When morning rolled around, Lucas awoke to find himself in a familiar position. The soft weight of Fay’s head resting on his chest was a comfort that he found himself appreciating more and more.

  He’d slept peacefully for once. An entire night without a single nightmare or bad dream. Hell, he’d even enjoyed a pleasant dream, even if the details of it were slowly fading. It was something he’d never expected to happen, not when they were so close to the home of the very creatures that haunted his dreams. But it was Fay who pushed those thoughts away.

  Idly, Lucas traced a small circle along the blonde’s back, one arm still wrapped around her as she held him tightly against her. He couldn’t move to get away even if he wanted to with how tightly she was gripping him in her sleep. But Lucas was content as he lay there, enjoying the warmth of Fay’s body against his. He knew that they needed to get up eventually and hunt, but for a while he was happy to let Fay sleep and enjoy the closeness with his new girlfriend.

  Or at least he hoped that Fay was his girlfriend now.

  Lucas’ hand stilled as he considered his relationship. They hadn’t ever used the words boyfriend and girlfriend when they were talking, but they had decided to date. People who were dating called one another boyfriend and girlfriend, right? He thought so, at least. The more he thought about it, the more Lucas realized that his complete inexperience with dating was coming back to bite him. He had no idea what to actually do.

  And then a little ball of black fluff and fur jumped and cannonballed into his stomach.

  “Oof!”

  Lucas doubled over as the air was forced out of his lungs by the little thing. Or at least, he would have if Fay hadn’t been resting on his chest. As his body jerked, Fay suddenly awoke as well. Her eyes snapped open as she jolted upright and looked around in a rush. When she didn’t see any clear signs of danger, she turned back towards Lucas only to start laughing at the sight.

  Lucas was laying on his side, clutching his stomach in pain while a smug looking Dusk sat beside him. Even if Fay had been asleep when it happened, it wasn’t terribly hard for her to piece together what had happened.

  “That was mean, Dusk,” The blonde scolded as she reached down and gently flicked the fox on the nose. When Dusk tried to nip at the offending finger in return, Fay pulled her hand back with a giggle.

  “I was having a nice dream, and you woke me up. I don’t wake you up when you’re sleeping,” Fay pointed out.

  Dusk seemed to have the decency to look a bit sheepish at that. Or at least as sheepish as a fox could look.

  “You could’ve just nudged me, damn it!”

  Fay giggled at Lucas’s pained response and Dusk was grinning wide as she leaned in and nudged the dark-haired teen with her head.

  “Very funny, you wiseass,” Lucas groaned.

  Eventually, Lucas sat up as well, shooting Fay an exasperated look as Dusk climbed into his lap. Though it didn’t take long before he gave in and started to pet the fox.

  “Morning. Did you sleep well?”

  Fay nodded before leaning in and resting her head on Lucas’ shoulder. “Mhmm. I was, until I was suddenly woken up.”

  “Not my fault,” Lucas protested as he gestured at Dusk. “Blame this little menace.”

  “I know, I know. I just like teasing you,” Fay laughed playfully.

  The sound rang in Lucas’ ears and brought a small smile to his face. With the free hand not occupied petting his attention seeking familiar, he reached out and gently grabbed Fay’s hand in his.

  “Thank you. For last night, I mean,” He whispered. “I don’t think I would’ve been able to fall asleep without you.”

  “And no nightmares?” Fay asked.

  “None. I even had a nice dream of flying,” He grinned as he saw the way the blonde lit up at that. “Maybe you can take me flying one day.”

  “I’d love to. But first I need to figure out how.”

  Lucas just smiled and squeezed the blonde’s hand before pushing himself up to his feet. Dusk growled and whined as she tumbled out of her partner’s lap, though she was quick to curl up into the still warm sleeping bag she’d been dumped onto.

  “I know you’ll figure it out. I’ll be happy to help you, too,” He promised.

  “You’re sweet,” Fay said as she allowed Lucas to pull her up to her feet, squeezing his hand back with a small little smile. “But you need to focus on yourself and getting home before you should think of me.”

  “Shouldn’t I want to help my girlfriend?” He asked, the words slipping out before he could stop them. “That is, I mean, if you want to be my girlfriend.”

  The more that Lucas rambled, the bigger Fay’s smile got. Eventually she couldn’t hide her giggles anymore and leaned in to silence Lucas with a quick peck on the lips.

