All Eight Guardians

Karri's POV

Sky and I had been searching for Nick for over twenty minutes and we still hadn't found him yet. The conversation between us was practically non-existant and things were starting to get awkward.

Sky cleared his throat and caused me to glance over at him as we walked down the empty street. "So I may be a Guardian of the Prince, but until all eight Guardians have been found I'll protect you."

I couldn't help but smile; it was a very sweet thing for him to say to me. I mean, what girl doesn't want a guy to proclaim he will protect her? Even a tough girl like Annabelle wouldn't mind that.

Thinking about Annabelle made me think about the rest of them. They kind of needed some kind of protection as well. "My friends too, right?" I asked.

Sky nodded and smiled, "Your friends too."

That made me feel a little better, like a small weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It's true they may not be my best friends, but they still need to know someone is watching their backs. Especially after we have found ourselves in this new world and we don't know a thing about anything.

I was about to say something in return when I noticed a flash of white out of the corner of my eye. "Nick!" I whispered, causing Sky to look as well. A rather large man was chasing after Nick, gripping a big torch in his hand.

Before I knew what I was doing, I took off after the man and Nick while Sky took to the skies.

I ran past an alley and nearly avoided running into John, Annabelle, and Roman. When the trio realized what was going on, they trailed behind me.

Nick quickly ran into a shed, searching for some kind of cover. Before the man could enter, I ran into his back, knocking him off balance and in a chain reaction caused the shed door to slam shut with Nick safe inside.

"Leave him alone!" I shouted at the man as he regained his balance and towered over me. He roughly grabbed my wrist and before I could break free he threw me into a wall. My back slammed into the clay wall and I couldn't help but see stars.

Sky swooped down from the Heavens and kicked the man in the face, sending him back into another wall and saving me.

Roman and John took the opportunity to run up to me and kneeled down next to me.

Sky basically had the man subdued, hell; the man was unconscious so things were safe again. With that in mind, Annabelle walked over to the shed and opened the door. "Nick, are you there?" she called.

Nick let out a vicious growl from inside the shed before he leapt out and pounced on Annabelle, pinning her to the ground before he growled at her again and barred his razor sharp teeth.

"K-Karri!" Annabelle trembled, "Get him off of m-me!"

"Nick stop it!" I shouted, but it didn't seem to phase him. It was almost as if he had gone full wolf.

When that didn't work, I realized I was going to have to go into Nick's thoughts and pull him out that way.

'Nicky, you listen to me right now and you listen good. Back the hell off of Annabelle and don't eat her face!' I snapped after Roman and John helped me back up to my feet. I may have swayed a bit, but I managed to stay upright.

My words must have gotten through to Nick because he stopped growling, cocked his head to the side, and backed off of Annabelle. She quickly crawled away from him and scrambled up to her feet all while heavily panting.

"Nick, what happened?" I questioned out loud, causing everyone to look at the white wolf.

I heard Nick sigh in my head before he began to explain, 'I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. But in this current...body I couldn't figure out how to use the toilet. So I went outside to...well...y'know. One of the palace guards chased me off the palace grounds when he found me trying to...y'know.' he paused for a moment and his eyes widened, 'Please don't tell the others why I was outside, please!' he begged.

I nodded once before I relayed to the others, "A palace guard chased him from the grounds when he was outside."

The others seemed to accept what I said and I could hear Nick repeatedly saying 'Thank you!' in my head. ...But I'm not exactly sure why he would be so embarrassed over something like that in the first place.

At that moment, Moose decided to show up late to the party as always, along with a concerned looking Knight flanking him.

"Oh good, you found him." Moose said before he glanced over to the man knocked out on the ground, "Who's he?" he questioned.

"He was chasing Nick." Roman replied.

"But that doesn't explain why." John spoke up.

"A palace guard chased him off the grounds." Roman said, "Doesn't that explain it?"

"This man isn't a palace guard." Knight pointed out, "By the way he's dressed he looks like a blacksmith."

"So why was a blacksmith chasing Nick?" Sky questioned.

'I can answer that.' Nick told me.

"Wait, there's more." I told the others before I turned back to Nick.

'After I was chased off the palace grounds I wandered around for a while. Some kid came up to me wanting to 'pet the doggie' but then his mother freaked when she realized I was a wolf. I made a run for it -again- and soon that guy was after me. I don't know what happened after that. I just clicked into a survival mode.'

"So what happened after that?" Sky questioned.

"A kid tried to pet him, a woman screamed, and that guy chased him." I summarized, knowing the others didn't need to know all the details to Nick's little 'adventure.'

Roman turned to me, ignoring the current situation and asked me, "You gonna be okay?"

I nodded, "Yeah, I'll be fine." I replied.

Roman's concern caused Knight to walk up to me, "What happened?" he questioned.

I shook my head, "It's nothing."

"Nothing?!" Sky snapped, "He practically picked you up and flung you into the wall!"

"Sky, I'm fine... Really." I said.

"I'm okay too if anybody was wondering!" Annabelle called out.

Sky sighed deeply before he said, "Let's get back to the palace."