"Ye alright, dear wolf?"
Twigs snapped as Vashati inched herself closer to the unmoving werewolf. Now crouching a mere meter from the heaving furred beast before her, she poked the werewolf's tail with a stick she happened to pick up.
With her chin atop her knees, Vashati's right arm trembled when she dared push the tail away from the convulsing strigoi's rear.
"Pst! Hey, can ye hear me?" Vashati yelled – though it was all in her head since her supposed yell was only a tone higher than her whisper by a hairbreadth.
Vashati cocked her head and mumbled to herself. "I am sure that I met his gaze earlier." Biting her lower lip, she inched her bare feet closer – enough for her to poke his back.
A cluster of clouds moved, paving the way for a single ray of light to kiss the meadow. Under the moonlit sheen showed Vashati a clearer view of an adult wolf. Though littered with bite marks and blood, the grassland's beast could not hide its silky black fur. Vashati leaned more. Her gaze fixated on the wolf's eyes. She could vividly remember its amethyst eyes, which reminded her of lilac roses during springtime.
Amid the faint whistle of the western wind and the diminishing hoots of the owl around them, Vashati's ears twitched. She could hear his heartbeat slowing down. Vashati's gaze wandered.
A soft escaped from her lips upon seeing the periwinkles dying around the black wolf's body. "So that is why ye are running from them, dear wolf," said Vashati. After being poisoned, the werewolf could not contain the multiple wounds from the five striga.
Gone was the distance she conjured between her and the dying werewolf. Vashati hovered over the heaving werewolf. The werewolf's tongue hung to the side of its mouth, a clear indication that if she would not move now, then it would be too late.
Without letting go of the stick she had used to poke the poor beast, Vashati reached out. Her trembling fingers reached for the black wolf's ear only to stop midway when her Grappy's grumpy face flashed at the back of her restless mind. Curling her fingers, she withdrew an inch away from her target. A pair of wavering amber eyes looked around.
What welcomed Vashati's unfocused gaze was mere silence.
Releasing a shaking breath, the Spring nymph reached out her trembling fingers again.
It was a magical moment of wonder and fear. As the cocoon of tears loomed at the apex of the meadow, the moonlit sheen paved a way to draw out hundreds – if not thousands – of fireflies around the two silhouettes at the very heart of the forest. None of the owls' hoots and the crickets buzzing noise faltered the ashen Spring nymph from her decision.
Vashati's pounding heart never seized. Instead, it resonated with every fiber of her being. Like a siren's call to a nomad, like a moth to a flame, Vashati was irrefutably drawn to the heaving furred beast before her. Though hundreds of answers filled her frantic mind, one was certain – destiny.
Vashati, a believer of destiny, knew that whatever the werewolf was doing before her, the higher forces willed it to be, just like what her Grappy would always say. She, the last of her kin, was the only healer that could bring him back from the throes of black and white. She placed both of her palms an inch above the black beast's head, her poking stick long forgotten before she muttered under her breath. "Faurereium."
Faurereium, an ancient word for ‘heal’. Since nymphs used the old language of Ruam to perform their magic spells, Vashati was taught by her Grappy. Though the healing spell she conjured was an art lost to the new world, Siobhan. Ever since the queen of olds cursed destiny and time, the ancient civilization of gold and glory was lost. What remained was a mere relic of the glorious old-world – Siobhan. It was now a world of eat or be eaten.
This was why Vashati would not dare to take a step away from the lone mountain. The evidence of brutality was heaving for life beneath her.
The warmth traveled like slithering vines from her heart to her palms, giving an equally comforting illumination to the werewolf who had stopped heaving and was now breathing normally. And slowly, as the embers of Vashati's healing magic dwindle, what was lying on the ground with his silky black fur turned into a man with raven hair in his splendid naked glory. His face was against Vashati.
"Dear wolf, ye'r so pretty." When her hands stopped emitting magic, Vashati stripped all the anxiety fiddling at the back of her mind as she reached out to touch his hair that covered half of his face – exposing his face to her.
