Red and The Wolf [EverlyxNivan]

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Oh no, oh no, oh no...

Her father was going to beat her until she was black and blue. Sure, it was first thing in the morning and any hunter worth a damn knew that the werewolves were never out and about at this hour. That didn't mean she should have been so stupid as to walk out of the house in nothing but a long tunic and leggings. There wasn't even a mini blade hidden in her boots. Nothing. She frowned at her own foolishness and took off running, but she only got about a dozen steps in before a firm hand grabbed her arm. Yelping, she was forced to slide to a halt on the soft grass.

She spun to face him, doing the first thing she thought of:

Slapping him hard right across the face.
 
The slap came as something of a surprise but it was better than a broken nose, and it was quickly numbed by the adrenaline pumping into his system. Even so, he didn't want to give the girl a chance to repeat the strike, so his free hand -the belonging to the injured arm- rose in an attempt to capture the second arm.

His face stung, and his jaw ached, and he tightened his grip on the girl's wrist.

"Why didn't you kill me?" He demanded, eyes narrow. There was no mistaking her. There would be no mistaking him, either. They were on two opposite sides of a war, and neither of them was dead. Yet. "Why didn't you finish me off when I passed out? Why didn't you set a trap for me when I left the house?"

Frustration bubbled up in his chest. He'd been putting off thinking of the implications belonging to the situation, but his procrastination was dragged to the fore with the confrontation of the Hunter. He was going to have to move. To abandon all he'd worked to build, and to set down new roots. In another town. Away from the Wolfwood.
 
Kaiya immediately drew back for another hit as soon as the first slap connected, but the werewolf was ahead of her. His hand grabbed her arm and she winced as his hold tightened on the cut she had given herself to confirm her lie about his blood.

She clenched her jaw, doing her best not to cry out as she glared up at him. He was demanding answers, and she was not sure she wanted to give them. However, even though he appeared unarmed as well, she knew he could kill her easily at the moment. She wasn't about to give him a reason to.

"Why would I set a trap for you after going through the work of saving your life?" she hissed in annoyance, trying to pull away from him. She squirmed a little, but it only hurt her worse, so she soon fell still and scowled at him. After a moment, she looked away. "I'm not a killer."
 
Saved his life? That came as a shock. Cathal might have released the woman, but he didn't know quite how slap-happy her ilk tended to be, and she'd been fairly free with those daggers of hers. His arm throbbed, a distant reminder of the wound. It was scarred over already, but the flesh that had grown back looked red and inflamed. The whole shoulder was flush, and the young werewolf's face -while not exactly gaunt- shone pale.

"You saved me? Why would you save me? By the moon, why did you stab me in the first place?!" He demanded, his teeth gritting, and his shoulders rising, tension filling his form. He was careful to relax the hands about the girl's arms however. That he cared about her comfort whilst interrogating her was something of a ridiculous idea, but it was what it was.

Another moment's consideration, and Cathal let his hands drop to his sides. She COULD have killed him. Could have told her kin where to find a sleeping werewolf. They could have burned his cabin down in the middle of the night, and him with it, and he likely wouldn't have stirred for it. But here he stood, relatively healthy, and badgering the girl that had both stabbed him, and saved him in the same night.

"Why were you running with a Hunter if you're not a hunter?" He added, moderating his tone slightly.
 
"What do you mean, why did I stab you?! You were growling at me and acting like you were going to maul my face off!" Kaiya retorted with a scowl. Was he even serious right now?! He had nearly jumped at her, of course she reacted that way! As if she was just going to stand there and be eaten by some demonic fluffball!

She squirmed again, realizing that he had loosened his hold. A moment later, he let her go. She fell back a step, rubbing her sore arm and glancing down at the bloodied bandage. Damn it, it had to be changed again. Why wasn't it healing faster? She frowned and looked back up at the werewolf, giving him an odd look when he asked why she was running through the Wolfwood with a hunter.

"I am a Hunter," she muttered. "That was my brother. We're the ones who patrol the Wolfwood and try to keep it clean from the evil that likes to pick off innocent people inside," she added, though her voice lacked conviction. Her father said that often, but she wasn't so sure. Did she keep it clean? No, she saved a werewolf's life. She frowned at her own idiocy, taking another step back from him.
 
