The Werewolf Order (Erotica)

She has difficulty locating Lynette; not wanting to peer into every room in the castle, she finally stops a servant who leads her towards the far end of the second floor. In the small room, Lynette has an easel set up near the window; her short pencil strokes make rasping noises on the coarse parchment as she draws the view of the town below.

“My Lady?” Margaret asks quietly with a knock on the door.

Lynette turns to her; it takes a moment for her to place the maiden, “Hello Margaret.”

“Hello,” she replies with a curtsey, “I was wondering if you weren’t too busy, perhaps you could come sit with Coral for a bit?”

Lynette immediately puts her pencil down and walks forward, “Of course.” As they make their way down the hall, she speaks softly, “Is she… better?”

Margaret frowns, “She is not in a fit of screaming if that is what you are asking.” Seeing Lynette startle, she draws in a deep breath, “I am sorry, my Lady. I do not know what is wrong with Coral or how to fix it but I am trying all that I can. I thought that it would be best if she had some company, something to do to get her mind off of what happened in Centurion. It seems that she now has a fear of centaurs, at least of Quell and the Doctor. I was hoping that perhaps a woman centaur would be a good way to get her used to your kind again.”

“I am afraid I don’t share your confidence,” Lynette speaks quietly, “Coral is quite fearful of the Queen. Yesterday when she awoke, Kiera was the first to arrive and though she tried, Coral was just as terrified of her as she was of Quell.”

They stop outside of Coral’s bedroom door; Margaret hands Lynette the book, “Well I will leave you to gauge her reaction; use your best judgment. I will do what I can to keep her from throwing anything at you if it comes to that. Let me slip in first and remind her.”

She opens the door, walking across the room; circling the small sofa, she stands in front of Coral, seeing the healer staring off into the flames of the fire, entranced by their movements, “Coral?”

Though Coral looks up, she does not respond.

Margaret clears her throat and continues, nodding to Lynette to enter, “Lynette is here to read to you.” Carefully, she watches her friend’s reaction; it isn’t until Lynette nears and her muffled hoof clops become audible that Coral tenses. Nervously, Margaret’s eyes dart to the centaur’s-Lynette noticed Coral’s reaction and takes care to step as softly as she can. When Lynette stops next to the sofa and Coral looks up, her lips press together and her chest begins to rise and fall faster as her eyes wander down the centaur’s body to her brown fur.

Lynette notices the beginnings of Coral’s panic and quickly kneels down next to the sofa, keeping her rear pointed away so that only her front is visible to Coral; she takes care to arrange her dress to cover her furry brown forelegs as she watches her sister intently.

Coral’s breathing starts to slow, the tension in her body relaxes. Margaret lets out a sigh in relief, taking a seat next to her friend while speaking to Margaret, “Coral was in the process of updating the herbs in this book. I was thinking that perhaps you could read the entry to her and if there is anything missing, she could tell you what to write in?”

Nodding eagerly, Lynette opens the book to the marked page. Slowly, she begins to read the entry aloud; Margaret watches as Coral’s attention remains on the fireplace, though when Lynette finishes, Coral says a few words she wants the centaur to add to the page. Lynette carefully pens them in , repeating it back to her before continuing on to the next one.

The afternoon progresses at a snail’s pace; Margaret tunes out Lynette’s voice, becoming lost in her own contemplation of how to help Coral overcome her fear. She struggles to piece together what it is that triggers such an adverse reaction-most definitely, the sounds of hooves and even the sight of their half beast body but she cannot figure out why Quell and Kiera cause such instant panic, yet Lynette does not. She wonders if perhaps it is their close relation to Coral’s attacker that that lends them some similarities.

When Lynette starts to shift uncomfortably, Margaret’s attention is drawn back; she glances at the clock and realizes that they have been at it for several hours, “Why don’t we call it a day? Perhaps you two can continue tomorrow afternoon?”

Coral briefly glances over, offering a slow nod with her tired eyes; Lynette carefully shuts the book and places it on the small table near the sofa. She rises to her feet stiffly, “I’d like that. I will see you after lunch tomorrow, Coral.”

Turning her attention over to the centaur, she speaks quietly, “All right.” Both women tense when Coral’s eyes wander down Lynette’s body but when she doesn’t show a reaction, there is a moment of relief.

Lynette offers Margaret a smile. “I will have some dinner sent in,” she says before leaving, taking care to place her hooves quietly so that they make little sound against the carpet.

