The Hunter's Mate

Chapter 7: Look Who I Found

Ryan

"Breakfast was awesome Finn." I commented when his parents and Chris left.

"Thank you, my little troublemaker." Finn replied with.

"I am not a troublemaker."

"Ryan. Let's face it, yes you are."

"Whatever." I mumbled. "I'm gonna go for a walk."

"No Ryan."

"Why not?" I whined.

"Because I have to leave to go do pack duties, and it's not safe. It's way too dangerous out there."

"Finn, I am now a werewolf. I can handle myself. And besides, I can always ask Chris to take me."

"Fine. But stay with Chris. And call another guard too." He said. His face said he was dead serious.

"Thank you, Finn!" I ran up to him and pulled him into a hug.

"You're welcome, Ryan." He said laughing and hugged me back. "I do have to admit, I like having you in arms." His arms tightened around me and I laughed.

I watched as Finn left for his pack duties and he called Chris and some other guard named Tristan.

"Hello, Luna." Tristan and Chris said simultaneously.

"Guys. Please, can me Ryan."

"Are you sure?" Tristan asked me.

"Yes!" I yelled laughing.

"Okay." Chris said laughing.

"Now what are we waiting for? Let's go for a walk!" I exclaimed jumping up and down. Chris and Tristan looked at each other and sighed.

We headed out the doors and made our way to the forest.

"Oh my gosh. I actually made it to the forest without being tackled." I mocked Chris.

"Haha. Very funny." Chris shot back with a playful glare.

"Oh! You're the one that kept trying to escape and Chris tackled to the ground?" Tristan asked laughing.

"Yep, that was me. And I almost made it too."

"Sorry." Chris said dying of laughter.

We kept walking and talking about stories that happened during our lifetime. But we did avoid a lot of my bad stories that happened in the past. We were pretty deep into the forest when we decided it would be safer if we went back. Right as we turned around we heard someone scream.

"Help! Please help me!" The voice cried.

"What was that?" I asked and ran towards the voice.

"Ryan. Stop!" Chris said while he and Tristan ran after me. I kept running deeper into the forest. I wasn't going to let someone get hurt or killed. They called for help, so I'm going to help them. I'm gonna be Luna, so why not start off acting like one, right?

I kept running and running. As I was running, something hit me and we both fell backward. My first instinct was to growl, but when I looked up, I noticed a small girl that was covered in cuts and bruises. "Please don't hurt me. I didn't mean to trespass." She said shaking.

I crawled over to her and picked her up and set her on my lap. I wrapped my arms around her. "Hey, hey. Shh, it's gonna be okay. I'm not going to hurt you. What's your name?"

"R-rose." She said terrified.

"Why are you running? Are you okay?" She opened her mouth to say something but was cut off when four men came into view. When she saw them, her eyes went big and she whimpered digging her head further into my chest.

I pulled her closer and she grabbed a fistful of my shirt and cried. The one man saw us and walked forward.

I jumped up on my feet and growled at the stranger. He froze in shock, then looked at the girl in my arms.

"Give us the girl. Now." He said.

"No! And besides, why do you need her?" I snapped at him. I watched as the other three walked up to where he was at.

'Chris! Tristan! Get back up. Now please!' I yelled through our mind-link.

'What happened?' Chris asked.

'And who screamed?' Tristian asked confused.

'A little girl. She's covered in cuts and bruises, and now we are cornered by four men. So please. Get your asses over here!'

'On our way!' They said back. 'Be there in about a minute. Fight back if you have too. Back up is on their way.'

'Okay. Please hurry.' I blocked them out and focused on the men in front of me.

I put the little girl down and put her behind me so I stood in front of her in a protective stance. When I set her down, she clung to my leg for dear life.

"What are you doing on my territory?" I growled at them pissed.

Wait. Did I just say 'my territory?'

'You're gonna be a Luna. It's an instinct to say mine.' Rae explained.

'Oh.' I said back.

"Your territory? Do we have a Luna in our presence?" The stranger asked doing a little bow in a mocking manner.

"Ryan!" Chris called out as he and Tristan came and stood in front of me.

"Who's this?" Tristan asked pointing to the girl.

"She is ours! So if you would be so kind as to give her back to us, we will get off of your land Luna." He snapped.

This is the part where I snapped.

"Excuse me?" I yelled. Everyone flinched including the four men. I put the girl behind Chris and made my way out in front. "If she belongs to you, then why does she have cuts and bruises? Why is she so afraid of you? What the hell did you do to this poor girl? And you don't bargain with us when you are on our land, not yours!" I snapped. I was shaking because I was so angry.

"Ryan. Calm down. Please!" Chris asked.

"No. That girl should not be treated like this! No one should!" I said. I was getting angrier by the second.

"Ryan!" Tristian said in a stern voice. "You are scaring her!"

I stopped shaking immediately and ran over to her. I pulled her into my arms and apologized over and over again.

"I'm so sorry Rose. I didn't mean to scare you. I'm sorry." I begged her.

"It's okay Luna." She said smiling at me.

"Please, call me Ryan."

"Okay, Ryan." She said giggling.

We were silenced by growls. But there weren't theirs. Back up has finally come and they shifted.

The four men looked at each other and three of them shifted as well.