"Of course I tried to chase you off!" He snapped, taking an aggressive step forward when the girl backpedaled. Instincts were hard to deny, and she was playing the part of prey all too well. "You were stalking my woods with silver in hand. There's only one thing anyone comes to the Wolfwood with silver for, and that's to kill my brothers."

He narrowed his eyes, and took another commanding step forward, as the girl retreated yet another step. "You're a hunter. You're not a killer. You can't ride the fence here girl. Hunters kill werewolves. There's nothing more to it than that. And werewolves kill hunters. And they'll keep killing hunters for as long as hunters are stupid enough to walk their forests."

Never mind that Cathal hadn't bothered to try and kill the girl. He wasn't talking about himself. He wasn't part of the pack any longer, no matter how much his father might like him to be. "If you want to save your kin, convince them to abandon the Wolfwood. Do it for their sake."
 
Kaiya fell back another step as Cathal advanced on her, feeling something hard press into her back. A tree. Damn it. She was cornered and would have to twist to run if necessary. That would cost her precious time. She frowned, flinching against the rough bark as he moved closer to her. Don't show fear, don't show fear.. She gave him a vicious scowl instead, clenching her hands into fists to hide that they were shaking.

"No. Werewolves killed my grandmother, and my mother. My father is not going to back down from this fight until every last one of you are dead, or he is. My brothers are all the same way. They plan to see this through, even if it means they all die trying. Nobody else deserves to get ripped apart by the likes of you," she snapped, her voice trembling a little as she tried to sound confident and angry. Honestly, she was a bit angry, but not enough to forget that she really probably shouldn't be having this argument right now.
 
Cathal drew up in front of the girl, his brown eyes narrowed, and his back straight. He loomed over the girl, and seething fury rolled off of him, almost palpable in it's intensity. "And my little brother, Tommen. Fourteen. He died on a deer run, when he got separated from the pack. We found him with four silver-tipped arrows in his ribs. Do not pretend that your precious hunters are some sort of victims here."

The man leaned in, his expression blanking, and his voice going hard, and cold. "I'd kill you one and all, if I thought it would bring him back. But it won't. Stay out of the forest, for your own good if you can't convince your idiot family to do the same."

Nostrils flared, and the man took a step back, before turning on his heel. His mood spoiled, he made for the pack he'd left beside the water. Maybe a day brooding at home wasn't such a bad idea.
 
Cowering slightly, Kaiya had no choice but to stare up at Cathal as he moved so close that she could not get away. She gazed at him, her anger fading as he told her about his brother. Fourteen? A child. She could not imagine the pain and grief she would feel if one of her brothers were to die now. Her mother had been painful, but she had been younger and gotten over it fairly quickly. She kept her silence, simply watching him as he threatened her and demanded that she stay out of the Wolfwood.

She knew she couldn't.

"I'm sorry about your brother," she murmured softly, knowing he would hear her. She watched him for a moment, then turned and ran off through the trees to head back to the cabin. Time for more training, in preparation of a fight she didn't want to have anymore.
 
Cathal gathered his things from the waterside, and went back to his home. Back to his potions. Back to the place where he wasn't expected to fight hunters. To the place where nobody wanted him dead. To the place where he was a little strange, but helpful enough to fit in. And she was sorry about his brother. Sorry wasn't going to bring Tommen back. And wolves would keep on dying, as long as the war was on.

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That night, the Wolfwood was silent. Not a wolf to be seen. The only break in the night's silence was the occasional hooting of an old owl, or the rustle of a deer. The wolves all took to their holes, their dens, their hideaways. They stayed in, and they planned a grand offensive. There was only one way to win a war. You had to be willing to make the cost of fighting too steep for your enemy to pay. If you were lucky, you'd keep your soul as you did.

The New Moon, it was settled, would be the night of the offensive. A moonless night, where the lycans would have run of the wood, with eyes better suited to the unlit sky than the men who hunted them.

