All Hail the Shifter King
Title: Lords of Kensington, Part 7
Word Count: 1988
The highway past the gas station was just a long, perfect ribbon heading toward the coastal mountains that ringed Kensington - she focused on them as if they were some sort of beacon, something to draw her toward home and the idea of safety inside the city she'd known her entire life. The snowfall increased with every passing minute, the threat of a blizzard weighing heavily on her mind, but still she found herself pressing her foot to the accelerator with an uncharacteristic determination. She'd never been the sort to speed - one speeding ticket in high school and the subsequent loss of her driving privileges until her father finally relented had solved that - and certainly never considered doing so in less than perfect weather, but within ten minutes of leaving the slaughter behind she was coaxing the SUV to near peak performance, the wipers barely able to keep up.
"Kat."
Her eyes were locked, unblinking, on the road, flinching every time a car approached from the opposite lanes, half-expecting it to swerve toward her, drive her off the road, cause her to skid into the ditch. Or - and this thought was far more unpleasant - she imagined the bear-thing crashing out of the thick forest that lined the highway, colliding with them, sending the SUV into a roll across the empty lanes. Her fingers clenched at the wheel until her knuckles cracked, the napkin with Anya's quickly-scribbled directions pinched against her palm.
"Kat."
The keesin were quiet save for the occasional whimper as a gust of wind howled across the road. Thaddeus barked, just once, at a flurry of snow that twirled against the window beside him and Katrina twitched so abruptly she veered into the right lane and almost onto the shoulder. But she didn't ease off the gas, didn't twist to chide the beast for the outburst, just stared straight ahead, continuously ahead.
"Kat."
She found herself wishing for Gavin, of all people. Gavin was always the driver on their college road trips, the skiing vacations over reading break, the constant wanderings into the mountains where they would vanish for days into the forests, scale the stony peaks, whoop and holler at the sky over their small victories. He'd been the levelheaded one, back then, the one that would keep her calm when the roads flooded, when they lost their way, when the GPS batteries died or the sat phones didn't work. Their first field trip together, to a remote archaeological site in the northern tundra, they'd been stranded in a small camp on a glacier for three days thanks to a storm that kept the helicopters at bay. She'd been near hysterical within hours, but Gavin, he'd kept his cool until the moment they'd been picked up, until they were in the air and on their way back to base camp. Then she'd seen him cry - a few tears of relief, nothing more, but tears nonetheless - before he'd simply drifted off to sleep.
He always told her that there was no point in panicking. She wondered if he would agree there was reason, now.
Ryder's hand fell on her wrist and she flinched, jerked away from his touch.
"You need to pull over," he told her. She wouldn't look at him - couldn't, not after Anya's orders to keep herself together - and simply shook her head in refusal, not trusting herself to speak.
Her mind trailed back to the bear-thing, snuffling at the bottom of their hotel room door.
To the shock on Frye's face, the hot splash of blood across her skin, and she sank her teeth so hard into her lip that she tasted blood, squinting at the road ahead, ignoring the shudder and burn of the coin that still sat against her chest.
And she thought of Gavin. Wondered if it had been so easy for him, the first time.
Ryder gripped her wrist again, tighter this time, and refused to let go when she tried to pull free.
"Pull. Over." He squeezed her arm so hard the bones grated together, slivers of pain singing through her numb skin. Even with the heaters blasting, she couldn't seem to warm up. "Now."
Her hands shook against the wheel. The blood on her tongue, the ache of her punctured lip, the snow struggling to coat the windshield against the incessant sweep of the wipers, the chill in her skin, the -
She blinked.
Looked around.
They were parked on the side of the road, half on the highway and half on the gravel shoulder. She was sitting on the passenger seat with the door open, her legs dangling off the side and over the slope of the ground, and a handful of feet away the keesin were wandering around the tall grass that managed to escape the blanket of snow, snorting and snuffling as they found new territory to mark.
"Ryder?" she called.
There was a clatter from the back of the SUV, the sound of one of the empty metal kennels being placed on the ground, and she slid off the seat to creep around the side of the vehicle.
"Are you..." she started, and froze at the open hatch, her hands fluttering to her mouth. Ryder glanced up at her, his expression neutral, as he dropped a bloodied broadhead into one of the metal food dishes from the kennels. He was shirtless, his skin pale in the cold and his right shoulder a swollen, bloody, bruising mess. The broken end of one carbon fibre bolt was still nestled deep in the muscle, while the other sat on his ruined jacket, the wound ragged and torn from where Jessup had tried to pull the bolt free. Blood pooled in the cavity and ran down his arm, dripping from his elbow to the snow at his feet.