Vashati cocked her head. Gaze transfixed to the ethereal being before her, she could compare his beauty to the sirens of the west. Vashati remembered what his Grappy had said about werewolves. They were supposed to be dominant-looking – strong and brute. But the werewolf lying in front of Vashati gave off an air of elegance and softness.
Under the moonlight and the hundreds of glowing fireflies around them, Vashati observed as his snow-white skin started to come back to its original form – free of wounds he sustained from the five striga. Vashati watched more.
His nose was not like Remus'; it was not strong-looking. Instead, it was elegant, as if the old gods took their sweet time crafting just his nose. Chiseled jaws and prominent cheekbones paired with his long and lush lashes and perfectly carved eyebrows, Vashati traced her fingers atop his brows. She wanted to make sure if he was indeed real. Or else, she would suspect that he was only a figment of her imagination.
The longer Vashati touched the sleeping and naked werewolf, the more his brows twitched. It was a warning of nature for the nymph to leave the beast like it should be. But the stinging of her heart which she endured for hundreds of years, calmed down the moment her fingertips made contact with his skin. Like a feather kiss to a snow, it was both real and surreal for her.
Vashati's train of thoughts snapped when a warm hand pulled her wrist away from his face. A growl followed, then a deep snarling voice resonated – a complete contradiction to his pretty face. "Y-You!"
She could not help but gasp even when she somehow expected it already. Her amber eyes dilated the moment it met a pair of glowing amethyst eyes once more. On cue, Vashati pointed at herself. Her ears twitched. "Me?"
Vashati's line of sight flipped. The moon was openly staring at her the next thing she knew before a shadow loomed over her. Her arms raised above her head as he pinned her wrists with his left hand. Veins protruded around her wrists when Vashati tugged them away from his tight grasp. Fixated by the thought of fleeing, she failed to notice his elongated canines nearing her bare neck.
"Are ye goin' to gobble me up, dear wolf?" A knot lodged between her bushy brows upon feeling the graze of his canines at the slopes of her neck, eliciting a hushed gasp from Vashati. Shivers wreaked havoc down her spine upon the contact of danger, but a throbbing ache emerged instead of fear – something Vashati was unfamiliar with.
"I should, shouldn't I, little lamb?" With the darkness that covered his splendid glory, his amethysts orbs were the only ones that pulled her focus. Hovering over her like hope but never a promise, the werewolf stared down at her. "But why do I want to see you struggle more beneath me, little lamb?" His clawed right hand traced her lower lip to her throat down to her wool-covered chest. "Why does your frantic little beating heart fascinates me so?"
Reflected beneath his amethyst eyes were two things – madness and wonder. For Vashati, the werewolf looming above her was like a moroi with a siren's appearance – beautiful yet deadly. And right now, she was trapped within his lean arms, and yet no hint of fear overlapped with her frenzied heart. Instead, the ache inside Vashati had howled along with the wind of the lone mountain, which grew like flames on a haystack.
"Are ye in pain, dear wolf?"
The raven-haired werewolf drew back his head and released a howl of laughter, breaking the silence of the quiet night. "Aren't you scared to die? Worry for your life, for my business is my own – never yours, little lamb."
"All life is temporary, dear wolf. I am not scared to die. It is in how I will die that worries me." She reached out for his protruding canines. A nagging voice at the back of her head wanted to make sure that he would not be able to harm his pale lips even when she knew it was absurd to think about it for a predator who was aiming for a kill. Vashati continued sighing when the werewolf, whose eyes pinned on her, nipped her fingers. "All things, great and worst, die, dear wolf. You and I are not the exceptions."
Upon her words, the werewolf's gaze sharpened. Veins popped around the werewolf's neck as if he was fighting a battle that only he knew about. His hold against her wrists tightened that Vashati had to bite the insides of her cheeks to stop herself from releasing a pained gasp. She did not want to satisfy the madness in him. Jaws clenched, he raised his right arm for a strike. Claws protruded, and now the werewolf's amethyst eyes gleamed with carnage.
"So it seems!"
Before his claws could rip Vashati to shreds, the raven-haired werewolf froze.
