Star-Crossed Lovers

“Kiro!” Kiro looked up from where he was ripping at the man’s shirt.

“We’re done here,” Grimore said, speaking of the body of a man that knew about the werewolves.

They had chased the man, catching him before he reached the safety of the stream just a hundred feet away.

The others in his pack headed back, but Kiro lingered by the carcass, feeling like someone was watching him. He shook it off, and phased back to his human self, figuring that it was just he and his kind here in the forest. He put on some clothes that he had stashed in a tree nearby.

Past the creek was a newly built tree house. In that tree house, was a young woman named Katja, staring wide-eyed at the scene before her.

Wolves.

“Wolves were here in the forest, and nobody’s thought to contact the authorities?” She said to herself.

Kiro turned, having excellent senses since he was a young werewolf. He saw the woman in the tree house, and was surprised. He though that no one else was in the forest besides him and his pack, and was equally surprised that there was even a new tree house in the forest.

Within two seconds he was at the base of the tree house, staring at the wide-eyed woman in it.

“Who are you, and what are you doing in here?” he asked her.

Katja was shocked. Wasn’t he just a wolf a few seconds ago?

“I’m Katja, and I was just up here reading when I saw…” she went pale again, unable to speak the rest of her sentence.

“When you saw me turn into a human from a wolf?” he said finishing her sentence for her, smiling wryly.

She was pretty, he had to admit, even for a human. She had fiery red wavy hair, and emerald green eyes, her complexion pale, aside from the freckles on her cheeks that stood out in the sun.

Katja nodded numbly. “So th-that means you’re a” she was unable to finish her sentence again, paralyzed with fear that it could actually be true.

“Werewolf?” he said helpfully. He was amused at her stuttering, but also sad that he made her fearful of him.

She let out a squeak of fear, realizing that it was true. “G-get away from me!” she managed to get out.

Kiro started to climb the rungs of the tree house, since she was backing away from the doorway of the tree house.

“I’m not a monster,” he said as he climbed the rungs. “My name’s Kiro. I won’t hurt you. I think that as long as you don’t say anything about us, you’ll be fine.” He had reached the top rung, and was now sitting in the door facing. “No one will hurt you, since no one else will know that I found you, or that you know about us.” He said, trying to reassure her.

The wind started to pick up, his blonde and brown hair flying around his face.

When Katja didn’t say anything, Kiro looked her in the eye and suggested, “You’d better get home. A storm’s about to come.”

Katja didn’t like how his brown eyes looked into hers. She felt uneasy around him, but she also felt like she could trust him too. She was just confused overall.

“Okay,” was all she managed to get out before he disappeared from her sight.

About twenty yards to the left of the tree house, another werewolf named Griffen saw the exchange between the two, and ran to tell the Alpha, Grimore.

He phased into his wolf form, since it made it easier and faster to run. He ran to the place that the rest of the pack was supposed to meet after the chase, reaching the place of meeting in about two minutes.

“Finally. You’ve arrived, Griffen. Now that everyone’s here, you may go to your respective houses, now that everyone’s accounted for,” Grimore announced to the rest of the pack. Griffen looked to see Kiro walking off with the rest of them, noting that Kiro probably started to walk off before he did.

“Grimore! I need to talk to you,” Griffen said to the Alpha as he and his mate were walking off to their car.

“Go on ahead, I’ll be there in a minute,” he said in a hushed tone to his mate.

He turned to Griffen and asked, “What do you want, Griffen?”

“The reason why I was the last one to arrive is because I saw Kiro telling a human about us,” Grimore’s eyes narrowed. “She saw us from a tree house across from the stream, and Kiro told her what we were when he noticed her there.”

Thunder clapped as it started raining.

“Looks like we have another hunt to do tomorrow,” Grimore decided.

Griffen smiled at this, the rain making his long black hair stick to his face.

Kiro’s little friend won’t be alive for long now that Kiro’ll have to hunt her down. It was pack law. To disobey pack law meant being cast out of the pack, which meant being shunned by the rest of the pack, and you weren’t allowed to phase again. Griffen hated Kiro, only because of his free-willed spirit and happy go-lucky attitude. He wanted him kicked out.

For good.

Katja climbed out of the tree house after she was sure that Kiro had left. She was still shaken, and the storm that was about to come didn’t help either. She hurried home, worried that any new found friends could come out and take her against her will.

She was still in a fret about realizing that werewolves were real. What, were vampires real too?

