The sun is shining bright and almost directly overhead. The heat beats down on my head, and I can feel as the sweat on my brow sweeps down to my jaw. I grip the thighs wrapped around my waist and hoist them further up. I keep my hands there in hopes that it’ll help the urge I have to squeeze the throat that is laying on my shoulder.

“Can I walk now?” Vanessa’s voice rings out, as though she hasn’t asked the same question for the last three hours.

“No.”

“Why not?” This girl has the nerve to pout. She should just relax and enjoy the ride.

“‘Cause you walk slow.”

“I do not.”

“Yeah, you do, and your stamina is awful.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t all go on forever.”

“I don’t go forever.”

“But, I’m good now, so put me down.” She tries to swing her legs around and wiggles her torso along my back, but my hold doesn’t loosen in the slightest.

“Now, if I drop you on your head, you’d be cryin’ up a storm.”

“Nate put me down.” She brings her head up, and I get a whiff of her scent. It’s all citrusy with the hint of a campfire. I feel the saliva pooling up along my gums, and I can’t help myself as I lick my lips. Goddess, this girl doesn’t understand. I’ve been five seconds away from chomping a bite out of her ass for several weeks now. If I have to look at her anymore, there might not be a Nessa to worry about.

And despite the trouble we had along the way, I enjoy her company and don’t want that to end too soon. But my control isn’t what it should be. I know if I don’t have a meal in the next day or so, we’ll have to go our separate ways. At least until I can find some other poor helpless soul to chow down on. Just the thought of tearing into some flesh has my heart racing.

“Nate,” Vanessa breaks me out of my reverie as she gently calls my name and pulls on my locs. I turn my head, and she continues, “don’t react, but I’m pretty sure we’re being followed.” I take a deep breath, and sure enough, there are at least ten bodies slowly surrounding us. They had escaped my notice as I was trying not to smell anything at the moment.

“Dammit.”

“Yep, what do we do?”

“Is that really a question?” I flash her my fangs, and I briefly glimpse the cold tint in her eyes. No mercy it is. Nessa can be sweet as sugar when she wants, but often she’s the one who starts the whole no asking questions until everyone’s down. Can’t say I blame her; the only other bodies we’ve run into have been Rot crazed Bobbies and the NTSCU.

“Not really. Just double-checking.” She swings her legs from around my hips, and I loosen my grip around her thighs. Not soon enough, it would seem as a knife swishes through the air and just barely misses my face. I let out a low growl and charge forward as five of them come out from the trees. No guns and their clothes are made mostly of dark reds and greens.

Not the sturdy cloth of the NTSCU, though so just some wannabes trying to protect their territory. As if we care about that. Though we could take them out, we’d never do something like that. Unless pushed, of course. I fake a punch to a guy’s face and then jab him in the throat. He bends over coughing and hacking.

Another one comes over and kicks me in the abdomen knocking me off balance for a moment. They follow with a knife, trying to swipe at me. I jump back several paces and end up in front of Nessa.

“Hey, Witchy, wanna go flyin’?” I glance at her, and she smirks at me, already walking over to me. I reach down and pick her up. I swing her around a couple of times and then let her go. She flies high into the air. The idiots look at me like I’m crazy, but I just grin as fire rains down on top of their heads.

Their screams of pain are like music to my ears, and I almost get knocked off my ass while admiring the beauty of Nessa’s prowess with her flames. I step back and nimbly dance around the knife that keeps trying to put a hole in me, How rude. I pluck the blade tucked in my pants and start matching them blow for blow.

I start to put more weight into the blows when I notice four figures sneaking upon us. I swipe my hand out and jab at their nose, and follow the movement by swinging my arm around their neck. I put them in a light chokehold and have the knife to their throat.

“Now, we can either all leave happy, or y’all will be a bloody mess.” I jerk the knife closer to my hostage’s throat, but make sure not to let them bleed, it’s the last thing I need.

“Look, you came into our territory. Everybody knows this is Huxley land. We’re just defending ourselves.” The man’s deep voice spreads out across the field, silencing everything except the crackle of Nessa’s blaze.

“Yeah, y’all needed to defend yourselves against two people with what, ten of you’s.” I roll my eyes and loosen my grip. They try to break my hold but horribly fails.

“Yeah, you’re so helpless.” He looks behind himself at Nessa’s cold-stone face with her flames trapping five of their comrades. “I would appreciate it if you would let my men go.”

“Hmm, we could. What’s in it for us?” I eyeball them, and I stare at their faces. They’re clean and except for a few holes in their clothes they all look to be in good condition. They must have resources around here. No way they’d be so defensive if that wasn’t the case.

“We might be able to help you out.” We stare at each other before I look to Nessa. I see in her eyes that she wants me to follow her lead. She tilts her head, and I almost groan. I really can’t be around people at the moment, but we can’t pass this opportunity up.

“Alright, lead the way.” Walking away, I push my hostage to the floor. I would have kept going if not for the clearing of someone’s throat.

“My men.” There’s still a ring of fire around the five Nessa had fought.Vanessa’s still standing there but is now admiring her nails with her hips leaning to the left.

“Witchy.” She slowly lifts her head up, her eyes are wide and bright as if she has no idea what I want. “Let the nice people go.”

“Hmm.” She walks over to me before looking back at them and lets the flames fall. Everyone is paling.

“It’s this way, right.” The man nods his head as I point my finger in the direction we had been walking. “Cool.” After a little minute, the group starts to follow, though keeping their distance as if that would save them if they piss off Nessa. “Must you upset our possible allies?”

“This way, they know not to test us.” She intertwines our fingers and starts to swing them. “And Nate.”

“Yeah.”

“Try not to eat anybody.” Shit, she definitely noticed my issue then.

