Book of Curses (The Renning Chronicles) (16 page)

“Sorry…” Nixon managed to whisper before he shoveled food into his mouth, and stared down as well.

“Raine was it? How are you adjusting to our world? I’ve met other humans from your world, when they tried to end our wars they were horribly shocked by our world.” Heath asked me just as I shoved food into my mouth. I looked up at him blinking my eyes a few times.

Swallowing the food, I managed to think of something to answer with. “Well, it is different.” I told him, then gestured to everyone around me, flushing a bit. “There’s really no such thing as, well you guys, where I’m from, or Lycanthropes, only humans…” I began to scratch at my arm absentmindedly as I kept thinking to myself, I sounded like a complete fool, but it was the best way I could think of to say it.

“That sounds awfully boring.” Heath told me, nodding his head slowly.

I shook my head slowly, smiling a little. “Not really, I mean, as a race we all stand out in different ways, from horror writers, to romantics, the crazies to normal people… it’s not so boring,
besides
we build all kinds of things, I’d show you if I could.”

Heath gave me a look that was completely and totally amazed. “What sort of things do your people build?”

“Buildings, cars, iPods and computers, all kinds of things.”

“What are these cars, and computers? Ipods?” He asked me, it was like watching Harry Potter and listening to Mr.Weasley. I had to keep from laughing as I looked down. I licked my lips slowly, trying to thinking of a way to explain it.

Chapter 7

_______________________

Dinner basically went on like that for what seemed like forever. It was question after question. The only one who really refrained from talking was Talon, he only answered when asked something directly.

Raven spent the majority of dinner hitting on me, and keeping my face a constant crimson-red color. I was too shell shocked when he did it to do more than that, by the time I finished most of my food, the rest were all completely done.

I stood up when Alani did, and started helping her and the girls clean up after everyone. They protested and wanted me to sit down, but I felt rude doing that when I was welcomed into someone else's home. I wanted to help, to show some form of thanks, but Alani got a good looked at my arm after I carried a pile of dishes in and nearly shrieked.

“You need to get that properly cleaned up and stitched, a human heals slowly, and that’ll get infected.” She said to me giving me a stern look, there was so much authority in her voice I was intimidated. “It’s a pretty deep gash too, what on earth did you do?”

“Um, heh long story?” I told her, tapping at the wound a few times with one of my fingers as I remembered what I did a few days ago.

She gave me a long sad look,
and then
straightened up to her full height as quickly as she could. Turning her body she looked towards the living room and called for Nixon. “Nixon, come here for a moment.”

Nixon came right away, looking from his mother to me curiously. “Yeah?”
“Can you fix her up? I don’t know what she did, nor when, but it’s deep and I don’t want it getting infected.” Alani told him as she started to gesture towards my wounded arm, the frown she wore
on her
face only deepened.

“Yeah,” He moved over to me, looking at me with an extremely confused look on his face. “Come on Raine.”

I followed Nixon towards the
bathroom;
he was hard to keep up with when he moved as fast as he was. He was using his long legs to make quick strides, I wanted to grab him and yell when I tripped over a toy.

He turned around, waiting for me to come in. When I finally did he made me sit down on the bathtubs side, going through the cupboard quickly. Not long after he turned around with a kit in hand, and bent down to pull out a washrag.

He started dampening it in the sink before turning back to me and leaning down so he was at eye level with my arm. Carefully pressing it down onto the gash, I jerked back in reflex, hissing my pain under my breath.

“What happened to you? I didn’t notice that earlier.”
“I had a bandage on it earlier; though it was dirty. I did not want it to get in the wound… I kind of jumped in the middle of a shape shifter fight, killed a Tiger shape shifter, and saved another shifter."

"She was a
panther;
we left her back in the earth region with one of the other soldiers. The tiger tried to attack me but fell on the sword I had, and I didn’t even actually try to kill her, luck I guess…” I told him in one breath, sucking in another and shrugging my shoulders a bit. “It’s nothing really, she landed funny on me and bruised a couple ribs and did that. It's nothing major, I’ve actually had worse.”

“You could’ve got yourself killed you know.” He said, tilting his head and sighing. There was concern lingering in his words, as he continued to clean out my wound. “If not hurt worse than this.”

“But, I didn’t. That’s what matters!”

Nixon only shook his head at me, removing the washcloth slowly from my arm and turning around for a moment. I watched as he moved around quickly, before he turned back around with a thread and needle in hand. My eyes widened, and my heart rate sped up.

He laughed at me before he leaned in more, moving my arm into position for him to work easier, before he started to stitch the wound. I had to look away, I couldn't watch the needle going in and out of my skin, it was too disturbing to see.