She shuddered visibly at the thought. The wind was picking up; much like it was back at the tree house. It started raining, so she picked up the pace.

She had just moved here to Romania with her mom since her dad was killed in the War in Iraq. The only family her and her mom had were these distant relatives in Romania, so they had to move here. Her mom was half Russian, half Romanian, while her dad was Pure Irish. She got her looks from her mom, but her green eyes and red hair from her dad.

She missed her dad. She wished that he didn’t have to go in the war, that way she could have stayed in the states, and not have to come here and get wrapped up in this mess.

She was finally at her doorstep, and she quickly got her key out to open the door.

Once she got inside, she decided to fix herself dinner, since her mom usually came home around eight from her job as a registered nurse.

After she ate, it was close to the time for her mom to come home, so she decided to take a shower and climb into bed.

Her dreams were nightmares.

Nightmares about werewolves, and wolves in general, coming to tear her apart after they burned her house, and killed off her mom.

While she slept, Kiro had been watching her toss and turn. He had followed her home after being dismissed from the hunt once everyone was accounted for.

She intrigued him. He knew that she was frightened of him, since he basically had just phased in front of her. But he didn’t want her to be afraid. Well, of him at least. He started to like her a bit.

He was happy that no one had seen their conversation, because if they did, they’d sentence her to death by hunt too. Like the man they’d hunted today.

He didn’t like to do the hunting. Sure, he’d play around, possibly tear at a shirt, but he’s never bitten any of them. None of the ones that the group has hunted has he ever bitten.

The sun started rising. Well, I’d better get back to my place before they wonder where I’ve gone, he thought. He opened her window from where he came in, and left.

Katja woke up in a cold sweat; surprised she hadn’t been screaming her head off when she did. She decided to go out for a run to get her mind off of the nightmare.

She ran up her street, and started to go towards town when someone grabbed her, holding a hand over her mouth to keep people from hearing her screams.

Kiro heard a knock on his door, and went to open it. It was Griffen.

“Grimore wants us back at the hunting spot. We’re hunting again.” He told him, a small glint of humor in his eyes.

This confused Kiro. “Hunt? Why are we hunting again? We never hunt two days in a row!”

“Well, today, we are. Come on,” Griffen said, grabbing Kiro by the forearm as Kiro closed the door to his apartment.

Why are we having a hunt again? Kiro pondered, as they reached the other werewolves, Grimore up on the open floor of the ruined church.

The church had been where people here in Romania had worshipped the wolves, believing that they held power.

They had indeed held power, for that is how the lope garoux (the werewolves) were born. Kiro’s heritage was majority German, though his family had some Romanian in them, and he happened to have the werewolf gene. He didn’t like it, but he had to live with it.

“Brethren,” Grimore spoke, silencing them all. “We are here today to hunt again. One of us has betrayed the code. Betrayed the rest of their pack,” he announced, pacing back and forth, laying his eyes on Kiro.

They couldn’t have known, he thought. No one was around to see the exchange. He was sure of it.

“They told a human of our existence. And you know the penalty for this,” he walked aside, and a woman, blindfolded with her hands tied, was shoved into a kneeling position.

Wait, thought Kiro. That red hair…

“No!” Kiro shouted, realization hitting him like a ton of bricks. Griffen held Kiro’s arms back, preventing him from moving forward.

“The penalty for a human knowing is to be the hunted. The penalty for the wolf telling the human our secret is banishment from the pack.” Grimore said, continuing without a beat as if he didn’t hear Kiro’s indignation.

Kiro grit his teeth together in frustration, and broke free of Griffen’s arms, running up to Grimore.

“No, Grimore!” he said again, staring Grimore in the eyes.

“These are the rules, Kiro. There is no way around them,” Grimore reminded him coolly, looking down at him. Kiro was 8 inches shorter than Grimore, who was six feet. “Now, since this is your doing, wish your enemy well.” Grimore nodded towards Katja.

Kiro was frozen in place, looking at Katja’s breathing form. Grimore sighed, growing impatient. He grabbed Kiro by the shoulder, and pulled him to Katja, forcing him to her level.

“Wish her well!” he ordered.

Kiro was close enough to Katja to tell that she was shaking, probably scared at what was going on. With trembling hands, he untied the blindfold, meeting her terrified eyes.

“I thought I had gotten away from all of this,” she whispered. “I thought you said that they wouldn’t harm me.”

He sighed in anguish. “I’m sorry,” he whispered back, and then kissed her, like he was ordered to, before being dragged away from her.

