14. The Attack

Emmalyn looked up at him when he ordered her to close her eyes. She did so the instant it fell from his lips. She was so close, so very close, but it might as well have been on the moon. It was so far from her grasp. Her back was on the cold wood of the cart, the chill slicing through the material of the tunic he had given her to wear. Her body moved with each thrust, her softer parts bouncing with each motion.

His lack of answer caused her apprehension to grow even more. Something was wrong, and he wasn’t telling her. He was trying to protect her. She had paid attention to what he had said the night before and knew he meant every word. He would protect her, and this was part of it.

The moment her eyes closed, he purposely let his breathing grow harsh; grunting and snarling as he speared her quivering sex exactly three more times. That was when they came. Two from either side springing from the forest. They did not expect he could retaliate, let alone stop them. But Farrel was nothing if he was not a superb hunter able to lay traps. His hands shot out, catching both vampires by the throats, and he slipped his throbbing pole from his little healer before he let the wolf tear out of him.

His skin ripped like cloth as the beast burst free, thick fur rippling from the rage burning through him. The vampires hissed and struggled wildly as they clawed at the now-massive paws encircling their necks. One twisted enough to bite into the meaty part of his hand and he howled in fury, flinging the offensive little best through the woods. He leaped down just as his brothers stopped the wagons and rushed to stop another three or four bloodsuckers from closing in.

Fluidly, Farrel stepped off the wagon as he twisted the flailing vampire up and shoved its ice-cold corpse onto the broken branch of a tree, spraying dead blood as the heart was obliterated. Others were coming. Two more. They rushed through the gaps in their defense, pulled by the sweet smell of the human. Her musk clouded their senses and made their motions too eager and brash. Farrel intercepted them both. He heaved his massive frame in their way and shoved them both to the ground. His jaws clamped into cold flesh, shredding through the corded neck of what he imagined was one of their better fighters, and beheaded the foul creature.

Emmalyn heard the noises erupt from all around her. She did as she was told and kept her eyes tightly shut to block out the noise as well. The hisses and roars were audible to her. She was finding it hard to breathe. Fear had a tight grip on her. And not being able to see what was happening around it made the fear even worse.

She twisted and moved, trying to get away from the edge of the cart. She moved back to where they were originally, pressing her back against the wooden planks that made the sides of the cart. Emmalyn shivered, half from the cold. Her breath was coming out in heated clouds from her lips when a hand quickly clamped over her mouth and lifted her over the side of the cart by her head. She struggled and tried to scream, but the cold flesh that held her only gripped her more tightly. She tried to kick the walls, the crates…anything. But, her feet fell short as they were too fast.

She opened her eyes to see Farrel. She tried to scream again but was carried away from him. He was in the heat of battle and completely frightening sight. Still, he was her protector. She needed him. She tried and tried to call out for him.

Something happened; something hit the one that was carrying her, causing him to drop her to the snow-covered ground. She heard a snarl and guessed it could only have been one of the ones that were with Farrel. She inhaled sharply as the icy shard hit the bare flesh of her legs. But she didn’t let that stop her for long. She got up as quickly as she could and was running back towards the cart through the trees. It didn’t seem that he had her for very long, but the distance was vast to her, at least 50 yards.

When it hit her, she didn’t hear it. It didn’t even register what had happened until a few heartbeats later. One instant she was running through the snow and the next something pinned her to a tree, a scream erupted from her lips, something that didn’t even sound like her. Emmalyn tried to push off, but couldn’t. She couldn’t move, but she felt something hot and wet running down her legs. Her eyes noticed the stark contrast of her blood on the snow, red on white. She felt dizzy and sick, tired. Breathing was hard and took effort.

The vampires, sensing defeat and needing to retreat, tried to pull back with the girl. When she slipped from their grasp, one of the younger, more inexperienced ones let his anger and rage cloud his mind. In a moment of ill judgment, even though he knew they needed the girl alive, he threw his spear at the fleeing girl as they made their escape. It hit its mark. The tip entered her back just below her ribs and exited out of her stomach. The force that it carried caused the spear to become embedded in a nearby tree. The poor, impaled girl carried with it and pinned, her bare feet dangling and almost touching the ground.

Two minutes was as long as the battle lasted. The speed at which the enemies moved made time insignificant. The vampires were torn down from ten to four. They shredded only one wolf by separating him from their small pack and tore into him like the blood-thirsty piranha they were.

Through the fight, they had pinned Farrel beneath three of the vermin and he fought his way out, but not fast enough to save Emmalyn. He barely got up from the ground in time to see her struggling form disappear into the trees. His rage gave him strength, and he furiously latched his claws into the remaining vampire, who struggled to hold him back. One sharp jerk of his arms ripped the beast in two then, before the body parts even hit the ground, he was flying after her.

He caught sight of her again only as the spear flew and his ear-splitting howl shook the snow off tree limbs. He tried to push himself, to throw him across the distance to save her, but his efforts were in vain. By the time he could reach her, the spear already pinned her to the tree with the blood staining the ground. He bent quickly, biting the back of the spear’s shaft to cut it cleanly then eased her frail form down.

Farrel cradled her into the soft, powerful heat of his humanoid wolf as he sprinted back to the wagons. The others were cleaning up the mess and burying the remains of their brother quickly and efficiently. None of them spoke as Farrel returned; form shrinking and fur shedding away as he changed shape. He barely laid her down on the back of their wagon before he tore into the container of his personal effects to find a clean cloth. His fingers came across his only remaining shirt and tore it into strips. Two were folded tightly into squares and pressed to the entry and exit wounds, the rest he wrapped tight around her middle to hold them in place.

Emmalyn tried to hold on, to stay awake through the pain. She vaguely remembered him pulling her free from the spear and carrying her back. She didn’t have any strength, though, not even to lift her hand. Her eyes stayed cracked open, unable to close them, yet no strength to open them either. It hurt to breathe, so she struggled. The blood that continued to pool around her and through the bandages was a dark red color, almost black. It was proof that had she been a normal human, no matter of healing would save her. But, she wasn’t a normal human and her body fought to cleanse itself of not only the grievous wound but the toxins that were released by her liver being ripped open by the spear.

For what seemed like forever to her, the blood flow eased to a trickle and resumed its normally bright red color. She was healing what she could from the inside out. Her abilities did what they could, but remained pushed to the limits. Finally, she opened her eyes just a little to look up at him. Her fingers twitched a bit as her hand rose slowly, reaching for him before it fell again, her eyes closing as her body demanded she sleep to regain her strength.

In the minutes that Emmalyn’s body purged itself of so much blood, Farrel was frantically layering more and more bandages on her to stem the flow. He never looked at her face, not once, and she was no doubt too tired to notice he recoiled when she attempted to reach for him.