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The next day, an envoy was sent to Cathal, inviting him to the planned offensive. He refused.
 
For the rest of the day, Kaiya was trained with a bow and arrows. Archery was not something she was completely unpracticed in, but she could not do well enough to kill a moving target, and so she practiced. For hours. The entire time, her father and brothers were outside with her, discussing plans. They needed to make a change. Werewolves were not being killed quickly enough. They wanted more fatalities, faster. To them, they were giving the wolves too much time to regroup.

Kaiya did not weigh in. She wondered what was going to happen when the cabin was found, or when they came across an entire pack of werewolves instead of one or two. They could not handle it. There were only eight of them in all, and never more than three on a patrol. One was always at the house. She frowned to herself, staying silent.

That night, none of the patrols spotted a werewolf. In fact, the Wolfwood seemed deserted for several days. Kaiya attempted to reason with her father, to tell him that the werewolves had been scared off and that they should move on as well, but he would not listen to her. The night of the new moon, he left her at home alone.

"The night is dark. We all need to be out there. You stay here and guard the cabin," he ordered, walking off with her brothers while she sat on the porch, hoping nothing would go wrong.
 
The New Moon came, and the Werewolves took the Wolfwood by force. Hundreds of lycans filled the woods, prowling silently. Game went unhunted. The young were escorted out of the wood. Packs of lycans hunted the trails, and valleys of the Wolfwood, starting from the heart and growing farther and farther from the center.

Rather than the odd couple of wolves, each group numbered no less than five, and they moved like ghosts through the forests. Swift and silent, they stalked the woods, leaving no path unwalked, no scent-trail unfollowed. Any human found in the woods was killed swiftly, and without warning. Rarely, an engagement would spark up, but largely the fighting was over almost as soon as it started.

Blood was in the air.

Soon, wolves darkened the plains outside the Wolfwood, searching for hunters. The only sign of their passing was a shift in the tall grass, or a darker patch of shadows sliding past the pale of the brush. There would be no more dead cubs. There would be no more war. Not if the Lycans could end it in one, horrible night.
 
Kaiya sat on the top stair of the front porch, watching and waiting. The Wolfwood was oddly quiet, but she assumed that it only seemed that way because of how anxious she was. Normally on the night of a new moon, they would all be out there. She wouldn't be left behind like this. It made her anxious. She frowned and looked up at the sky, watching the twinkling stars as she tried to relax. Everything was going to be fine. All she had to do was be patient. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, slowly exhaling as she focused on ignoring her bad thoughts. By the time she opened her eyes, she actually felt better.

Everything was going to be fine.

She smiled to herself and stood, taking a last look into the trees. Nothing. All she could see was blackness. She turned away and walked across the porch, her hand finding the door handle right as she heard a loud crash. Alarmed, she pulled out a blade and turned to find a bloodied Nathan on his hands and knees at the bottom of the stairs. There was a nasty gash across his cheek, and there was blood pouring out of his side. His skin was pale and his breathing labored, but he managed to look up at her.

"Red. You gotta run. They're gonna find you. Everybody else is dead, they're coming.." he gasped, falling over onto his side. She ran down the stairs to help him, but he repeatedly shoved her away and yelled at her to run until she finally darted into the cabin and grabbed the emergency bag that she had set aside. They all had one. She slung it over her shoulder and ran back outside, trying to help Nathan up to run with her.

"I can't just leave you here.." she said desperately, her eyes filled with tears. A howl sounded closeby and she tensed, unable to resist as Nathan pushed at her again to run. She straightened up and took off through the trees, stumbling her way around as best as she was able considering she couldn't see anything. The only place she could think to go was Cathal's, and for that, she'd have to make it through a large chunk of the Wood.
 
Cathal's blood itched. He could feel the magic in the air, when so many of his kin took to their wolf. The wolfsong called to him. Urged him to join the hunt. To tear muscle, flesh, and vein. To fill his belly with prey, and to stand victorious over his foes. This night, he resisted the calling.

Instead, Cathal sat at his shop, waiting. Waiting to treat the sick, and injured. Alone.

