Changing Fate

An Uninvited Guest

'Oh, very funny.' Ash stormed inside, Oren still laughing, followed her closely.

'You're such a child.' she growled, irritated.

'You're not scared anymore,' he stated, sobering up. It was, of course, true. The fear was gone.

'So that was for my benefit?' Ash asked begrudging.

'I would do anything for you,' Oren said seriosly, Ash felt uncomfortable with his intensity. She believed him, she just didn't want to.

Ash stepped away from him, holding one arm with the other.

'When am I going home then?' she asked plainly. She felt his grief as much as she saw it.

He didn't say anything as he pulled on the clothes, waiting on the counter.

'Why do you want to?'He broke the silence,' You feel it too. I know you do, were connected.'

Ash could feel it. She could feel his desperation, the longing for her to tell him she'd stay. She could feel her own inexplicable attraction to him. More than lust, an intense desire to be close to him.

Ash kept her distance.

'This isn't my home,'she said flatly, looking down, refusing to look him in the eye. 'I have things I need to do, people who rely on me,' Ash realised the truth in her own words.

It wasn't until she said them out loud that she understood the urgency she felt to go back. All the wealth and plenty around her reminded her how little her own people had, always one bad week away from starvation.

She had to put that right, or at the very least, try.

'I need you,' He pleaded, easily closing the gap her caught her hands holding them gently as if he were afraid she might break.

'You have a place here by my side,' he continued, ' my people need hope and stability. Together, we can give them that.' Ash looked up. It was an effort to remain cold.

'This isn't my world.' firmly she held his gaze.

Before Oren could respond, the door burst open, crashing against the wall. Ash jumped, breaking the stare.

'We must talk.' The man said. He reminded Ash of the guards back home. He had a hard presence that had nothing to do with his combat gear or cropped blonde hair. He had a soldiers face, stern and wethered like he'd seen too many battles.

He exchanged looks with Oren, and Ash got the sense they were communicating somehow.

The silence stretched on, and with a huff, Oren placed his hand lovingly on Ash's face.

Ash shied away from his affection, and he smiled sadly.

'There's something I need to take care of, but I'll be back soon, and we can talk.' The flicker of hope and reason wasn't lost on her.

Ash nodded woodenly, and then both men were gone. Leaving her alone with her thoughts.

Ash thought he was a fool. Hope and stability were just about her opposite. At best, she had been a knife in the dark, a creature of unseen murder. Doing whatever it took to protect her own. She didn't like to remember her worst.

She wasn't a leader or someone who had people to lose. Her greatest strength had been that she had nothing she cared about losing, not even her life.

Returning to her room, Ash was so distracted that she didn't realise she wasn't alone.

Frustrated at being cooped up and with no giant wall to climb, Ash paced the room. It wasn't until she'd nearly completed her lap that she looked up and saw the stranger standing in front of the door, watching her with curiosity.

'Who are you?' Ash demanded, a cold chill going up her spine. Few people had ever managed to be this close to her unnoticed.

Silently, he lifted a blood-stained finger to his lips, nails long and sharp.

He looked like Oren, the same powerful build, straight set features, and curling brown hair. The strangers eyes were different though, silver and grey, constantly sfifting like stormclouds.

Ash looked round for something, anything she could use as a weapon.

The room, while ornate, had little in the way of small furnishings. No candlesticks to use as a club or tie backs on the curtains to choke someone with. It's likely deliberate considering her short history with Oren.

Looking back at the stranger, who stared at her like a wild animal assessing its prey, Ash held her hands out in front of her, easy now she thought.

Slowly she backed up to the window, he followed with his eyes c*****g his head to the side.

Standing in the larhe bay window, Ash struck back with her elbow shattering the glass. The stranger pounced forward as Ash plucked a big shard from the window frame, willfully ignoring the sliced skin and protruding glass in her arm. It wouldn't matter unless she survived.

She whirled slashing at his throat as she ducked under his outstretched arms, satisfied as glass caught skin.

He flinched back, so they had swapped places, he glared at her from his new position in the window. His hands covered in fresh blood as he clutched his wounded neck.

Silently he bared his teeth, this was what Ash had imagined Oren to be when she'd called him a monster. Fingers curled in to claws snarling at her from across the room.

He dropped his hand and Ash realised with shock that the wound was very shallow, she was sure she'd cut him deeper than that. Her dissappointment turning to horror as the edges knit back together as she watched.

She was out of her depth.

The glass in her hand was slippery with her own blood now, flowing freely down her arm.

Ash wondered if the guards were still alive to hear her as she sucked in a breath and dashed for the door behind her.

A hand clamped over her mouth before she'd made it two steps, cutting off her scream. The other fisted in her hair losing no mementum as she was slammed head first against the closed door.

With a sickening c***k, everything went black.

When Ash was young there had been a water shortage, it had lasted weeks and every day she had dutifully gone to the guards post to collect their rations. It had been exhausting and tedious, Ash's thin arms had struggled to carry the heavy bottles. Motivated by her burning thirst and sense of responsibility she'd done it every single day as the water would never last long.

