24 AD

"Good morning."

The crisp air was heavily laden with the smells of wood smoke and sizzling meat. Helix turned two prepared rabbits on a makeshift spit over the open flames. Eslein stretched as she sat up, her eyes quickly flicking over the food and Helix's appearance.

The corners of her mouth flicked up ever so slightly as she, at last, brought her gaze to his. "Good morning. I see your hunting skills are not confined to your hairy self."

Helix made a face. Deciding not to acknowledge her comment he pulled the food from the spit. "Sleep well?"

"Actually yes." Eslein took the food her eyes dancing hungrily. "Thank you."

"You are welcome. So, why were you out here crying in the woods?"

"How did you piss a god off so bad he turned you into a wolf?" Her tone was hard.

Helix took another bite of his food staring at her. "If I tell you my story will you tell me yours?"

Her lovely blue eyes were guarded, fear flickering through her attempts to appear cold. But, at last, she agreed, "Okay."

Taking a breath, Helix began his story, a story he hadn't told anyone. From being a young prince in Arcadia to seeing her in the stream he left no important detail out. It took the better part of two days for the full telling of it. They took only the necessary breaks for hunting and bodily necessities. For the most part, Eslein listened quietly, occasionally asking a question to clarify some point.

A near overwhelming sense of calm overtook Helix as finished the tale. It relieving to speak all of it aloud, to another living person. He did not feel quite so alone.

Eslein watched him, a considering expression gracing her face. "Your life is-" she hesitated to search for a word.

"Crazy? Backward? Fucked?"

The corners of her mouth tilted into a smirk. "I was going to say fascinating."

He grunted, not convinced.

Shrugging in response, Eslein continued, "I understand why you took Ares offer, but you know she will be back? Decuma is The Seer of the Future. Ares might hold her power, and even her captive, but even he can't keep her locked up forever."

"Hopefully, I'm dead and gone then by the time she resurfaces." Eslein did not offer an opinion on his hope. Nor did he ask her too. As the silence stretched, broken only by the quiet whisper of their own breathing, Helix became restless. "I believe the deal was a story for a story?"

Instantly she tensed, eyes wary, expression uncomfortable. "Yes. But-" She stood suddenly, "We have stayed here long enough. Let's move on and I will," she sighed, "I will tell you as we travel."

Finding her offer fair, Helix stood and cautiously stretched. His pain had dwindled to more of a mild annoyance than anything else. An occasional, abdominal twinge was all that remained.

It took less than ten minutes to pack her belongings and put out the remnants of the fire. "When we met you didn't know where you were going. Any idea now?"

Eslein glanced into the distance, "I have... had, a sister that I would like to find, and properly burn her body if your Roman men have moved out of the fort."

Helix heard the crack, in her strange, foreign, yet still understandable words. There was a pang of sympathy for her loss. Nodding, he picked up her bag. "Lead on." She glanced suspiciously from his face to the pack he held. "You can carry it if you prefer?"

He moved to hand it to her, but she shook her head. "No. It's fine. Thank you for the help."

He slung the bag back over his shoulder. "I am sorry about your sister."

Eslein gave a small nod. After a short time, she spoke again, "My sister is a year younger than me. We were born to a whore in a small village just outside Capua. Around my twelfth year, the Madam of the brothel tried to put me to work. Something came over me and in my fear I snapped. I broke her arm."

Smirking slightly, she continued. "In the same month, she tried to put my sister to work. So I broke her other arm. After that, we were shunned. Even our mother pushed us away. We traveled around, doing what we could in order to survive. One day we helped a man who was being robbed on the road. Distracting and restraining his assailant. That man was Tacfarin. He'd seen my eyes change during the scuffle.

"For years he seemed understanding, offering us clothes, food, basic fight training, and a place to live. Then one day he told me I had to pay for his hospitality." She swallowed hard, grabbing a twig and breaking it as she passed. "He sent me to Aquileia, to kill a man."

Like parts of a puzzle, the pieces slowly snapped into place, "Dramus."

Eslein nodded. "Tacfarin arranged for me to be captured by men who would get me close to the target." Her eyes clouded. "He told me if I failed he would kill Alexa."

Helix stopped dead, staring at her. Could it be a coincidence?

The witch stopped as well, "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"The men we killed, they mentioned an Alexa distracting the man they had bound to the tree."

Like the igniting of some bright flame, her eyes sparked. "He lied. She's alive!" Spinning on her heel Eslein ran.

"Who lied?" His question was ignored as she vanished into the trees. "Damn." The woman was fast, getting faster as the air thickened signaling her use of what power resided within her. Helix took off after her. She wasn't hard to follow, making no attempt at stealth. Even if she had been silent, and he blindfolded, Helix was fairly certain he could follow her by scent alone.

Each pounding step increased a strange desire to- shout? She was outpacing him now and quickly gaining more speed. Growling low in his throat Helix pushed himself faster. He was so focused on increasing his speed that he did not notice until it was too late that she had stopped. Skidding to an ungrateful stop beside her Helix found himself face to face with a wolf.

"Friends of yours?" Her tone was furious, insinuating that he was somehow trying to halt her progress toward her sister.

Friends? Plural. Helix's eyes darted around. Three on the left, two on the right and the big grey in front of him. All of them with hackles raised and teeth bared.

"Not that I know of."

"Do something wolfman!" She hissed.

