Valaria nodded, surveying the bodies around them when Roe did. It looked like some curious blend of beast attack, a number of them mauled while the others bore obvious sword wounds. When Celyn and Oscar had said that they were werewolves, she realized that she hadn’t really believed it. It had only been a concept, a claim. Seeing them change right before her eyes had been an experience that she wasn’t sure she had been ready for.
All the same, whether it had been frightening or not, they had helped them. She murmured an agreement to Roe when he said that they should go. Staunton would be waking soon, if he wasn’t quite already.
As Valaria was turning to make her way back, the sound of someone coming towards them through the trees alerted her. She grabbed the bow and knocked an arrow just to be safe, poised to shoot if it was a straggler, but it was only Celyn.
Celyn, who was naked a baby and absolutely indifferent about it, as though he often went strolling about through strange woods and dead bodies in just such a state. Valaria’s eyes widened and her face turned a deep shade of red, but she carefully replaced the arrow in her claimed quiver and fitted the bow over her chest, keeping her eyes diverted. Tonight seemed to be a night of firsts; her first kill, first time seeing a naked man—those didn’t usually go hand in hand, did they?
“No,” she managed, shaking her head with a glance at Roe. “T-thank you. They could have killed us if you hadn’t—” Fire, the smell of burning flesh, agonized screams, Valaria swallowed and forced the memory away. “—Or worse.”
Oscar came through the brush next, just as naked as Celyn, and Valaria abruptly turned away, feeling somewhat mortified. Funny, she thought, that she should be more bothered by that, than seeing them in their other shape. The older werewolf looked at the bodies and then his nephew, oblivious to the young woman’s discomfort. “You’ve done well. They were soldiers of some sort, I’m sure of it. The last one I killed plead in Spanish, I think. I don’t speak it, myself.”
Oscar leveled his gaze on the girl, frowning at her back, then looked to Roe. “Glad you both are alive. I…ask that you keep what you have seen of us here quiet, Mr. Roe. Your master is aware of us, of course, but we broke the rules of our pack tonight, changing in front of you. I apologize for that, but we were left with little choice.”