He truly sounded sorry about it, Katja thought. Perhaps he’s not as bad as he seems.

She felt a sudden pain in her hand, and noticed two things at once: One, her hand had been cut, and two, her hands were free.

Her hands weren’t bound. She could run free.

She went to stand up when Grimore pulled her up by her shoulder, causing her to yell in pain.

Grimore ignored it, and informed her, “There is a stream in these woods. If you make it there, you are free.”

She looked up to ask why that was the place she could run to and gasped. His eyes were of golden butterscotch. She looked around at the other werewolves and noticed their eyes were of that color too. She couldn’t find Kiro in the crowd of them, but decided to do as she was told before she got killed.

Kiro was put into a car right after he did the required farewell gesture to the prey.

Griffen locked the car door, and stood guard outside the car.

I’ve got to get to Katja before anyone else does, he thought. He moved slowly to the opposite side of the car, careful not to make a sound, and unlocked the door, and made a run for it.

“Hey! Stop!” Griffen shouted, running after him.

Kiro ran fast, stripping himself of his shirt, and kicking off his shoes in the process. He jumped onto a fallen branch, and then leaped in the air, changing into his wolf form in midair. In his wolf form, he was a beautiful white wolf, managing to keep his brown eyes, which were the only way to know that it was him, since there were a few other white wolves in the pack.

He ran swiftly, his wolf ears catching a squeak of fear not too far from where he was. He ran faster, trying to catch up to the sound.

He soon saw Katja running through the forest, stumbling over vines that wove in and out of the dirt floor. He rolled his eyes at her clumsiness, relieved also that he had caught up to her alive.

He got closer to her, tensed, and sprang, tumbling her to the forest floor.

She screamed a blood-curdling scream, and was cut off by a soothing sound.

Kiro was making a purr-like noise, which calmed her down. He hoped that she was really looking at him, so she’d know that it was indeed he.

“Kiro?” she asked.

He gave a small yip, and climbed off of her. He made a motion for her to get on his back, and she obliged willingly, finally starting to trust him.

She held onto the fur on his back as he ran in the direction of the stream, surprised that he was able to go so fast with her in tow.

They had reached the stream peacefully, and Kiro let Katja off.

“Thank you, Kiro,” she said to him gratefully, her whole attitude towards him changing with every right thing he did. She kissed him on the muzzle, causing him to grin wolfishly, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

She started to laugh, but then it was cut short by Kiro starting to stand in front of her protectively.

She looked up to see two wolves coming at them. One was black as night, with golden eyes. The other was a sandy brown color with striking blue eyes.

The hackles on Kiro’s fur stood up.

“Griffen! Grimore! What are you doing here? She crossed the stream. Leave her be!” he reminded them. Katja couldn’t understand them anyway.

“You are protecting her. That is why we need to get rid of her,” Griffen, the sandy brown wolf, said.

“Mating between human and werewolf is forbidden,” the black wolf, Grimore, hissed.

Kiro growled, baring his teeth, and then pounced at Griffen, tearing at his neck.

Grimore went after Katja, who started to run towards the tree house, her jacket that she had loosely tied around her waist, was starting to slip off. Grimore nipped at the jacket, it slipping off completely.

Katja jumped onto the wooden rungs of the tree house, climbing up them rapidly.

Grimore growled from down below, starting to shape shift back into a human so he could climb up the rungs.

Just as he changed back into his human form, Kiro lunged at him, clawing at his face, and biting his neck. His screams were heard throughout the forest, and then they died down.

The alpha was dead, his counterpart, Griffen, gravely injured, having wounds to the front limbs, as well as his neck.

Kiro phased back into his human form and climbed up the rungs of the tree house.

“Katja?” he asked weakly. “Are you okay?”

“Kiro!” she exclaimed, when she noticed him trying to prop himself upright in order to get into the tree house. She helped him into the tree house, and then went and grabbed a spare blanket in the corner to cover his naked torso.

“Why do you have a blanket in here?” he asked, a hint of a smile on his face.

“Well, in the winter months it would get cold, so naturally I’d need it to keep myself warm. Plus there would be times when I felt like coming here to sleep.”

Kiro nodded in understanding.

She touched his bare shoulder, which had a bad scratch. “Your hurt.”

He shrugged indifferently. “It’ll heal up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. We werewolves are notoriously fast healers,” he said with a grin.

She smiled too. “Okay.” She kissed his cheek, and then laid her head against his uninjured shoulder.

They fell asleep like that, a newfound relationship formed.