"Feeling better?" he asked. He had a short, hooked skinning knife in his hands, and rolled it in his fingers briefly before picking up one of her compact makeup mirrors. "Might not want to look," he pointed out, and she quickly spun away, covering her face with her hands.
"Do you really have to do that yourself?" she managed to choke.
"Mmm. Unless you're planning on helping." He was quiet a few moments, then, "You didn't answer my question."
"I don't think how I'm feeling is very important right now."
"You have to drive. I'd argue it's very important."
She couldn't help but smile behind the comforting cover of her hands, enjoying the familiar smell of her leather gloves, the -
Blinking in confusion, she pulled her hands from her face. She was wearing her gloves, yes, and also a new, clean sweater, and her skin had been scrubbed until there were no traces of Frye's blood or the dirt and grease from the gas station.
"You charmed me again," she said, part frustrated and part indignant.
"Pfft. I charm you -" His words cut off with a hiss of pain, followed by the rattle of something falling into the metal dish. "I charm you all the time," he finished, his voice strained.
"I'm pretty sure we had a rule about that."
"I'm pretty sure that rule is null and void when you stink of dead people." She heard the sound of his duffel bag opening, and then one of his sweaters fell across her shoulders. "Your coat is ruined, by the way," he mentioned.
"I didn't like it much, anyway." She hugged the knit material to her body and turned slowly, taking in their surroundings. "Where are we?"
"About an hour outside that place she told us to go." He walked around her, and she had just a brief glimpse of his bloodied shoulder, sans bolt and wrapped in what looked like the remains of the shirt he'd been wearing, before she winced and looked at her feet. "You think you can get us there without possibly killing us?"
"I figured you hadn't had your share of near-death experiences yet," she quipped, her attempt at humor coming out bland and weak.
"Two in as many months is good." He stepped in front of her and she felt his fingers loop under the necklace, pulling it away. "I'll pass on number three, thanks." She untangled her arms from the sweater to lift her hair away from the necklace, looking up at him as she did, and when their eyes met he smiled faintly at her, rubbed his palm against the side of her neck. His skin was shockingly cold but she leaned into his touch anyway. "You scared the shit out of me," he murmured, moving his hand to rub his thumb across her cheek.
"Likewise," she managed, and though she tried to smile back her lip quivered and her eyes suddenly stung painfully. "That was so stupid."
"What was?"
"What you did."
"They would have found you otherwise."
"You're the one that always told me to hold still, and there you are, crashing into..." She frowned suddenly. "Wait, what?"
"They would have found you," he repeated. "You were too far away to -"
"You knew that would happen?!" she demanded shrilly. Ryder took a step back, confused.
"I can't say I knew it would, but -"
"You could have been killed!"
"You know, you say that all the -"
"For fuck's sake!" She laced her hands through her hair in exasperation. "Will you get it through your head that you're not some goddamn superhero?!" She shoved him angrily and stalked away to where the keesin stared at her, whining. "What if they'd had better aim, huh?" she yelled, twisting to glare at him. "What if you weren't just lying there playing dead?! Then what?!"
"Then at least it wouldn't have been you," he retorted in a low voice, taking a scrap of his jacket and rubbing it with snow before using it to scrub the blood off his arm.
"What difference does it make?!" She was hysterical and she knew it - now that the adrenaline had worn off her anxiety and fear was near-crippling and she couldn't decide whether to scream or just curl into a ball in the back seat and cry. And the longer he just stood there and stared at her, the more she wanted to slap that confusion off his face - anything to distract her from how utterly crazy she was feeling.
Ryder didn't immediately respond to her, instead rolling up the remains of his jacket and tossing it into the corner of the cargo space. After a few minutes of pressing his fingers gently to the makeshift bandage, her selected a t-shirt and managed to awkwardly shrug into it, his face twisting in a wince of discomfort as he rotated his shoulder. The coin, normally so bright beneath his clothes, flickered with a weak, pale white light. It wasn't until he replaced the kennel and closed the hatch that he finally walked up to her, grabbing her by the shoulders when she tried to turn away.
"Kat," he said, and when she moved to shove him again he snatched her wrists. "Kat, listen to me," he pleaded.
"Don't tell me it doesn't matter," she told him, and the tears that had been threatening to spill since she drove away from the gas station finally broke free. "You can tell me anything but don't tell me it doesn't matter, I'm so sick of you saying that it -"
"It matters, I know, I know it does," he soothed, pulling her into his arms. She collapsed against him, sobbing, and immediately felt Thaddeus and Crispin lean against her legs, whining softly. "You don't get second chances," he told her. "I do."
"But not forever," she said. "That's my point, Ryder. Nobody gets second chances forever."
He fell quiet, and then she felt him kiss the top of her head.