Of course, the only sick and injured this night would be the wolves, and the hunters. One great, final battle. More a slaughter than a battle, by the sound of the plans. The wolves had all the advantage. The element of surprise, the numbers, the night-sight and knowledge of the battleground. There would be no stopping the fighting, but with luck, the war would be ended.

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The Wolfwood remained silent, as Kaiya passed through it. Nothing so much as an owl hooted on this bloody night. Silence reined, and the wolves moved within. A snowy white wolf crossed Kaiya's path once, huge and meanacing, but if it had seen her, it didn't show it beyond a flick of one huge, triangular ear.
 
Kaiya fell several times, gaining shallow scrapes on her palms and knees, but still she kept going. Fear drove her forward, making her get up every time she fell and straighten with each stumble. More than once she found herself narrowly missing a tree or large rock in her path simply because she could not see it. She rounded a bend in the path and found herself a few yards away from a werewolf - one larger than Cathal had been. Gasping in panic, she darted behind a tree, hiding there for several minutes. Her entire body was shaking, her breathing ragged. If anything wanted to find her and kill her, she was making it all too easy, but she couldn't help it.

When she finally dared to peek out, the werewolf was gone. She looked both ways, but saw nothing white in the black of night. That was all it took to inspire her to run on, making a weaving path to Cathal's home. Once she got to the clearing where she had finally seen him after throwing a blade at him, her steps slowed. He may not even let her in, she realized. She was seeking refuge from his own kin. If he turned her out.. She'd have to go back into the Wolfwood and die with the rest of her family. Or perhaps he'd just kill her himself. What if he wasn't even home? He could be out there, slaughtering her brothers..

She swallowed and mentally braced herself, going up and knocking three times in rapid succession on his door. After that, she dropped her hand, trying to ignore the cold streaks her tears were leaving on her cheeks as a chill breeze blew through her hair.
 
Cathal spent the better part of the evening thinking on the girl that had had him in her hands. The girl who had stabbed him. The girl who had let him live. Guilt warred with anger. He knew what the wolves were planning. What would happen when they set upon the hunters. He knew that they would show no mercy.

But she was an innocent. She could be dying over a war she had no part in. He could warn her. And then what? Send my brothers, my sisters to their deaths to save a hunter?

But could he live it down if she died? The woman to whom he owed his life? Granted, she might not've needed to save him had she not stabbed him in the first place, but even so...

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Back and forth, Cathal's mind chased itself for hours, as the day grew late, and the waxing crescent chased the sun out of the sky. Finally, he decided, he'd warn her. And only her. He'd take her away from her kin, if it looked as though she'd betray his brothers, but she didn't deserve their fate.

Mind set, Cathal pulled on his boots, with a wince for his stiff shoulder. The wound had scarred over, and in another month, he'd have full functionality from it. Silver healed slow, even for a werewolf.

On went his cloak. His dagger. He forewent his pack in favor of speed. He strode to his front door, and-

Knock-knock-knock.

Cathal blinked, hand on the doorknob. He pulled the door open, and in a strange turn of serendipity, there stood the woman he'd gone to fetch. By her expression, the killing had already begun. Guilt surged up into his chest once again, and he ushered the girl inside. "Come. Sit." Was all he said, gesturing to the couch on which she'd treated him the night some weeks ago.
 
As the door opened, Kaiya realized what a pathetic sight she must have made. She was standing at the doorstep of a werewolf who had full knowledge that she was nothing but a Hunter who had spent the majority of her life being trained to hunt down his people. Now that the werewolves had mounted an attack that had wiped out most if not all of her family, she had nowhere else to turn. She was standing there with red eyes and drenched cheeks, her skin pale with fright. Clutching her bag with both hands, she looked up with a desperate expression as she saw Cathal standing before her. At first he looked surprised, but then there was something else that she did not understand as he gestured for her to come in without a single question.

"I-I'm s.. sorry.. I didn't have a-anywhere else to go.." she stuttered apologetically, her entire body shaking as she allowed herself to be led to the couch. She slowly took a seat, her bag landing next to her feet with a soft plop.