  When she pulled back, Lucas was left stunned and wide eyed, looking at the blonde with clear surprise on his face. She nearly burst out laughing just from his expression.

  “I wouldn’t have kissed you the first time if I didn’t want to be your girlfriend, Lucas,” She pointed out playfully. “We said we’d try being together, and that includes being your girlfriend.”

  A tension and weight that he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying drained out of Lucas and his shoulders slumped in relief. He’d been too stuck in his own head to realize that he was being foolish, and it took Fay pointing it out for him to finally realize it.

  “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,” He replied slowly.

  “Of course I’m right. I always am,” She joked.

  “I know, I know. You’re the best,” Lucas laughed, conceding defeat to the blonde.

  “And don’t you forget it,” Fay cheered.

  For a few seconds, the two just laughed and enjoyed the warmth and comfort of each other’s presence. But the world outside their tent wasn’t going to wait for the new couple forever and they both knew it.

  “So today we hunt?” Lucas asked.

  The mood within the tent immediately shifted and Fay nodded in agreement.

  “Mhmm. We’ll eat a nice breakfast and then we’ll go deeper into the territory and set our trap. After that, all we can do is wait and keep an eye out. With any luck, we’ll manage to catch one of the small packs in the area in our trap and be out of here by the end of the day.”

  While he’d gone hunting with his dad in the past, Lucas knew that hunting deer and birds was completely different from hunting something as deadly and dangerous as a Direwolf. He would follow Fay’s lead for the hunt and maybe, just maybe, by the end of it all he could be free of his nightmares.

  “Lucas? Are you alright?” Fay’s soft tone pulled Lucas out of his own thoughts. When he looked over at the blonde, he found her staring at him with obvious concern.

  “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” He replied, feeling confused.

  Slowly, Fay reached down, grabbing his hand and lifting it up. A hand that was shaking rather badly.

  His hand was shaking…

  “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Fay offered. “We can head back and do this another time. You don’t have to push yourself this time.”

  He could see the concern and worry flashing in those beautiful green eyes. Part of him wanted to agree and go back to Helstrum, but Lucas knew that he couldn’t.

  “I have to,” A pair of acidic green eyes flashed in his mind. “I need to do this. If I turn back now I’ll never have the courage to do it again.”

  For a few seconds, Fay just held his hand and gazed deep into Lucas’ eyes. Eventually, she sighed and pulled him into a tight hug.

  “I’ll have your back the whole way, Lucas. You’re not alone here, remember.”

  As Lucas held Fay, his hand gradually stopped shaking. He forced himself to take a deep breath, and when Fay released him from the hug, he gave her a grin that looked much more confident than he was feeling.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “What’s the plan, then?”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  “See anything?”

  “Nothing. Haven’t seen any movement in the trees, yet.”

  The sun hung at its apex high above in the sky as Lucas and Fay spoke in hushed whispers to one another. Rather than standing on solid ground as usual, the two were perched up a good fifteen feet in the air on a particularly large and thick tree branch.

  “You sure you’re alright keeping up that breeze?” Lucas asked as he looked over at Fay.

  “It’s fine. Something this small is barely even a drain for me. And I’m sitting still, so I can keep this going for hours.”

  Lucas smiled as he allowed himself to get distracted for a moment, watching as Fay’s hair fluttered about. It rose behind her like a silvery cloud, lifted by the updraft that Fay had created and was constantly maintaining beneath them. She’d been keeping the breeze going for over an hour already, but despite Lucas’ concerns she didn’t seem to have any issues with the small flex of her magic.

  While Lucas was able to create a stable, anchored illusion that left the two of them invisible, he still didn’t know enough to be able to create an illusion that could hide or mask their scent or trick the skilled senses of a Direwolf. That was where Fay came in, creating a strong breeze that was blowing their scent high up above the trees where the Direwolves wouldn’t be able to track. It left them practically invisible and in the perfect position to watch their trap.

  Said trap was a large hunk of Direboar meat that Fay had cut off from the beast that Lucas had killed earlier in their trip. Set out in the middle of a fairly large clearing, the smell of the meat had been spreading through the woods for the last hour or so and drawing in any beasts curious enough to check.

  The hope was that a small pack would stumble upon the free food and give Lucas and Fay the chance to jump them. With the two sat up in a tree only a dozen feet outside of the clearing, they had a pretty good view. The more that they could sway the fight in their favor, the better.

  “Wish we could’ve found a more comfortable branch, at least,” Lucas joked, shifting slightly on the large branch the two were resting on.

