The Immortal Children

Scent of a Threat

As soon as I heard my sister cry out, my body seemed to act on its own accord. I hadn't even truly processed the sound before my feet were guiding me towards Ashlynn. I didn't come up with a plan as to what I would do when I reached her, though I could feel the heat in my hands as my power came forth. my body knew exactly how to defend my coven, and flames were ready to fly from my fingertips at a moment's notice. 

Though it took me just a fraction of a second to reach my sister, it felt like an eternity. Those milliseconds, where I didn't know if I would even find my sister in one piece, felt like they would destroy me. But then I saw her. She hadn't been ripped to shreds, she wasn't being grabbed by her throat. Her back was to me, facing a bush.

Some part of my body, a vampire part of me that relied entirely on survival instinct, knew that there was something dangerous just beyond the underbrush. There were hardly any bushes, and the only growth visible seemed to be harboring a huge threat. 

My body was screaming at me to run. It was telling me that there was something there that not only was made to hurt us, but that also had to ability to. Another part of me, a foolish part, longed to go towards the threat. I reasoned that this unreasonable desire was just the part of me that was tired of always worrying and looking over my shoulder. It was the part of me that wanted to face this threat head-on and finally put an end to this terror once and for all.

Of course, I ignored the nagging little voice that was urging me towards the threat. Grabbing Ashlynn, I shoved her far behind me, then turned to run after her. But she didn't respond how I thought she would. Instead of coming to her senses and sprinting away, she just turned back to look at the bushes beyond me. 

I growled, confused and furious. Ashlynn wasn't running. That left me with no choice but to fight. Whirling back around to face the oncoming threat, I saw the bushes rustle as the creature neared. Sparks leapt from my fingertips, coming so low that the snow near my feet began to melt away to water. 

Tired of waiting for the attack, I decided to go on the offensive. Launching myself through the air, I flew towards whatever was lurking just out of my sight. As my body hit the branches and spikes within the bushes, I heard Ashlynn gasp. 

"No!" My sister's voice seemed to vibrate through the air, physically shaking me. 

No? What did she mean no?  Was she worried that our father would kill me if it came down to a physical fight? She was probably right. But Ash was the one who had refused to run, and I hadn't caught sight of Chris., so I had no idea if he was safe. I had to fight. I had to protect them, give them time to get away. There was no choice at this point.

Focusing on the oncoming battle, I caught sight of my enemy. That in itself came across as a surprise to me. I had been assuming our father would make himself invisible to me f it came down to a physical confrontation. No mater. All this did was even out the playing field, and give me a better chance of winning. 

There was a flash of brown. Not the dark, mud-like color of my father's unkept hair. But a nice brown. A reddish brown that seemed to turn to an almost honey color... I color I knew all too well. The flames spitting from my hands died immediately, but I couldn't stop my momentum as I helplessly barreled into the giant creature. The giant wolf. 

My giant wolf.

I didn't even try to catch myself, flopping to the ground as I bounced off of Seth. He yelped in a very wolf-like way, stumbling back a few inches. Shaking off the blow, he stepped towards me, pushing branches out of the way with his nose as he looked me up and down, making sure I wasn't hurt. 

"Seth?" All I could do was stare stupidly up at him, holding his gaze. His brown eyes that he had once described as "plain brown" swirled with emotion and energy, and I wondered how anyone could ever mistake his eyes for plain. Dark brown swirled into a lighter brown, and faded into a hazel color around the pupil. Humans couldn't make it out, but from my hours spent intently staring into is eyes, I also knew that there were lots of little hazel flecks in the brown color, too.