She looked down at her hands, clasping them together to keep him from seeing how they trembled. At least, she thought she was. In reality she was shaking all over and there was little chance he would not see that. She tried to stop her tears, trying to forget the sight of her bloodied brother and his demands that she run away instead of helping him. He had said everybody else was dead. All of them, just.. gone. Just like that. Now she was alone and sitting in the one place she probably shouldn't be.

What if he was in on it too..?

She hesitated, then looked over at him, too exhausted to get up or run even though she was scared out of her mind.

"Are you going to kill me?"
 
Cathal suddenly felt very tired. When the girl sat, he unclasped the cloak he'd thrown around his shoulders, and draped it over the back of an armchair nearby. There was a bed opposite the couch, and a fireplace on the wall between the two. It was cold, but it was stacked with wood and tinder, ready to be lit. Cathal took off the vest as well, leaving his button-down blouse on as he took the armchair nearby. He didn't settle back into it however. Instead, he leaned forward, his head in his hands as he rubbed at his face.

"No," He said plainly. He could have gone on to elaborate the likelihood of doing so after inviting her in. He could have referenced the past encounters they'd had. None of it seemed to matter much however. Hands fell away from his face, and his elbows rested on his knees, propping up his torso as he regarded his guest. What to do with her. He wasn't going to kill her, certainly.

He supposed he could host her 'til the whole mess blew over. But what would happen after the morning came? After all of the woman's kin were dead, and there was nothing left in her home but aching memory and solitude?

That, Cathal decided, was none of his business.

"My name is Cathal. Cathal Devlin." He said. "You're welcome to stay here 'til whatever's going on blows over. Can I get you anything?"
 
"Kaiya. I'm Kaiya," she murmured, glancing at him for a moment before looking away again. So, he hadn't invited her in just to finish her off like everybody else. But why? Was it just because he was paying her back for not killing him before, or did he really not want her dead? It didn't matter. Either way, she had a place to sleep where she wasn't alone. That made her feel oddly comforted, though she realized a few moments later that she was likely not going to be able to sleep. How could she, knowing that Nathan could still be alive and suffering out there? She glanced at the door, half tempted to go back to him, but she knew it was suicide. The only reason she had made it to Cathal's was luck, and it was not likely to hold if she ran back out again before dawn.

"No, nothing. Thank you. I won't impose on you long," she promised, her manners outweighing her fear as she looked over at him again. For some reason, the odd thought crossed her mind that he was actually attractive. It was unexpected. Not the sort of attractive that instantly set a lustful fire, but the sort that came out of nowhere because Kaiya had simply never thought it possible that a werewolf would be anything but hideous. Granted, she had already seen him naked, but she was purposely not paying much attention at that time..
 
Cathal nodded his head slowly. He regarded the woman silently. His lips parted, and he looked as if he was about to speak, but he was interrupted by the sound of the bell over his front door. "Stay here," He warned, before pushing himself to his feet.

"Cathal!" Came a voice, from the front of the house.

Cathal stepped quickly around the chair, and swept into the front room that doubled as a shopfront to greet his guest. It was a blonde man, broader even still than Cathal, and shorter by a head. He wore a beard that left his upper lip bare, and not a stitch of clothing besides. He grinned as he caught sight of the taller, darker man.

"Cathal!" Roared the blonde man. "You've missed it. The forest is ours! You can come home. No more fighting. No more war."

Cathal let a tired smile tug up a corner of his mouth. "Jerall," He said by way of greeting. "My place is here."

The blonde man moved to sweep around the counter, and Cathal moved to meet him. The shorter gave the taller a rib-creaking hug, but stopped well short of the doorway leading to the back room. "You stubborn bastard," growled the blonde, good natured though he was about it. "You're really going to stay here? Near the humans?"

Cathal sighed, and returned the hug, although briefly, and with less force than he'd received it. "The humans need healing, Jerall. Besides, like you said; the war's over. Some day, lycans and men will live side by side."

"It's not safe for you here, brother. You never know what humans'll do when blood's in the air." Insisted the stocky blonde.

"It is not for me to know, brother. I will keep myself well. And I will run with you on the next Moon. My wound leaves me tired however. Can I send you on your way with a potion?"
 
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