They sit in silence for a while before Gladys brings them a tray of food, removing the empty one before leaving. Coral doesn’t need to be told to eat, she methodically plucks at the tray without seeming to see or taste any of it.From NôvelDrama.Org.

Margaret watches her carefully, as if judging her affect before she takes a chance, “I’d like to bring Tomir by tomorrow, if that is all right with you, Coral.”

Coral glances at her, her voice flat, “Why?”

“I am trying to figure out how to get you comfortable around centaurs again,” the maiden replies, “I was thinking that he would be a good one to start with. Since you’ve shown fear with Prince Quell, well he-he isn’t quite himself anymore. Tomir has a firm head on his shoulders and if you show fear of him I think he will be able to respond correctly.” She isn’t quite sure how to word it or even if she wants to verbalize it but she knows that Tomir looks vastly different from Quell and his mother.

“If you think it could help,” she mumbles in response before biting into some meat. Coral continues to eat until the tray is almost empty and she is unable to consume anymore. She gets up of her own accord and relieves herself using the chamber pot; after she is finished, Margaret checks it to make sure nothing is out of the ordinary and is relieved to find that it is normal.

“Do you want me to stay with you for a while longer?” the maiden asks.

“No,” Coral says, wandering over to her bed, “I am tired.”

“Very well,” Margaret follows her, helping her out of the robe before tucking her into the covers, “I will come back tomorrow afternoon.” She watches Coral, waiting until her friend is asleep before she excuses herself.

In the hallway, she slips her cloak over her shoulders as she walks down to the front door, somewhat surprised that she doesn’t cross paths with anyone. Once she is outside, she discovers that it had started snowing at some point in the afternoon; pulling her hood up and the fabric tight around her torso, she walks down the ramp and swings a left.

Before she realizes it, she trips over something and tumbles down to the ground, landing hard on her rear. She lets out a startled cry but is even more shocked when she sees Prince Quell resting on the ground. Though his long legs are tucked underneath him, his palomino hide is covered in a dusting of snow to suggest that he has been this way for a while. Margaret slowly rises to her feet, looking him over; he stares off into the distance much like Coral does. His cheeks are bright red from the cold, his white shirt and vest appear damp from where the snow melted against his warm skin.

“Prince Quell?” she says hesitantly while reaching for him; when her hand rests on his shoulder, he jerks as if he didn’t realize she was there. He turns to face her, though she is unnerved at the look in his eyes-it is a wild look, as if he is not entirely himself, as if he is lost. She swallows hard, “Prince Quell, why don’t we go inside?”

He shrugs her hand off of his shoulder, his voice just as cold as the weather, “Leave me be, maiden.”

Frowning, she cannot in good conscious do what he asks. She draws in a deep breath to steady her nerves and uses the tone of voice that she often inflicted upon her younger siblings when they were being unruly, “Come.” She grabs his hand firmly and tugs.

He watches her as she pulls with all of her might, though he doesn’t budge. When she gets frustrated, she walks over to his opposite side and starts pushing, determined to get him to his feet. He sighs and concedes to her attempt and stiffly rises.

Margaret dusts the snow off of her cloak; if she learned anything as the oldest child, it is that she knows she is to take care of those who are weaker than herself. While on a normal day, Prince Quell would never be considered weak, since he returned from Centurion he has not been himself. She takes his hand once more and leads him up the ramp to the castle.

Barely able to care for Coral, she knows she lacks the knowledge to deal with a centaur in this state so she does the only thing she can think of and drags him down to the surgery. “I found him sitting outside in the snow, without a cloak on,” she says to the doctor.

Pelium purses his lips, eyeing the melting snow on Quell’s back, “Thank you, Margaret-I will see to him from here.”

Though she is hesitant to leave, feeling somehow responsible for both Quell and Coral, she reluctantly exits the castle yet again. It pains her to see the suffering around her as it reminds her all too well of her life before Centuarna. Her father was not a good man-he was quick to anger, a drunk and abusive not only to his wife but also to his children. There were a few times where in his intoxicated stupor he attempted to bed Margaret; after that, she took care to always sleep with a board propped up against her bedroom door to prevent his entry, making sure that her younger sisters stayed with her throughout the night to prevent his advances from extending towards them. That, unfortunately, made her mother take the brunt of his needs but Margaret’s pity for the woman only extended so far-she got herself into that situation by choosing a bad husband. Though she believed there were good men out there, she thought them too far and few between and had instilled in herself a distain for marriage of any kind because she thought that if she were to find a husband, he would be no different than her father.