SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Sixteen
WITCHCRAFT.
That was the only explanation Naomi had that could explain how Rayner had shape-shifted from a wolf to a normal and smiling teenage boy. Other than that, her mind could not even begin to fathom the possibilities. It was all too out of question, too bizarre to even consider.
“Where are we headed to?” Rayner asked, oblivious to the fact that Naomi was staring at him with eyes wide as saucers and jaw hanging agape.
“I was thinking of bringing Naomi around to see the rest of the fortress. Want to come along?” Argus asked, slapping the other boy playfully on the shoulders before pulling him into a walk. He turned back, waving his free hand over his shoulder in a beckoning motion. “Come on, lowlander! You are going to catch flies with a mouth opened that wide.”
Snapping back out to reality, Naomi frantically shook her head, her dark hair flying in the mind as she scrambled to pick her bag from the ground. With her boots thudding along the stone pavement, she easily caught up to both Argus and Rayner who were both laughing merrily at something Rayner had said. Prior to him calling out to her, she had not even heard a single word spoken. She was too engrossed in her own thoughts, submerged in a pool of ’why’s and ’how’s.
“I am afraid that I do not understand.” The words immediately tumbled out of Naomi’s mouth the second she reached Argus’s side, still very wary of the pale young teenager that stood at the far right of the trio. “Rayner... Was he not a wolf mere seconds ago?”
It must have been something she had said because the laughter immediately halted, withering and dying to an awkward silence as Argus pursed his lips. Rayner, on the other hand, merely shrugged nonchalantly.
“So what? It’s been like that for years. I do not even remember a time where I was not part-wolf.”
“How?” Naomi asked incredulously. “You were a wolf in the forest and up until we reached the inner city, you stayed that way. How did you become a fifteen-or-so-year-old teenage boy?”
Storm clouds began to gather in Rayner’s eyes, turning his forest-green irises into an icy pale that held ghosts of the past. His smile fell like an innocent man being pushed down a cliff, plummeting away into nothingness due to gravity’s evil. If there was anything to describe Rayner, he was now a bird that could not fly, stuck on the ground for the rest of its miserable life.
“I do not wish to talk about it,” he curtly replied before shooting Argus a look. He still stared at Naomi from the corner of his eye but Naomi knew that it was no longer friendly. “I think it is better if I were to return home first. Mother will be looking for me.”
With that, Rayner separated from the other two without another glance nor word. His body slinked into the crowd, blending in with the sea of people before completely disappearing even with his height.
Naomi caught one last flash of silvery gray hair, her eyes lingering on the spot that she had last spotted it. All the while, her heart was thundering against her chest, frantically pounding even though she knew not of why.