Chapter 1: Betrayal
Her father advanced, a menacing shadow looming over her.
"I know it was your fault!" He said, raising the bloody knife in his trembling hand. "You will pay dearly for killing her!"
She had slowly been backing up and soon found herself trapped in a corner, directly across her mothers broken and bloody body.
"Dad you moron, snap out of it! You killed her!" Her voice trembled with fear and sorrow as she desperately tried to find a way out of her predicament.
He seemed not to hear her, but kept advancing.
"Aria, stay calm, I'm on my way."
This was a new voice, slow and raspy yet strong and calming. Strangely enough, it seemed familiar as well.
"Who are you?" Aria said aloud.
"You call me a moron, yet you no longer recognize your own father?" he said slightly slurring his words.
She ignored his comment, desperately searching for a way to escape the drunken man before her.
He was raising the knife to slash at her when they heard a low menacing snarl come from the doorway.
Her father flipped around just in time to see a a massive black beast leap at him. its paws hit his chest knocking him over and making him drop his knife. The beasts fangs snapped shut an inch from his face.
Aria knew she should be terrified, but, she felt strangely drawn to the beast even as she watched its fangs close over her fathers throat.
He stopped fighting, convulsed once, then lay still. The hand that had been trying to strangle the beast hit the floor with a mundane thud.
Aria inched along the wall until she found their oil lamp. She quickly lit it.
Her scream ripped through the damp night air as the light hit the gleaming ebony fur of an enormous wolf. It turned and looked at her with intelligent ice blue eyes. Arias' own eyes widened, she got dizzy, and fainted.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Aria awoke with a jolt and was immediately blinded by the sunlight streaming through the shredded curtains. All at once the memories of last night came flooding back and she reeled.
She saw her mothers body, her face was paper white and her eyes were white and staring, but her fathers body was nowhere to be found. Maybe, she thought, maybe he beat me unconscious and I just hallucinated the wolf. But, she didn't hurt anywhere, so where could her father have gone?
"Ahh Good, You're awake." The wolf nosed the door open and walked in.
Aria jumped. "Oh its just you." She said and at the same time thinking, Just you?! I should be scared to death!
The wolf tipped his big shaggy head, "I cant understand you if you speak aloud." He said this matter-of-factly as if she should have already known. "You have to talk to me though your mind"
"Like this?"
"Exactly, and dont be so tentative, I'm not here to harm you. I'm here to protect you."
"Protect me?" She echoed
"Yes, your mother asked me to when she was pregnant with you."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"So let me get this straight," Aria and the wolf had been talking for hours, their worn-down cuckoo clock read 1:15 pm. "So you were commissioned by my mother 17 years ago,"
"18" he corrected her.
"Fine 18 years ago to keep me safe from my father. She didn't divorce or kill him, because she knew that divorcing him would only hasten his madness, and she still loved him too much to be able to kill him?"
"Yes, that about sums it up, you catch on quickly." He said with a wry smile.
"I only have one more question."
"Just the one?"
"I may think of more later, but, I still don't know what your name is. What am I to call you?"
He sat for a moment, thinking. "Roran. I think thats how you would pronounce it in human."
"Roran." Aria repeated. It certainly fits. She thought.
"Oh, what happened to my dad?" She had just remembered that he had disappeared.
"I didn't kill him, I only cut off his oxygen long enough for him to be subdued. I see now that was a mistake."
"So we need to leave, don't we." It was more of a statement than a question.
"Yes."
"But where will we go?"
"Your mother showed me the way to a safe place, we will go there. Pack your things, we will leave before nightfall."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
(More coming. PLEASE critique ^w^ Also, this is MY story and MY characters! Do NOT steal them!!)
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psalm 103:12 |-/
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