Her neighbour however was a strang,eold, paranoid man used to chide her for using it all. warning of a time when the rations would stop.

They found his body three days before the taps were turned back on, Ash would never forget the smell of all the water.

That putrid, stagnant smell.

The momory flickered to life as Ash opened her eyes, pain flared through her head, dizzying.

The water dripped slowly, the sound echoing around her.

Ash could barely see in the dank room, some sort of windowless basement. Pushing herself up Ash crumpled as pain lanced through her hand and arm.

'Your awake,' he said slowly, his voice devoid of emotion. Ash hadn't heard him speak in the room but knew it was him.

Slowly she looked, inching herself round.

His glowing silver/grey eyes bright in the darkness.

'I was going to kill you, but I just ... couldn't,' he said with a hint of confusion. Ash rose to her feet, the eyes watching, rose with her.

'I heard you talking to him,' suddenly angry. Ash trembled, the fear of death gripping her in a way it never had before. Orens fear she realised.

'He'll never let you go, how could he.' he said mournfully.

'Why?' Ash asked, her voice cracking. Her breathing fast, as she focused on the fear. She had to keep him talking, buy herself time.

'You're his mate,' He was calmer now, resting against wgat Ash guessed were stairs. The wood creaked under his weight.

'Imagine that you can only fall in love once, one brilliant connection so deep and pure that you know you were made to be together.' He said suddenly more coherant his voice clear. 'Two halves of the same whole, destined to meet.'

'To be apart would be torture, a despair so all encompassing, that you could never know, anything else.' he trailed off.

He sat haunched now, bent low like a man with nothing left to lose.

'Why did you bring me here?' Ash asked tentatively, Oren was closer now, she could feel it.

'To hurt him,' his eyes flicked up, a mad intensity in them.

'I want to hurt him, I was going to kill you.' he growled, rising up then stopping suddenly. 'She wouldn't like it,' he moaned in pain.

Ash wished Oren would hurry up.

He slid closer, Ash held her ground. Instinct told her not to move, not to run.

'He killed her,' he said accusingly very close.

'Who?' Ash asked shakily.

'My mate,' sorrow filling him, 'and my child,' he backed up erratically, starting to pace before slumping back on the steps.

'Not by his own hand, but he might as well have,' he moaned, his pain frightening hermore than his anger had.

'I'm sorry,' Ash whispered not knowing what else to do.

In the blink of an eye he was in arms reach, gragging her forward.

He pushed her roughly down on the steps.

He sat down next to her, so close their knees touched, shuffling to get comfortable.

Up close Ash could see him brush long greasy hair back from his face, his movements disjointed.

'We lived in peace with the other packs, but Oren was greedy, he wanted more,' his eyes shone bright, talking fast, rushing to share his story.

'He picked fights he couldn't win.' he ground out bitterly. 'Taking in rogues,' his voice now mocking.

'Filthy mutts,' he growled.

'I kept my head down, found Sara. We were happy,' he sighed losing himself to the memory for a few long moments.

'But that bastard kept filling our pack with trash,' he shouted startling them both.

He pressed a shaking finger to his lips, as if to quiet himself and gripped Ash by the shoulders, his clams slowing slicing into her exposed skin.

He stared into Ash's eyes willing her to understand.

'They shouldn't have been there, he started a war,' his eyes teared up, 'he left them alone, defenseless,' he choked out.

It wasn't hard for Ash to guess what happened next, she'd grown up with war.

'My brother was Alpha, he was supposed to protect us, protect them,' he spat, his anger returning. His claws cutting deeper into Ash's shoulder.

'He deserves only pain.'

Ash nodded trying to calm him, blood trailing down her back.

'Nothing but pain,' she agreed gently prying his hand off as he relaxed.

'They'll be here soon,' sleepily yawning.

'Smelt the blood,' he said regretfully, with a big shrug he pushed Ash off the step to the floor.

He trudged up the steps and out the basement.

Ash held her breath, listening to the footsteps above, dust falling around her.

A door creaked open, a cool breeze making it's may to her.

Ash breathed out, easing herself up with her uninjured arm.

Cautiosly she fumbled up the stairs in the dark, only to crouch, pressing herself into the railing fot strenth as a deadly growl ripped through the silence.

Ash willed herself to disappear as the growls turned to snarls and snapping teeth. Heavy thuds shaking the already flimsy structure.

Then a terrible whine.

Ash stared up at the lighter grey of the doorway, not daring to move. Her heartbeat deafening.

A shadow blotted out the meager light and for a sickening moment Ash thought Orens brother had come back, this time ready to do what he came to do. Then the smell of warm pine trees came over the musty basement smells and Ash clutched at Oren as he swept her up carrying her up into the building above.

For once she was happy for his overwhelming strength, trusting in him to keep her safe as she buried herself deeper into his arms.

'I'm so sorry, I should never have left your side.' Talking into her hair as he held her close.

'I think that was his point,' Ash said with a shudder.

Ash decided, as they left the decrepit abandoned house and stepped into the night, that for a while, her new goal would be to not get knocked out.