  “It could be wo-“

  “Wait!”

  Lucas’ hushed whisper cut Fay off as the teen pulled his bow up, an arrow knocked and ready as he looked into the clearing.

  He’d spotted movement.

  “There,” He whispered, gesturing with his bow towards the far end of the clearing. The movement that he’d spotted turned out to be just what the two teens were hoping for, as a large Direwolf slowly stalked out of the tree line.

  It was big, bigger than either of the two Direwolves that Lucas had dealt with when he’d first arrived. At a rough guess, Lucas would say that the beast was larger than a fully grown lion. Even from a distance he could see that the beast was covered in a variety of scars that decorated its body. The most surprising thing was that its coat was unlike the browns and greens of the first Direwolves he’d seen. The huge beast’s coat was a mix of black and silver fur that made it stand out even more as it emerged.

  “That’s an alpha,” Fay whispered as she watched the beast.

  And following it was a group of five more wolves, likely the rest of the pack. Whereas the alpha was bigger than a lion, each of the other Direwolves were only a bit larger than a normal wolf. Their coats were the same mix of browns and greens that he’d seen before, but he did see some black mixed in at times on one or two of the pack members.

  And all of them shared those same, horrible, acid green eyes.

  Lucas didn’t even realize that his hand was starting to shake again until Fay’s hand gently rested on his. Her touch steadied him, and as he looked to her, he saw those beautiful green eyes that he could get lost in and for a moment, he forgot about the wolves.

  “I’m right here,” She whispered. “We can do this. It’s a small pack, like I thought it would be. Do you think you can take out the alpha?”

  That had been their plan from the start once they set their trap. Set the trap, find a hiding spot, and wait. Once a pack showed up, it would be up to Lucas to take out the largest threat before they started fighting. His bow was best for that, and the alpha definitely looked like it would be a threat.

  “One shot. That’s all I need,” He confirmed. He steadied himself and took aim. He breathed in deeply, drawing back the arrow as he felt his body tense. When the bow could give no more, he held the arrow in place, tracking the large wolf as he slowly approached the boar meat in the center of the clearing.

  The monster was suspicious, but it was also hungry enough to ignore some of that suspicion. And Lucas was completely hidden from the beast. And when the Direwolf leaned in to sniff at the meat, Lucas took his shot.

  He exhaled as his fingers went slack, releasing the arrow and letting it fly with great force. It ripped through the air, covering dozens of feet in a second. The wolf’s ears twitched as it noticed the sound of the arrow flying through the air, but as its head started to move, it was too late and too slow.

  The arrow impacted dead on, nailing the alpha Direwolf directly. What would have been a clean shot to the skull turned into a grisly death as the beast found an arrow impaling it through one of its terrible green eyes. The monster was dead before it even knew it, and it collapsed a moment later. When it didn’t get back up, Lucas released the breath that he didn’t know he’d been holding in.

  He'd done it. He’d killed a Direwolf. They weren’t some unkillable monsters, just another beast that could be slain.

  The other Direwolves were quick to notice the death of their leader as well. And they showed a frightening level of intelligence when five sets of eyes followed the direction the arrow had flown to look straight in the direction that Fay and Lucas were hiding.

  “I don’t think we’ll get another good shot,” Fay warned him.

  And she was proven right moments later as the remaining pack howled as one and began to charge towards where Lucas and Fay were hiding.

  “Unless you think you can hit them, we’ve gotta get up close and personal,” Fay called out, no longer keeping quiet as she drew two of her new, viciously sharp daggers and dropped to the forest floor below.

  As much as Lucas wanted to offer more long ranged support, he wasn’t familiar enough with the bow Magnus had leant him to try and hit moving targets. And he wasn’t going to risk it when Fay was potentially in the line of fire or risking her own life. And that left him with only one choice, to put his physical training to the test.

  He dropped from the branch, grabbing at another one on the way down to slow his fall. By the time he hit the dirt below, Fay was already dashing in, hurling a knife at one of the Direwolves to force it to back off.

  “I’ll take three if you can handle two!” She called out over her shoulder.

  Two was doable. Five had been a terrifying thought, but two regular Direwolves? Lucas felt like he could handle that.

  Luckily, two of the five were slightly lagging behind the rest of the pack, just enough that Lucas knew that he could separate them.

  And separate them he did.