"I don't need them forever," he said. "Just long enough."
Word Count: 1988
The highway past the gas station was just a long, perfect ribbon heading toward the coastal mountains that ringed Kensington - she focused on them as if they were some sort of beacon, something to draw her toward home and the idea of safety inside the city she'd known her entire life. The snowfall increased with every passing minute, the threat of a blizzard weighing heavily on her mind, but still she found herself pressing her foot to the accelerator with an uncharacteristic determination. She'd never been the sort to speed - one speeding ticket in high school and the subsequent loss of her driving privileges until her father finally relented had solved that - and certainly never considered doing so in less than perfect weather, but within ten minutes of leaving the slaughter behind she was coaxing the SUV to near peak performance, the wipers barely able to keep up.
"Kat."
Her eyes were locked, unblinking, on the road, flinching every time a car approached from the opposite lanes, half-expecting it to swerve toward her, drive her off the road, cause her to skid into the ditch. Or - and this thought was far more unpleasant - she imagined the bear-thing crashing out of the thick forest that lined the highway, colliding with them, sending the SUV into a roll across the empty lanes. Her fingers clenched at the wheel until her knuckles cracked, the napkin with Anya's quickly-scribbled directions pinched against her palm.
"Kat."
The keesin were quiet save for the occasional whimper as a gust of wind howled across the road. Thaddeus barked, just once, at a flurry of snow that twirled against the window beside him and Katrina twitched so abruptly she veered into the right lane and almost onto the shoulder. But she didn't ease off the gas, didn't twist to chide the beast for the outburst, just stared straight ahead, continuously ahead.
"Kat."
She found herself wishing for Gavin, of all people. Gavin was always the driver on their college road trips, the skiing vacations over reading break, the constant wanderings into the mountains where they would vanish for days into the forests, scale the stony peaks, whoop and holler at the sky over their small victories. He'd been the levelheaded one, back then, the one that would keep her calm when the roads flooded, when they lost their way, when the GPS batteries died or the sat phones didn't work. Their first field trip together, to a remote archaeological site in the northern tundra, they'd been stranded in a small camp on a glacier for three days thanks to a storm that kept the helicopters at bay. She'd been near hysterical within hours, but Gavin, he'd kept his cool until the moment they'd been picked up, until they were in the air and on their way back to base camp. Then she'd seen him cry - a few tears of relief, nothing more, but tears nonetheless - before he'd simply drifted off to sleep.
He always told her that there was no point in panicking. She wondered if he would agree there was reason, now.
Ryder's hand fell on her wrist and she flinched, jerked away from his touch.
"You need to pull over," he told her. She wouldn't look at him - couldn't, not after Anya's orders to keep herself together - and simply shook her head in refusal, not trusting herself to speak.
Her mind trailed back to the bear-thing, snuffling at the bottom of their hotel room door.
To the shock on Frye's face, the hot splash of blood across her skin, and she sank her teeth so hard into her lip that she tasted blood, squinting at the road ahead, ignoring the shudder and burn of the coin that still sat against her chest.
And she thought of Gavin. Wondered if it had been so easy for him, the first time.
Ryder gripped her wrist again, tighter this time, and refused to let go when she tried to pull free.
"Pull. Over." He squeezed her arm so hard the bones grated together, slivers of pain singing through her numb skin. Even with the heaters blasting, she couldn't seem to warm up. "Now."
Her hands shook against the wheel. The blood on her tongue, the ache of her punctured lip, the snow struggling to coat the windshield against the incessant sweep of the wipers, the chill in her skin, the -
She blinked.
Looked around.
They were parked on the side of the road, half on the highway and half on the gravel shoulder. She was sitting on the passenger seat with the door open, her legs dangling off the side and over the slope of the ground, and a handful of feet away the keesin were wandering around the tall grass that managed to escape the blanket of snow, snorting and snuffling as they found new territory to mark.
"Ryder?" she called.
There was a clatter from the back of the SUV, the sound of one of the empty metal kennels being placed on the ground, and she slid off the seat to creep around the side of the vehicle.
"Are you..." she started, and froze at the open hatch, her hands fluttering to her mouth. Ryder glanced up at her, his expression neutral, as he dropped a bloodied broadhead into one of the metal food dishes from the kennels. He was shirtless, his skin pale in the cold and his right shoulder a swollen, bloody, bruising mess. The broken end of one carbon fibre bolt was still nestled deep in the muscle, while the other sat on his ruined jacket, the wound ragged and torn from where Jessup had tried to pull the bolt free. Blood pooled in the cavity and ran down his arm, dripping from his elbow to the snow at his feet.
