Chapter 17: CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sarah found herself at the same clearing in the woods she had just ran past.

“Holy Vikings! Did I just scuttle around in a ring? Argh! How the blood do I get out of here?”

Sarah looked around in hissy fit and irritation. The dry leaves rustled and crackled beneath her bare foot. She scanned the area for a new path she should go through. While she jaunt around in the east of the woods a sharp branch stabbed her in the foot, going two inches in. She groaned in pain and sat on the floor to remove the branch. Her blackish red blood oozed scarcely from her feet as she nurses herself.

She tore off the lace that was at the hem of her stolen nightgown and tied it around her foot.

***

Birds chirped in the distance and moths flew around. The morning sun had become more scorching. The once cool breeze had been replaced with a warmer atmosphere. Adam sat there on the floor decorated with anhydrous leaves from the tall deciduous trees above.

His quick wolf ears picked up a woman's whimpering sound in the distance. For a moment, Adam was sure that it was Sarah. But, he remembered he had left her in the car. That still wasn't a guarantee that she had not ran out already.

Adam followed the sound farther into the bush. The raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks and gargoyles scurried around for their safety as soon as they saw the beast moving around their abode. When Adam saw Sarah in the distance, it was not much of a surprise to him.

Naturally vampires and werewolves are enemies, and Lycans in their wolf form, are always prone to try and kill or hurt vampires as soon they see them. The lycan was drawn to Sarah, but it was not the aching to kill but a desire to keep her closer. Adam was somewhere inside of his wolf hating the fact that he can't bring himself to kill the vampire that's right in front of him and this made him furious to his marrows.

Sarah could hear footsteps behind her. Without looking, she knew something she'd hate to see was coming. A rush of cold went up her spine and her throat tingled. Her beady eyes blurred for a second and it seemed like bile was let loose from her insides. It was something she wouldn't be able to fight, not in her weak state. She stood to take this her heels, but was stopped by the claws that wrapped her arm.

On turning, the vampire's black beady eyes met with the wolf's flame blue ones. She tried to free herself from his grip but ended up getting her skin scratched by his claws. Right there Sarah remembered what fear was. She knew that her strength wouldn't match that of the beasts, but she was the type not to show the fear she felt inside.

“What do you want from me?” she asked, looking straight in its eyes. Adam wanted to rip her apart. For the record, if he killed a vampire right that moment, he would earn more respect from the pack and other packs as well. But, his Lycan’s attraction to her wouldn't let him.

Adam was about to transform to his human self, the hairs on his body started to disappear from his skin. Sarah watched and heard his bones snap and pop from all sides. She took a step back, watching with wonder. It was her first time in all the years of her life seeing a werewolf shifting into a human. The whole process she saw in front of her was both fascinating and terrifying to watch.

In less than two minutes, the man who had kept her in his “box” earlier was standing before her.

“You?”

Adam and Sarah sat down on the couch talking to each other about some minor things. Adam wondered how far they had stayed together since the last few weeks and how calm Sarah had turned out to be during those last few weeks. She no longer wanted to kill him or try to bite into his flesh as she had done multiple times in the past. Instead, she seemed a little fine with him now.

Sarah said a word and Adam smiled at how she mixed the ancient English language along with the modern one. She used her hand to swipe her bronze hair away from her face and Adam couldn't help but touch the hair. So many times in the past, Adam had tried to make her let her hair down but she wouldn't oblige him no matter how hard he tried. She would still wear the hair in the ancient ponytail style that she was used to.

As he picked up a few strands of her hair, he saw Sarah smile at him and his wolf chanted in his head that he could mark her. Adam let go of the hair and shushed his wolf down. How could they claim a mate that Adam wasn't even sure if she knew that she was his mate? Not that he had the intention of keeping that little fact away from her but he had merely been giving her the time she needed to adjust to the new world she had woken up to many years later and also to the fact that they were now living together.

Not that it was an easy discussion though, but perhaps he should let her know who she was to him and the decision he had made over that little fact. While he didn't know how she would react to the situation on the ground or where her stand would be after he explained to her or even what her own decision would be, Adam knew that there was nothing that would make him change his decision about them. Her identity already stood in the way of whatever they may feel or want from each other.

"What's wrong with you?" Sarah asked Adam when she saw the frown decorating his face.

Adam looked up at her and cleared his throat. Since she had breached the subject, Adam wouldn't want it to slide again. If it did, he never could tell when next he would get the courage.

"Don't you ever feel strange when you are with me? Like you can't resist me?" Adam asked her instead of replying to her question.

Sarah thought hard about what Adam said and shook her head at him in the affirmative. True, she had always felt changes whenever she was close to the man. Even when she wasn't close to him, she still felt the attraction to him. But, she had never thought about what it could mean or how she might have been always feeling sexual attraction towards the man in front of her. She shook her head again to confirm his words.

"That's because we are mates," Adam said simply and sighed.

Sarah sighed also. She had been suspecting that such a thing was responsible for the attraction she felt for the man who had taken her with force to where she had now come to life. Since it had come to such lengths, all she had to do was accept the man as he is. Not that she felt repulsed by how he looked when it was the opposite. She felt drawn to him at every little chance she gave her body and allowed it to miss him.

"Well, so what do we do?" Sarah asked Adam, who kept staring at her all the while.

"For one, we can't be together since you are a vampire," he replied.

"What?!" she asked, a lot of emotions revealing themselves on her face.

"Just forget I ever said anything about the mating thing," Adam said with a shrug.

Sarah looked at him like he had lost his mind. How had he expected her to just hear about the mating thing and just forget it like she never heard anything in the first place? Why had he even bothered to tell her about it anyway when he knew that they were not going to be together because of her status? Why was her identity even getting between them? Isn't that like toying with her emotions?

And toying with it, he was because of what he just did. If he had told her about the mating thing about a month ago, she would have gladly left him and gone on her own, even without him asking. If it were two weeks ago, she would have minded but it would only be a little. But now, he expected her to hear about the mating thing and just forget about it like she never heard. How could they possibly be? And his only excuse was her being a vampire?

Didn't he see how she had calmed down in the weeks that they had been together? Didn't he see that she no longer tried to suck people dry of their blood? Not that her baby fangs would let her do that in any case but she had also decided to let the humans be. She only fed on the blood of the animals that Adam's maid killed. Sometimes, she went out to feed on the animals of the forest just so she wouldn't arouse their suspicions. So, why was Adam being cruel to her?

She lifted her already watering eyes to look at him directly before she spoke.