Tamara Rose~

"Eric," I gasped, my words airy. The breath had been knocked out of me as I'd hit the tree. "Eric, please. Just--"

"You don't get to speak," he growled. I looked up to see him towering before me, his eyes glowing. His wolf was threatening to come out. "You've had years to speak. Years, and years, to tell me how you feel. Why couldn't you tell me?" His voice turned desperate, angry, ragged. Hot tears leaked out of his eyes. "Why couldn't you say the three fucking words? I love you?!"

"Because I don't," I whispered.

His eyes turned black.

Within seconds, there was a growling wolf in Eric's place.

But this. This wolf. It was...unlike anything I'd ever before seen.

"How..." I whispered, backing away. A streak of pain climbed up my spine, but I continued crawling hastily away. Fear spiked my blood as I stared at Eric, my eyes wide with disbelief and terror.

A normal wolf was the size of--well, a wolf. An Alpha male was roughly half a foot larger.

Eric was twice that size.

With a scream, I turned and attempted climbing to my feet. Something clamped down onto my ankle and yanked me back.

"Fuck!" The swear ripped past my lips, etched with pain. The wolf's teeth dug into the flesh of my foot as he dragged me backwards and then suddenly whipped me to side, shaking his head and moving me around like a mere doll.

Fire tore through my muscles, making my nerves shatter. I felt my left wrist snap as my body was jerked to the side. Pain climbed up my arm.

Gritting my teeth, I bit my tongue to keep from screaming. As if he knew what I was trying to do, the wolf suddenly locked his jaw. It felt like a steel vice locked around my foot--a steel vice with sharp, strong, bloody canines.

I felt his teeth scrape the bone of my ankle.

A bloodcurdling scream ripped through the still forest air, shattering the peace.

Feeling blood pouring out my leg, the trees began to blur. "Do not pass out," I murmured weakly. "Do not..."

I didn't know what he would do to me if I wasn't conscious, and I didn't want to take the chance.

The wolf suddenly released my leg. The pressure of his teeth disappeared, but his bite had been the only thing keeping the blood at bay. I never knew there was so much blood inside of humans, but as I watched it stream from my leg, soaking into the dirt ground and showing no signs of stopping, the world began to tilt again.

Suddenly, agony erupted up my spine with the force of a volcano pouring it contents onto my flesh. 

"Ahhh!" I hunched forward, my screams agonizing. They were nothing compared to the wrenching anguish that had just attacked my back. My spine had been snapped.

Numbness began to take hold of my legs, and yet I could still see the blood from my ankle flowing. My spine didn't hurt anymore. Nothing hurt anymore. I couldn't feel anything.

I heard rustling, and then Eric stood up and began walking around my hunched form in order to face me. I tried to lift my head. I couldn't move it. I couldn't move anything.

My eye twitched. I looked at Eric, no more tears falling. My face was the stillest it had ever been. I was scared to breathe, to move, to say anything.

"What did you do?" I whispered, tears slipping down my dirt-caked cheeks. 

He smiled mirthlessly. The action didn't reach his eyes, which stared at me coldly, glinting wickedly. "I simply repaid you the kind favor you granted me year ago."

"No." I stared at him, unblinking. My face crumpled. "No. No. No, no, no!"

Dylan~

"Yes."

Mark stared at me. His eyes were narrowed. "You're sure?"

I pinched my forehead, aggravated. "Yes, Mark. I'm sure."

Mark sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Okay." He paused for a moment, and then glanced back up at me. "But, seriously. You're sure about this?"

"Oh, jeez," I lifted myself out of the chair and began walking out of the room. Mark jumped up and began walking after me.

"Okay, look," he muttered, walking beside me as we left his office. "I'm only asking because this is a big deal. Like, a really big deal. Like, a really big--"

"Mark, I get it!" I turned, and the two of us stopped a few feet from the kitchen doorway. "Look, when I told you about this, it was for one reason and one reason only."

"To ask for my blessing," he said.

"Exactly," I replied. "Just to ask for your blessing. Not so you could try to talk me out of it."

"I'm not trying to talk you out of it," Mark corrected, grimacing. "I'm just letting you know that marriage is a big deal, Dylan. Mates are meant to marry each other, yeah. But things can still go wrong." Pain flickered across his expression before he glanced away, clearing his throat. "Things often do go wrong."

I smiled sadly. "I know. But, like you said, me and Tamara Rose are meant for each other, Mark. I love her. And she may not know it yet, but she loves me too."

He smiled faintly. "Yeah. Yeah, I know." He paused for a moment, and then nodded in the direction of the kitchen. "So, you gonna tell the rest of the gang now, or...?"

