Chapter 356

356 Cocooned in Green

“Wait, what did you say?” the woman behind her asked.

“She was trying to bite her lip. Does that mean something?” Cole asked her.

“Of course it means something,” the woman replied, abandoning the futile attempt at keeping the trees at bay and rushing back to the king, “Do you trust me?” she asked him.

“It’s not like I have a choice at the moment,” Cole shrugged.

“Meh, fair enough,” the woman replied. Claws sprouted from her hands and she slashed her hand across the king’s palm. The claws stopped at the surface of the man and cracked. Cole gasped at the sight of the woman’s bloodied nails, “Aaaah,” she screamed, “Damn it. What are you made of? That is not skin,” the woman replied.

“You should have told me before you did something that stupid. My skin is nearly impenetrable and at the moment, none of us has the tool to cut me. What were you trying to do anyway?” he asked.

“The blood of a royal is what we need. The forest will only know who we are if we present the blood of a royal as proof of permission to be here. The origin will allow any royal, but this one will allow the royal that was here the last time,” the woman said to him, “It’s my theory anyway. Now it makes sense why I could access the one back in Lycaon. I was a fool to think the rules were the same.

“You need my blood huh,” Cole looked crestfallen, “I don’t know how to give you such a thing.”

“Well, what about Katie’s? She was here as well the last time, wasn’t she?” the woman asked, looking at her. If the two of them weren’t werewolves, everything around them would be pitch-black... The space around them was becoming increasingly less and less and the woman was not sure about her theory either, “Hurry, Cole.”

.....

“Don’t rush me... You’re asking me to cut my mate. It’s not that easy, you know,” the man yelled back at her, “Not to mention she won’t have given me permission to do so.”

“Oh, come on. She wouldn’t want you to die either. Would you get moving already?” having had enough of the woman’s nagging, Cole bit the tip of his mate’s finger and watched the blood flow from it. As if the forest sensed the blood, a vine reached out from the bark behind her and coiled around her hand, allowing the blood to seep into the green vine.

The man watched the vine retreat from his mate and he healed her immediately. The two of them stood waiting for the forest to stop crushing them for a bit before realising nothing had changed, “You said this would work.”

“I know what I said, okay. But it doesn’t look like we are in any better situation now, does it? We might need your blood as well, Cole,” the woman replied.

“What if that doesn’t work?” Cole argued. From certainty to a gamble in less than a minute... Were they going to die her? Was the aggressive plant life that threatened to sandwich them actually going to crush them? ‘Just when you think you’ve seen it all... Vampire plants,’ Cole’s thoughts ran amok.

'

“How can we know that when we haven’t tried? Look, I know you don’t have much reason to trust me here, but hey... If it doesn’t work, we could always just wait for our deaths. It would be the grandest death in the history of werewolves... death by trees, but I’m sure of this. Please trust me,” Fauna tried.

Cole looked back to Katie and noticed she was much closer to him than before, her face was so close he could smell the perfume she’d used for the coronation... ‘Nice choice... If only we weren’t in this situation,’ he thought to himself before snapping back to reality. They were running out of space fast... and time. It wasn’t long before the trees would have them completely encased in a constricting cocoon of bark.

“There must be something else that can go through that armour of yours that you haven’t thought of,” Fauna tried encouraging. Her voice was only a distraction.

Cole wracked his brain helplessly for a way out of this situation, but nothing came to him. He had tried... many times after realising what his abilities were. Breaking his skin was one of the few things he didn’t know to do. He could remember a time he’d tried to intentionally injure himself, but it hadn’t worked.

Just like someone could trigger their tickles themselves, his armour rendered him immune to harm and even more from himself than others. Wolves that had found themselves trying to bite him had staggered back with cracked teeth and left him with pinpricks that healed less than seconds later.

This thought, however, had gotten to him. Bites... Werewolves that had bitten him before weren’t able to. But even then, the answer lay within that same thought. It had been staring him straight in the face. The night that he’d gained his most coveted scar. The day was etched in his mind like it was yesterday, never to be forgotten for as long as he lived.

Katie was the only one that had ever bitten him without having to be held back by his body’s indestructible capabilities. “She’s my weakness... and my strength. The irony,” he muttered to himself before pulling his mate into an embrace.

Backed up against Fauna, the woman asked, “Now what are you doing? This is not the time for you to be embracing your mate. The two of you will die if you don’t do anything about this. Damn it... I can’t move. Cole, do something.”

“I’m afraid I can’t move either...” Cole replied through gritted teeth. The forest had completely closed in on the three of them. Air was becoming a meagre resource and panic was hitting its ceiling. In despair, Cole extended his claws and attempted to pierce the insides of his palm, but it was just as he’d thought. Nothing happened. Neither his claws nor the skin of his palms gave way.”

Katie was unconscious and unable to do anything. Cole was unable to break his own skin despite all his attempts. Fauna was... well, Fauna was Fauna. The old woman was cursing every decision she’d ever made in her long life that led to this point. Being crushed by the same nature that you protected and... to some degree, controlled. ‘This can’t be it...’ she mentally called out. This was partly a mental plea to the moon goddess that brought her into this mess in the first place.