Walking back to the house with a wolf cub in my hands seemed like the craziest thing I've ever done. Chase trailed behind me, skeptically watching the wolf.
"Where did you come from?" I started playing with its paw in my hand.
"Skyler," Chase piped up, "this is a bad idea. I mean 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 bad."
I stopped walking to face him.
"What is your father going to say? And where the heck are you even going to keep it? This is insane." he mumbled, a million thoughts running through his mind.
I looked him dead in the eye, "Claw."
"𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵?"
"I'm going to name him Claw." I simply stated again and continued to walk.
"Skyler! Are you even listening to me? Or listening to yours-"
I waved my hand to cut him off.
"I'll hide him. I've a huge room if you haven't noticed and I'll sneak in food. Not to mention that the palace is huge too. Everything will be fine."
"But it's a wolf. Not a herbivore."
I stopped again, looking down at the now sleeping beast cub in my hands with its fang slightly piercing my arm.
I ran the options in my head. "He's special."
Chase sighed as he knew I wasn't going to give this one up. I reached the house, stepped inside, and sat down by the fire.
I twirled the blue ends of Claw's fur around my fingers. I couldn't just leave him.
He was chained and attacked, probably left for dead. There was just something about him that I couldn't ignore.
"Not a word about this to anyone," I mentioned as Chase sat down next to me.
His head shot up to look at me.
"You think I'm going to tell someone that you have a wolf hidden in your palace? Are you dumb?"
He more like stated and I would have punched him if I weren't carrying a fluffy fluff ball.
"I'm just worried about you, Skyler."
I didn't say anything and just stared into the fire, the heat warm on my face.
"I need to go home," I said after a while, standing up with Chase following suit.
"How are you going to get in? They'll kill Claw if they see him. You know that"
I thought for a while, reached up to my jacket zipper, pulled it down and stuffed Claw in.
Chase shook his head in disbelief and went over to the room across. He came back carrying a much puffier and bigger jacket than me and I shrugged it on.
"Stay safe Scott." He wrapped his lean but strong arms around me as I got to the door.
"You too."
I stepped into the cold.