur. Blood was still pouring out of his many wounds.

"Can he shift back?" Adne asked, her brow crinkling. "I'm not sure that we have any vets here…"

"I don't know," the blonde murmured. "I'll have to give him my blood first. Maybe he'll have enough strength then." I winced as I saw her sink her teeth into her wrist and placed it into the wolf's mouth. That seemed to wake the wolf up slightly, as he started to lap her blood in less than a second. He let out a whine when he was finished. The blonde looked into his eyes. "Ren? Can you shift back for us? The guardian blood isn't going to cure you. We need to get you to a healer."

The Guardian let out a loud snarl when he heard the word healer, but didn't seem to take too much of a threat to shift back. Gradually, his snout shrunk and he started to grow taller. In a matter of seconds, he was human again.

And when I saw him, my jaw dropped.

He was beautiful.

His face was long and angular, all cheekbones and hard angles. His nose was sharp and defined perfectly, almost exactly like an aristocrat's. In contrast, his lips were full and soft—soft enough to inflict arousal just at the slightest touch on your skin. He was tan, but not overly tan. It suited him. He was tall and lean, with just the right amount muscle—not too big, not too small. But the most beautiful feature about him was his eyes: black with silver flecks. Looking at them made me feel like I was seeing the night sky with the stars sprinkled out to keep the darkness away.

"I'm telling you, I'm fine!" I snapped out of my thoughts, quickly realizing that I had been staring at him. I hastily averted my eyes, but not before I saw Conner smirk in my direction. Damn it. He saw.

"But Ren!" the blonde called out frantically. "You'll die if you won't!" Her voice became soothing. "I know that you don't trust the healers here, or anybody here , in fact. But trust me. Nobody here is intending to hurt you. They just want to make you—"

"CALLA I'M FINE! I DON'T NEED ANY DAMN HEALERS TO—"

"Please?" her voice was barely audible, and I didn't have to guess to realize that she was trying to break down his defenses.

A loud sigh was heard. "Calla, please. Don't do this to me. You know how I—"

The words were out of my mouth before I realized I had spoken them. My tone was gentle, the exact one I used when I had to talk to an upset Ansel. "Ren, please. Listen to Calla. I've seen the severity of your wounds and…unless you have treatment soon, you'll die. Either they'll get infected, or even get worse. You can trust everybody here, we won't hurt you."

Ren's eyes flashed over to me. I gulped, but held my ground. I didn't want to piss him off—that would only make everything else worse—, but I definitely wasn't going to let him die just because he had trust issues. His eyes narrowed and I could sense his wolf side close by, ready to attack me. "Who the hell is she?"

"I'm Vanessa Morgan, one of the healers that work at the infirmary," I replied, responding before anybody else could. "I can help you." My voice got firmer in the end.

His eyes narrowed further, and his canines flashed in my direction. "I don't trust her."

I lifted my hands up in exasperation. "It's just a simple procedure! Most of your cuts require stitches so they can heal properly. It'll take an hour or two at the most!"

"Ren, you should go," Calla murmured, resting a hand on his shoulder. He winced, and her hand immediately fell away. "Sorry."

"I don't want to let you die," I whispered. To human ears, it was nearly impossible to hear, but the Guardians had better hearing then we did. Ren's face snapped up to face mine again, and shock radiated from his system. By then, I knew that he had heard my words.

"Please," Calla pleaded again.

Ren sighed, his lips pressing together to form a thin line. He gave a stiff nod, but glared in my direction. "Fine. But if I sense any sort of threat in there, I won't even think twice about slaughtering you all." His voice held a trace of malice.

A shiver went down my spine as I heard the threat behind his words. There was no doubt in my mind that he meant every single one that he said. He wouldn't be afraid to kill me if I did something wrong.

A small smile appeared on my face. I was basically on a suicide mission. The thought seemed to whisk all of my tiredness away, leaving pure adrenaline to pump through my veins. "Alright. Let's get going then." I turned around, only to be yanked back my hair. I stifled a cry, but it hurt like a bitch. Ren's voice by my ear chilled me to the core. "I'm warning you, bitch. One mistake, you're dead." He pushed me ahead, and I stumbled forward, clutching my chest.

He had been the one that had grabbed me.

Silence cloaked the room like a heavy blanket, and I sneaked a glance back to realize that the rest of the group was staring at Ren with wide eyes. Fear chilled me to the core as I realized how dangerous he was.

This operation suddenly seemed a thousand time more serious than before.


Eughh, I feel like this chapter was horrible. I had to rewrite it a couple of times because I hated it so much :P

But yeah. So...Ren? He sure seems to hate Vanessa haha. Poor Vanessa. I feel like I made Ren's character too cruel, but meh. He'll probs change in a bit xD

Okay. I have a question. Has anybody ever heard of the book called Angelfire? Ohmygod. That's like my favorite book in the whole entire world...3 And Will? God, he's gorgeous. Except he makes me so mad, because he's all like: "I have to do my duty, I can't love you!" and I'm like: *face palm* My friend and I had a discussion yesterday about why I like fantasy so much...andddd I guess it's because everyone is more interesting, and normal life is well...boring. Haha. I'd love a demon-slaying shadowhunter boyfriend, or even an Angel boyfriend. Plus, they're usually protective and gorgeous...IDK, I like those kind of guys? Haha. Ew, that makes me sound all damsel-in-distress like. Gross.

But yeahhhhh. I'm done with my character ranting...ish. I won't bore you further.

I'm sorry if the chapter sucked eggs. I tried to make it okay D:

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Nightshade, or even any of the characters D: Shame, cause Ansel & Ren & Connor are my favorites haha. And you know how I feel about Ren (; I just own Vanessa.