“No promises.” I shiver at the scent of people that crowds my nose.

There are booths and stands crowding the street we come to sop in. There are tons of people bustling about, but I feel as each of them stares at us. Must be a small group. I subtly lean down to Nessa and try to rub the ache out of my shoulder. She gazes at me, prompting me to throw my arm over her shoulder, besides we don't know what kind of people are in this town. Better they think we're close and have them hesitant to approach us-at the very least her-until we know more.

“Alright, you can follow me.” We finally get a good look at our temporary companies. The leader seems to be a man in his early forties. The rests are late teens and early twenties.

"So what were y'all doin' out that way?" It took a good hour to walk to the place, especially going at such a slow human pace. Nessa had chuckled at me the whole way as I grumbled about them, wasting daylight.

"Patrolling. We sometimes get pings of wondering Bobbies. Don't want them getting in, so we go and chase them off."

"But if we're lucky, Dewitt chops their head off.” One of the girls comes forward and presses into the man. I scrunch my nose up as her scent is somehow...familiar. I can't place it but know better than to ask.

"Do you have wards up?" Vanessa comes up to stand in front of me. She's twitchy and staring the man down. Aww, I knew she cared, look at her being defensive.

"Yeah. I figured as a witch you would be able to tell." I tense and nearly snap at him to shut his Goddess damned mouth. "Look. Around here, we don't do all that."

"All what?" I spit out.

"We don't judge witches. We got a good mix in this town, and nobody likes to start trouble." I raise my eyebrow at him. "Humans, weres, and witches." I listen as his heart skips a beat. He's lying about something. I pull Nessa a little closer, and she leans into my frame.

"Is there a place we can stay, or have you wasted all our time for nothin'?"

"Yeah, just follow me." He leads the way and comes to a large house. "There's a spare room here. You'll have to share."

"That won't be a problem." Nessa stands even closer and wraps her arms around my waist. The man looks between the two of us, and I can just make out the blush spreading across his hazelnut tinted cheekbones."

"O-oh I see I-well that find-no problem at all." He hurries up and leads us to the third floor, where he takes out a key and unlocks the door. He presses the key into Vanessa's hand and runs away as if she had set him on fire. I wait until the door is locked before falling down, guffawing.

"Oh, Goddess Nessa. That was fuckin' priceless." I wipe the tears from my face and look up as she makes her way to the bed.

"Glad I can still amuse you." I grin and leap onto the bed. She grabs me and stops me before I can roll around on the blanket. "Wait. Don't get it dirty." She gets up and looks through a door and beams before entering. I hear a whining noise before the patter of water hitting ceramic fills the room.

"We have water?" I jump from the bed to the bathroom. She's already stripped her clothes and is attempting to tie her hair up. Attempting but failing hard. I stride to her and gather all her hair into my hands. I gently pull apart all the stands trying to separate them. "Yeah you might as well as wash this."

"That bad?"

"Worse. Pretty sure it's tryin' to lock up." She groans before looking around. “Just get in. I'll look for shampoo or somethin'." She nods and springs into the water, not bothering to hide the moan she lets out. "Hot?"

"Oh yeah. Give me five, and then you can get in." Yeah right. I go the bed before shaking my head and looking through our duffle. We still have most of our clothes, but my shoes are on the verge of being unsalvageable. The only thing holding the right one together is several layers of duck tape. The left looks like it will be following its example soon enough.

Everything else is pretty much gone. Hopefully, these guys aren't just messing around, and we'll be able to restock. I yank my shirts off and throw them by the bathroom. At the very least we can wash all the clothes before we leave. I bring my hand up and feel the black cords wrapped around my throat. A choker. At least that's what Nessa called the thing. I genuinely didn't care as it gave my throat the illusion of being nice and smooth. Not the jag-

"Nate." Vanessa calls out, and I walk back and try to find her some soap. Our luck must be looking up as I find what we need under the sink.

"Here." I open the curtain and hand her the bottle.

"Thanks."

She finishes not long after striding out completely naked. I toss her one of my clean Tees and head into the shower. The water comes down on my head, and I have to bite back a moan. Goddess, does this feel amazing. I blindly grab around until I touch the bottles and start to wash my hair. I can't remember the last time I properly used shampoo, used soap in general.

I finish up once I hear another voice in the room with Nessa. I proceed to walk out the door until Nessa throws a bundle at my chest. A towel and some clothes. A little too big, but that's not a problem. I make out Dewitt's scent of earthly musk and a hint of something that I can't identify. I would walk out naked, but I rather he didn't question my scarless body.

Most people have at least a couple, and I almost growl when I think of Nessa's. I pull on the clothes and head out the door. I gather the rest of our clothes and start shoving them by the bathroom.

"Dewitt was just telling me there's a place we can go to get food." I look at Nessa, and she's now rocking a pair of leather shorts. The shirt is still on though I see another one lounging on the bed.

"Hmm. Is it the only place?"

"No, but these places prefer that food doesn't come inside. Keeps the rodents away and all that. Will that be a problem?"

"Nah. Just let us grab our shoes."

"I'll wait outside for you." He nods to us before shutting the door behind him. I turn to Nessa and see her nibbling on her lip. I tab her lip, and she gives me a soft smile.

"How do we pay for this?"

"My mother used to do favors." I raise my eyebrow, and she scowls while smacking my arm. "Not like that, get your mind out of the gutter. It's like you do this, I do that. My mom had a garden when she could, and people would give us stuff in exchange."

"Makes sense." I nod my head and put on my shoes. "Now let's go feed you."

"What about you?"

"C'mon Nessa, you know I don't eat this kind of food." She follows me but as I go to leave through the door I tuck a small blade into my waistband, just in case. Besides, she knows I gotta eat somethin’ just a little rawer than most.