"I think I'll wait until after I ask her. No use telling everyone if she ends up saying no."

Mark laughed. "Yeah. Where is she, anyway?"

I frowned, running a hand through my hair. "She went for a run before I woke up. Left a note on her bed."

The corner of Mark's lips twitched. "You were in her room?"

My face turned bright red. "I, um...hey, let's go see what...Josh is up to!" I hastily fled into the kitchen, Mark trailing after me, laughing.

Josh was standing at the stove as usual, with Jordan sitting at the kitchen table. His face was buried in a book and maps were spread out all around him.

"Whoa." Mark and I sat down across from him. I picked up one of the maps--it was a detailed view of Mark's territory.

"Trying to find out where this bastard could be hiding," Jordan mumbled, continuing to leaf through his book. "We have guards posted in 85% of the area, and the other 15% is  covered in poisonous plants. Knowing Eric, that won't bother him, so I was thinking that if we can make sure those plants aren't lethal--"

"We can send men out to search the area," Mark interjected, his eyes wide. "Jordan, you're a genius!"

Jordan lowered his book, smiling cheekily. "Well, I have been known to come up with a completely amazing idea once in a while. It's no big deal, really."

Mark rolled his eyes and stood up, leaving in a hurry, mumbling something about the library. Jordan and I turned back to the maps. I pointed at one of them, a small, black and grey one.

"What's this? I didn't see it on the patrol plan."

Jordan squinted at it. "Huh. I don't know. Never seen it before."

I brought it closer, biting my lip. "It looks like a clearing."

Jordan hurriedly put his book down, grabbing the map from me and bringing it an inch from his face. "A clearing? It can't be a clearing. It's not a clearing. How could it be a clearing? How could we miss a clearing?"

I snatched it back and placed it flat on the table while both of us stared at it. Josh had appeared behind me, peering at the map over my shoulder. The three of us sat there for a minute, staring at the piece of paper in silence.

"You realize the chances of him being there are, like, 99%, right?" Josh sighed wearily.

"Yea," Jordan mumbled from behind his hands. "It's been right under our noses. How did we miss a clearing?"

"It's not that big," I added casually, trying to comfort him. "Scaled to one hundred feet for every inch. The paper is only--" I paused, squinting. "--like, six inches."

"Sneaky little bastard," Josh muttered darkly. "He knew we would never find it."

"Never say never," Jordan said, his voice flat and hard. "When I find that bastard--"

"You mean when I find him."

We all turned to see Mark standing in the doorway, clutching a book in one hand that he seemed to have forgotten about. His other hand was clenched into a fist, so hard his veins stood prominently out on his muscles. His expression was pure hatred, and his eyes glinted with malicious intent. 

"Call every available wolf in the area," he ordered.

"We're going to kill that bastard."

Tamara Rose~

I'm pretty sure I was laying on a bed of poison oak.

My legs were still numb, but prickling. And I could still feel my face. I was laying with my cheek against the ground, and the leaf that touched it looked like poison oak. Plus, my skin was itching.

On the bright side, the paralysis meant no more pain.

I'd cried for what felt like hours, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes. Eric had been coming and going for the past few minutes. Clearly, he knew I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Once, he'd simply stood over me and watched me cry, smiling manically.

I couldn't believe this was the same Eric I'd once loved like a brother.

Now, as I sat there contemplating the plant I was laying down on, Eric's face appeared once again.

He smiled. "Having fun?"

I closed my eyes. "What are you waiting for? Are you just going to sit there and wait for Dylan and Mark to show up? Or are you going to kill me and get it over with?"

He raised a hand to his heart, making an melodramatic expression. "Wah, pah, ugh! Kill you? Dear me, Rosie, don't you know me at all?"

If I could move, I would have flinched at the nickname.

He grinned. "I don't want to kill you. I want you to suffer, sweetheart."

Because clearly, I hadn't had enough of that.

I felt a few angry tears leak loose and anger ignited within me. "Suffer? I broke your heart, Eric! You broke my bones!"

"Minor details," he shrugged. His eyes darkened. "Besides, the pain you brought me was worse than what I could ever do to you."

He paused then, and the silence that ensued made a sense of discomfort prickle my skin. He wasn't finished speaking.

"You see, the only thing I could do to you that would possibly hurt as much as the pain you caused me," he started, leering, "would be to break your heart."

I stared at him, frozen.

He grinned. "I'm not going to kill you, Rosie. I'm going to kill Dylan."

***

Unedited. Forgive the mistakes.

Also, BUM, BUM, BUMMMMM.