Re: In the orchard: Daniel/Aubrey
Aubrey, or the vapour-fragments of his consciousness that swirled around inside the wolf’s head, did not retain any kind of corporeal form. Obviously. But the same way that the man could feel the wolf’s nonverbal judgements and opinions even when he was man-shaped, or the way that he paced when he was restless, inside Aubrey’s head - the reverse was true, too. The wolf smelled withering flesh and had the distinct impression of the man standing at the forefront of his mind, one hand pressed flat against a pane of glass.
Aubrey knew that corpse. Daniel?
More dead things, the wolf thought with a silent snarl. He felt the man’s suppressed eye roll, even as their gaze darted behind the place where the dead thing stood. Warm, wet breath that still smelled like blood huffed out in a cloud around the wolf’s head as he scented the air, then slowly trotted in a wide circle, threading between the rows of trees.
Just one thing, then. Aubrey was back now, fully in the driver’s seat, and realizing with the sensation of a brick sinking down through his stomach just how far back he’d gone. Leaving the wolf to drive. He circled back around to face Daniel head on. He followed dead-Daniel’s gaze around the orchard and then looked back at him steadily, the glow of his eyes like golden coals. And then he did a very un-wolflike thing. Particularly un-Alpha, if the subsonic growl that was thrumming through his chest was to be taken at value.
Aubrey turned his back on the dead thing that looked like a man he’d known once. He’d heard about vampires, and reanimated corpses. Hadn’t seen any yet, that he knew. Just wolves, and magic users out in the woods. But he knew better than to turn his back on another predator, and he did it anyway. He trotted off between the trees, perpendicular to the way that the rows ran in neat lines. After two or three, he looked back over his shoulder to see if the dead guy followed.