“There, I’m finished.” Nixon said moving away from my arm and beginning to put everything he'd gotten out away. When he was done, he grabbed the wash cloth and stood up completely.

Looking down at my arm I examined his work, I was grateful for the stitches. But seriously, damn any doctor would love to be this good, and fast, at stitches. I'd pay to have a doctor that worked this fast more often.

“No problem, but tell me, why do I have the feeling you’re not going to be easy to take care of?”

I smiled at him, and turned around starting to walk out as I shook my head. I heard him following behind me, before he stopped and muttered something under his breath that sounded like "That really wasn't an answer." It made me grin from ear to ear, but I pretended that I hadn't heard him.

I waked back into their living room, smiling slowly to myself. Talon stood up at the sight of us, stretching slowly and yawning as he practically leapt over to us.

'“Thanks for the dinner Mrs. Lane, I think we should be getting Raine back. She’s probably exhausted after the long ride here, but we’ll stop by tomorrow. I’ll make sure of it.” He told her smiling, or at least he was trying to for her. It was more like a half smile half grimace, and the grimace was overpowering the smile. I shook my head, but walked over to Alani ignoring Talon.

“It really was nice to meet you and your
family;
you’re a really nice woman. So regardless of what those two say, I’ll be stopping over on my own if I have to.” I smiled at her as I spoke, trying to show my gratitude.

Alani smiled back at me brightly, she had dimples that popped out in the process. “You’re welcome here anytime dear, I’m sure the kids would enjoy it as well, though I’m sorry for Raven, truly I am.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I said to her while ignoring Raven. I said my goodbyes to the girls, then their father and lastly Raven by shaking his hand. He ended up taking my hand all too happily, and kissing the top of it. I wanted to jerk my hand away from him, but he didn't exactly give me a choice.

“Talon, stop by a bit more would you!” I heard Bliss say to him sharply,  it was as if she could control him. I heard him chuckle, and found out that she was only ten, but the way she acted I wouldn't have guessed it. Pandora was
thirteen
and Raven
t
wenty.

“Yeah, I’ll try when I have time.” Talon replied to her, sighing a bit. I could see in his eyes that he probably wasn't going to have the time to do much of anything, I felt sad for him and Nixon both.

“You don’t have much of a choice
anymore;
if Nixon and Raine want to come here you’re out numbered.” Pandora shouted at him, grinning from ear to ear. I smiled over at her and realized she was right, as long as I came around more, then he'd have to come around more. Everyone wins then.

“And of course, you find that amusing.” Talon rolled his eyes, looking from her to me. I found it amusing too, but I wasn't going to let him know that anytime soon, especially not now, with how tired I felt for once.

“Of course, you hate to socialize, and you have no choice when you’re here.”

“No one said I hate it.” He argued looking over at her, his eyes were slits as he spoke, but there was a grin on his face. “I'd just rather not do it when I don’t have to.”

“Yeah, you hate it.” Pandora giggled and walked off with Bliss in tow. I watched the two of them smiling to myself at how they were acting. 

“Nixon, be good, I hope you do a good job with this. You know you’re the one they want to send out with the chosen.” Alani told him smiling happily at her son, before she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. I was lost, the only one? I thought there'd have to be at least two sent out with us, but I didn't say anything.

“I know mom, don’t worry.” He told her, hugging her back before looking down at her. He looked more like her more than anyone right then. I watched them for a moment longer, before deciding to look elsewhere, letting them speak for a moment.

“I’m a mother; I have to worry, if I didn’t what would I do with my time?” She asked Nixon, smiling at him. She pat
ted
his shoulder, and then let her eyes move back to me and Talon.

Nixon smiled at her when she wasn't paying
attention
, leaned down and kissed her cheek before moving on to his dad and exchanging a few words with him. His father patted his back and then Nixon jogged over to us. Looking from me to Talon, before nodding his head.

“Ready to go when you are.” He said to us, bouncing on his feet a bit. He seemed hyper, but I figured it was happiness that he had seen his family for a short while. In the end, I guess I did something for them, more than they did something for me. Smiling to myself at that thought, I waited to see what Talon had to say.

“Good, then let’s get going.” Talon announced, and without another word he quickly stalked off into the darkness ahead of us.

“Always a cheery one isn’t he?” I asked Nixon as I rolled my eyes and started after him. I wanted to kick him as hard as I could, repeatedly, for going off like that without us.

I heard Nixon laugh from behind me, and then he was beside me once more. I envied him that kind of speed, it was unnatural and unfair. I followed him back to the castle, or well, that's all I could really think of to call it.

When I got back to the room, I slammed the door shut without meaning to. Then I ran over to my bed and collapsed on it. I was immediately out cold, probably snoring.