  A quick application of his mana in a way that had almost become second nature, Lucas created an illusion. It wouldn’t last long, it didn’t need to, but the image of a huge wall suddenly appearing between the two wolves and the rest of their pack was the perfect thing to make them skid to a halt. The illusion wouldn’t fool them for long, but the wolves were angry and having the view of their target blocked left him as the target of all that anger.

  Lucas was ready, though. He’d already put his bow away and pulled out his xiphos. The blade’s edge gleamed in the sunlight and Lucas felt his lips tugging up into a small hint of a grin as he settled into the basic stance that Magnus had drilled into his head. Make his body small, a harder target to hit, and leave himself ready to attack.

  The two wolves didn’t make him wait long, charging in full speed. While they may have been smart, the two weren’t the brightest of the bunch as they charged straight at him. Lucas was shocked how easy it was for him to dodge out of the way as the first one leapt at him, claws raised to try and tear into him.

  Lucas simply flowed around the leap, ducking to the side and focusing on the second Direwolf as it came in with a lunging bite at his neck.

  Acting on instinct, Lucas raised his blade up, getting his sword between himself and the approaching wolf. When it tried to bite at him, instead it bit down on dangerously sharp metal. The yelp of pain as it backed off, jaws bleeding, gave Lucas a sort of malicious glee.

  Then he heard a yelp of panic and pain from behind him as well, and the teen spared a moment to look behind him where the first wolf had landed.

  He was stunned to find that Dusk hadn’t stayed idle in the fight. She’d been contently lounging in the hood of his jacket when the fight started. He hadn’t even noticed when she’d launched herself out of her spot. But the little fox seemed to want some revenge as well.

  For a moment, Lucas was terrified that Dusk had gotten hurt again when he saw her black fur stained with red. But when he took a better look, he saw the fur around the Direwolf’s neck quickly turning the same shade of red. Dusk had gotten in and managed to bite at the wolf’s throat. She’d landed a blow and the little fox quickly charged in again at the frightened Direwolf to finish the job.

  As much as Lucas wanted to focus on his familiar and try to keep her safe, he didn’t have the attention to spare. While the second wolf had been injured by his sword, it wasn’t enough to stop the beast. The low growl was the only warning he got before the creature lunged at him. It didn’t jump high, though. Instead, it went low to try and bite at his legs.

  The terrifying thing was that the Direwolf was learning. As Lucas reacted and lashed out with his blade, the beast launched itself backwards to avoid being decapitated. It still took a glancing blow that took off a chunk of its ear, but the beast was still more than fine as blood trickled down its ear.

  Man and beast circled one another, sharp blue eyes meeting hateful green as the two stared at each other.

  This time, Lucas made the first move, but it wasn’t one the wolf was expecting. One Lucas became two as the teen created an illusory copy beside him. He stopped circling and the two both dashed at the wolf. And like Lucas had hoped, the beast froze up, looking between the two humans and freezing with indecision.

  That moment of hesitation was all Lucas needed. His magic-fueled body covered the gap between them in seconds and while the wolf dodged out of the way of one Lucas, the real blade came around in a punishing blow that buried the blade deep within the wolf’s chest.

  When he turned back towards his familiar, Lucas was surprised and amused to find a very smug looking Dusk perched atop the body of a much larger wolf. Her muzzle was soaked with blood, and a growing pool of crimson liquid was slowly spreading from beneath the corpse she was sat on. It would have been a disturbing sight if Lucas hadn’t been so proud.

  The illusory wall that he’d made had already faded by the time his fight was done, allowing him to see how Fay was doing as well. Dove was taking part in the fight as well, terrorizing one of the two remaining wolves while Fay focused on the last one. Dove’s wolf was bleeding from dozens of small gashes and cuts, along with a large gash in its side from what was no doubt one of Fay’s knives.

  As for the one that Fay was fighting? The thing was missing an eye and limping; with it’s front left leg looking like it was next to useless thanks to a large cut deep enough to expose bone.

  Fay herself was a bit dirty, but she didn’t look hurt. She was just about done with her fight, but Lucas could at least jump in and try to help.

  As he pulled his xiphos free of the wolf’s chest, he just barely spotted the flash of movement out the corner of his eye.

  “Lucas!” Fay’s shout would have been a moment too late if he hadn’t already been turning.

  Lunging at him and snarling was the huge, lion sized silver wolf that he could've sworn he’d killed. Yet the beast looked perfectly healthy without any sign of injury on it as it closed the distance between itself and Lucas.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~