"Like what?" What exactly was she expecting him to do? Bark at them and explain why they needed to get out of the way?

The big grey in front snarled drawing his gaze. Annoyance and anger filled him at the sound. "Go on get!" The wolf snarled in response.

"Try something else."

"Any suggestions?"

"I'm willing to bet that's the pack leader. Get him to back off and the others will follow."

"Okay. But how?"

Eslein did not have time to answer as the grey leaped at Helix.

Pain, hot and sickening, tore through every part of his being. Time slowed as his lungs began to burn, his skin shrieked like it was being stretched and torn, much in the same way his clothes now were. His bones, his bones were the worst, they felt like they were splintering into a thousand piercing shards. Judging from the cloud of fine red mist floating around him perhaps they were.

The mist was instantly replaced with drooling barred fangs and grey fur. The wolf was atop him. Helix let out what he thought was half an angry shout and half a pained cry. The sound that split the air was menacing and ferocious. A snarling roar, deep in pitch and loud enough to startle the roosting birds for a mile in every direction. Regardless of the pain, he had to act. Act or die. Huge black paws kicked once, sending the grey wolf skyward. It landed with a thud and whimper a few feet away. Helix was up and on him, black pelt raised in anger, teeth bared in warning. The grey whined exposing his throat and belly in submission. A feeling of triumphant glee swept over Helix. Lifting his head he howled.

Eslein covered her ears, fear, and awe in her ocean blue gaze. Noticing her, Helix quieted and let the grey wolf up. Snapping a warning at him as he stood. The beast tucked its tail keeping his head low. Trotting over to the woman Helix sat and stared at her.

"What?"

Helix blinked his yellow eyes and tilted his head ever so slightly.

Eslein rolled her eyes assuming his meaning. "Cocky bastard."

He huffed and stood. The rest of the wolf pack paced around, following the lead of their former alpha in submissive posturing toward him. Helix let his gaze slide over each one before letting out a howl and rubbing toward the, now ransacked fortress where Eslein hoped to find her sister.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Helix slowed, the witch and his new wolf friends with him. There was no way he was going to be bursting through the tree line as a wolf, with six more wolves and a woman trailing him. Though the pandemonium of such actions would be entertaining to watch.

Eslein seemed to realize the same danger and stopped beside him. "Perhaps I should go alone from here?"

He did not care much for that plan and growled slightly in answer.

She gathered the meaning. "You have a better plan?"

Did he have a better plan? Not really. If he could turn human again, then he could help. But no, he was not sure how to do that. Even if he did succeed in instantly figuring it out, he would still be naked, and he was fairly sure that walking out of the forest naked with her would be just as bad as walking out as a wolf.

Huffing, he shook his head in answer to her question. With no small amount of effort, he tried to speak. The words were rough on the ears, punctuated by growls and coughs as Helix forced the language out, "Call if you need me. I will hear."

Her eyes flickered with a hint of amusement, "You got it."

Helix watched her grateful form slip from tree to tree, drawing ever nearer the ruins. As they neared he could see a few men, Romans, still milling about. Eslein paused, hiding behind what was likely to be her last bit of cover without being spotted.

Tension lifted his hackles higher. To his right the grey wolf he'd fought growled slightly. Helix instinctively understood. The other wolf had picked up on his tension and was asking if he could attack the cause. With a great effort, Helix calmed himself, the grey wolf calming next to him.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Eslein only made it a few steps into the clearing before the soldiers spotted her. With crude comments and mocking laughs, they surrounded her. Remaining calm, Helix ignored the powerful urge to kill, arising solely because of at the men's actions. Even when one of the brutes grabbed her arm and pulled her away he still waited.

Her wail of agony, a few seconds after rounding a broken corner, however, launched him into action. Helix, and the six wolves trailing him attacked. The humans were still frozen in shock as the first of them died. Perhaps he should feel remorse for the killing, but Helix didn't. Not even close. His powerful jaws closed around the sword arm of his nearest attacker. Shrieks of pain echoed through the ruins as his fangs tore muscle from bone. The soldier collapsed blood spurting. With a snarl, Helix ripped out his throat.

Ignoring the coppery taste in his mouth, the black wolf quickly scanned the scene around him. Finding Eslein he instantly knew the cause of her pain. Five crosses stood behind the wall. Farthest to the left hung the broken, crucified body of a young woman. Even in death Helix could see the resemblance to Eslein.

The witch released hell, forcibly stealing the closest man's gladius, her power pulsing through the air like waves against a shoreline. Like the predator she was, Eslein attacked killing, again and again. Anyone within striking distance died.

One look at the tortured Alexa and the men hanging next to her made Helix's blood boil. He had seen crucifixion before. But these people, these people he somehow knew were innocents. Perhaps it was their still lingering scent. Or maybe it was the fact that every single body, except the woman, was that of a Roman soldier, one of them a man he recognized. The coward that ran away in the woods. In the back of his mind, he knew the truth. These men, and possibly Eslein's sister, died because of him.

Releasing a howl to the sky Helix threw himself into the battle. His sole intent to kill as many of Eslein's enemies as possible.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Authors Note: I'm sorry, I know these updates take me forever. Life is chaos I swear. Anyway, let me know what y'all think!

This chapter is dedicated to adenisetumblin . You have no idea how much more I'm paying attention to my 'had' issue since your feed back! I really am terrible about it and I know better! So thank you!