Page 27 of Upon Buried Embers
He stands in front of me, circling me to stop any wolf that comes my way.
A darker wolf comes at me from the side with a roar, its teeth inches from my face before it’s ripped away by a hand on the back of its neck and thrown to the side.
I turn, ready to crawl away when a wolf who must have snuck through bites down on my boot. I scream, kicking my foot wildly to get it to let go, but it doesn’t.
Rohan embeds the axe into the stomach of one, leaving it there and grabs the jaws of the wolf on my foot. With one hand on the top, one on the bottom, he begins to pull apart its mouth.
I cry out and kick in panic when his hands begin to bleed.
“Still,” he barks at me, the command so forceful, I freeze.
Rohan pries the jaws open off my boot and throws its head to the side, kicking it down when it tries to rise on unsteady feet. As it comes back a second time, Rohan grabs the axe out of the other wolf and swipes it through the air into its jaw, slicing it open.
The wolf screeches in pain and drops to the ground, then there’s silence apart from Rohan’s heavy breathing and my small cries.
He looks around wildly, his eyes more feral than human, and I shrink back when they eventually come to a stop on me.
They’re dark, the ring of purple more prominent with the white snow as a backdrop.
He drops his axe, and in the next second, he’s stomping toward me and lifting me up, my feet dangling in the air as he shakes me roughly back and forth.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” he roars in my face, and I cry harder. “Do you have any idea what you justmade me do? If you hadn’t run, I wouldn’t have had to kill those wolves! Their deaths were unnecessary.”
I sob, frantically trying to get him to release me, clawing at his forearms. “I told you not to fucking run. I told you to go to the clearing!”
He throws me to the ground, and I curl up on my side, shivering and whimpering, tears spilling down my face. We are surrounded by what may be a dozen dead wolves, and he’s going to hurt me now, I know it.
I curl tighter into my ball, hands over my head, leaving a little room so I can track him.
Rohan paces back and forth, his angry breaths reaching me as he growls and curses at me.
The wolves’ deaths are my fault, Iknowthat, but I didn’t know there were any out here. I didn’t mean for this to happen.
“Fuck,” he curses, then take a few deep breaths, his back to me. I watch him through the curtain of my hair; my body slowly being frozen by the cold.
He continues pacing, hands clenching and then he stills, taking a deep breath.
I shiver.
He comes over to me then, and crouches, arms resting on his knees.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” I shake my head, hiccupping. “Come.” He sits me up, moving my hair out of my face and looks me over as I make myself stay as still as possible. He sighs. “You were stupid to run.”
“I… I know that.”
“Stupid, brave, Elf,” he mutters, continuing to clear my face of hair, wiping the snow from my cheeks.
His hands are so warm.
His face moves closer, his lips inches from mine when he rumbles. “Do not run again.”
“I won’t,” I sniffle. And I mean it. I won’t even make it to a river if wolves hunt the ground while dragons fly the skies.
But I had to try, at least once.
“Be sure, Elf. Running from a man like me only entices a hunt, one that will end very differently for you.”
I swallow, and nod.