"I will get you, Rose!" The one yelled.

Rose screamed and held my shirt tighter.

"Chris, Tristan. Hold them off. I'm going back to the pack house and getting her to the pack doctor." I booked it out of there with Rose in my arms. "It's okay Rose. I'm going to bring you to a doctor, you need to get looked at. Okay?" She nodded her head and cried in my shoulder. "It's gonna be okay. I'm right here, now I need you to do me a favor."

"O-okay." She said still crying.

"I need you to be strong. Don't let them see your weakness. And I need you to watch for any wolves. Okay?"

She nodded and lifted her little head and looked around.

We were running for about twenty minutes when she screamed. "Ryan!"

I stopped and put her behind me and growled. I was about to shift when I recognized the two wolves as Chris and Tristan.

"It's okay. That's Chris." I pointed to the wolf on the left. "And that's Tristan." I pointed to the one on the right.

"Sorry." She apologized.

"It's okay. You didn't know, and you did a pretty good job. You sensed them before you saw 'em. Nice." I said giving her a high five. She laughed and walked with us.

Ten minutes later we came into the view of the village. Many guards saw us and were relieved. Some stayed here to watch over the families in case more rogues came. One of the guards saw the little girl and growled. She gasped and ran behind me. I looked up and growled back at him. "Don't growl at her."

"Sorry, Luna. It's just Finn doesn't really like rogues. I'm sorry." He explained.

"It's fine. But no one growl at her please. Where is Finn anyway?"

"He's going crazy. He can't find you and he is searching everywhere for you. When he heard that rogues entered our territory, he sent trackers to try and find you."

"Typical Finn." I laughed. "Please tell him I'm safe and I'm here. I'm taking Rose to go get checked out at the doctors."

"Okay, Luna. Be safe." I nodded and he walked off to go find Finn.

"Come on Rose, let's go get you checked out." She nodded and opened her arms up.

I smiled and pick her up and she wrapped her arms around my neck and put her face in the crook of my neck.

We were heading to the pack doctor when Finn saw me.

"Ryan!" Finn yelled as he ran over to me and picked me up spinning me and Rose in circles. He stopped suddenly and looked right a Rose. His eyes turned darker and narrowed at Rose.

She looked up at him and whimpered, trying to shrink back into my arms.

"Finn!" I yelled at him when I held Rose closer. "Stop it. She needs to see the doctor."

He sighed and picked both of us up in his arms. Aren't we too heavy?

"Not at all." He chuckled.

"Finn, get out of my thoughts."

"Nah. They are too interesting." He replied with a sly smile.

We made it to the doctor and we are currently in the hospital room waiting for Dr. Belt to show up. Rose was sitting on the bed looking deathly afraid of anything that moves.

"Hello Alpha and Luna. How are you guys today?" Dr. Belt asked.

"Good, but Rose here isn't. I would love it if you would check her out. I'm worried about her." I said pointing to Rose who was sitting on the table.

"Ah. Hello, there little one. My name is Dr. Belt. I'm going to look at your cuts and bruises and see if I can find anything else." He reached to look at her arm and she growled. Dr. Belt retracted his hand and stood there. She jumped off the table and ran over to me and jumped on my lap.

"Rose. It's okay, Dr. Belt is a good man and he won't hurt you. He's just going to look at your cuts and see if anything else happened to you. Finn and I are right here."

"He won't hurt me?" She asked scared.

"No, he's a good man. Trust me."

"Okay." She turned to Dr. Belt and he picked her up and put her back in the table. He examined her arms, along with her legs and cleaned up all of her cuts and looked at her bruises.

"So, will you tell me how this happened sweetie?" He asked softly. She closed her eyes quickly and shook her head.

"She won't talk to anyone except for Ryan." Finn explained.

The doctor looked at me and raised his eyebrow so I could explain.

"Chris, Tristan, and I were going on a walk." I started to explain. He nodded and told me to keep going. "We were pretty deep into the forest far away from the village so we decided to go back. Right as we turned around we hear someone scream help. So that's when I took off running. I was running for about like two minutes probably when someone ran into me and we both fell. I looked up and saw her shaking and she was covered in cuts and bruises. Right as I was about to ask her how she got all those cuts, we were cut off by a growl.

We looked up and saw four men come into view looking around. The bigger one saw us and took a step forward demanding that I give her back to them. I refused and they weren't very happy about that. Then I told them to get off my land."

"You're already taking your place as a Luna. Nice job." Finn said smiling at me. I rolled my eyes and continued.

"Help finally arrived and then we ran here. That's about it." I finished as I looked at Rose and she started crying. So something obviously happened that we don't know about.

"Rose?" Dr. Belt asked. She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "Can you please tell us what happened between the four men and you?"

She shook her head no and shut her eyes right again.

The doctor sighed and turned to me. "Luna, you're going to have to talk to her if she won't answer anyone."

I smiled and nodded. I got off Finn's lap and sat on the table with Rose. She crawled in my lap and rested her head on my shoulder.

"Can you guys please leave so I can talk to Rose privately?" I asked kindly. They both nodded and said they would be in the doctor's office to set up an x-ray and a MIR.

"Rose, can you please answer some questions for me?" She nodded and looked up at me.