"Feeling better?" he asked. He had a short, hooked skinning knife in his hands, and rolled it in his fingers briefly before picking up one of her compact makeup mirrors. "Might not want to look," he pointed out, and she quickly spun away, covering her face with her hands.
"Do you really have to do that yourself?" she managed to choke.
"Mmm. Unless you're planning on helping." He was quiet a few moments, then, "You didn't answer my question."
"I don't think how I'm feeling is very important right now."
"You have to drive. I'd argue it's very important."
She couldn't help but smile behind the comforting cover of her hands, enjoying the familiar smell of her leather gloves, the -
Blinking in confusion, she pulled her hands from her face. She was wearing her gloves, yes, and also a new, clean sweater, and her skin had been scrubbed until there were no traces of Frye's blood or the dirt and grease from the gas station.
"You charmed me again," she said, part frustrated and part indignant.
"Pfft. I charm you -" His words cut off with a hiss of pain, followed by the rattle of something falling into the metal dish. "I charm you all the time," he finished, his voice strained.
"I'm pretty sure we had a rule about that."
"I'm pretty sure that rule is null and void when you stink of dead people." She heard the sound of his duffel bag opening, and then one of his sweaters fell across her shoulders. "Your coat is ruined, by the way," he mentioned.
"I didn't like it much, anyway." She hugged the knit material to her body and turned slowly, taking in their surroundings. "Where are we?"
"About an hour outside that place she told us to go." He walked around her, and she had just a brief glimpse of his bloodied shoulder, sans bolt and wrapped in what looked like the remains of the shirt he'd been wearing, before she winced and looked at her feet. "You think you can get us there without possibly killing us?"
"I figured you hadn't had your share of near-death experiences yet," she quipped, her attempt at humor coming out bland and weak.
"Two in as many months is good." He stepped in front of her and she felt his fingers loop under the necklace, pulling it away. "I'll pass on number three, thanks." She untangled her arms from the sweater to lift her hair away from the necklace, looking up at him as she did, and when their eyes met he smiled faintly at her, rubbed his palm against the side of her neck. His skin was shockingly cold but she leaned into his touch anyway. "You scared the shit out of me," he murmured, moving his hand to rub his thumb across her cheek.
"Likewise," she managed, and though she tried to smile back her lip quivered and her eyes suddenly stung painfully. "That was so stupid."
"What was?"
"What you did."
"They would have found you otherwise."
"You're the one that always told me to hold still, and there you are, crashing into..." She frowned suddenly. "Wait, what?"
"They would have found you," he repeated. "You were too far away to -"
"You knew that would happen?!" she demanded shrilly. Ryder took a step back, confused.
"I can't say I knew it would, but -"
"You could have been killed!"
"You know, you say that all the -"
"For fuck's sake!" She laced her hands through her hair in exasperation. "Will you get it through your head that you're not some goddamn superhero?!" She shoved him angrily and stalked away to where the keesin stared at her, whining. "What if they'd had better aim, huh?" she yelled, twisting to glare at him. "What if you weren't just lying there playing dead?! Then what?!"
"Then at least it wouldn't have been you," he retorted in a low voice, taking a scrap of his jacket and rubbing it with snow before using it to scrub the blood off his arm.
"What difference does it make?!" She was hysterical and she knew it - now that the adrenaline had worn off her anxiety and fear was near-crippling and she couldn't decide whether to scream or just curl into a ball in the back seat and cry. And the longer he just stood there and stared at her, the more she wanted to slap that confusion off his face - anything to distract her from how utterly crazy she was feeling.
Ryder didn't immediately respond to her, instead rolling up the remains of his jacket and tossing it into the corner of the cargo space. After a few minutes of pressing his fingers gently to the makeshift bandage, her selected a t-shirt and managed to awkwardly shrug into it, his face twisting in a wince of discomfort as he rotated his shoulder. The coin, normally so bright beneath his clothes, flickered with a weak, pale white light. It wasn't until he replaced the kennel and closed the hatch that he finally walked up to her, grabbing her by the shoulders when she tried to turn away.
"Kat," he said, and when she moved to shove him again he snatched her wrists. "Kat, listen to me," he pleaded.
"Don't tell me it doesn't matter," she told him, and the tears that had been threatening to spill since she drove away from the gas station finally broke free. "You can tell me anything but don't tell me it doesn't matter, I'm so sick of you saying that it -"
"It matters, I know, I know it does," he soothed, pulling her into his arms. She collapsed against him, sobbing, and immediately felt Thaddeus and Crispin lean against her legs, whining softly. "You don't get second chances," he told her. "I do."
"But not forever," she said. "That's my point, Ryder. Nobody gets second chances forever."
He fell quiet, and then she felt him kiss the top of her head.
"I don't need them forever," he said. "Just long enough."