Lars the wolf: present.

Author note: this is the third and last part of the "Lars the wolf" short stories. Remember that all of them are told from Lars' point of view, so what the narrator explains is not the objective truth or my vision as an author, but how Lars sees the world and judges those around him.

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Burning Wild Beast was not part of the plan. They were going to kidnap Yule, get Ragnar to come back home and finish what they should have done all those years ago, but they weren't going to burn that place down. If it had only been Ragnar's home, Lars wouldn't have cared if it burned to the ground, but it was also the home of Ethan and Skye, his new friends who were not to blame for getting together with that bastard.

Lars would have stopped Axel if he had seen it coming, but it happened too fast and by the time he realized what he was doing the flames were already igniting part of the room and Axel had urged him to run. Lars took flight by inertia, but his brain was locked, trying to make sense of what was happening.

“What have we done?” he kept repeating over and over in his head, but his legs wouldn't stop running. Down the stairs. Skye's empty reception room. The front door. Grass. The forest.

Lars stopped dead in his tracks between the trees and looked back, witnessing flames consuming the place Ethan and Skye called home.

“What are you doing, let's go! If we get caught here it will all have been for nothing,” Axel told him nervously.

Axel... Axel had burned the house down, but it wasn't his fault. If Lars had had time to introduce him to Ethan and Skye he surely wouldn't have, because Axel was no monster.

“It's my fault,” Lars thought tormented by his bad decisions. “It's my fault because I didn't explain to him that they were important to me, he didn't know.”

Axel's hand gripped his arm, trying to pull him back and calm himself.

“My love, please...”

Then Lars heard him.

“Ethan....!!!”

Skye was screaming as if the life was being ripped out of him. Lars' body made a decision before his head did, he dropped Yule on the ground and bolted into the house through one of the back doors.

“Lars!”

Axel's completely shocked voice was left behind in mere seconds. Soon all the noise around Lars turned to creaking wood and the crackling of flames. He had to find him, he had to find his friend.

He climbed the stairs and didn't have to look too hard. Ethan was lying under a pile of planks that Lars sensed belonged to the ceiling of the upper floor. He didn't know if he was dead or alive, but Lars began to push wood aside with a shot of adrenaline that added to the muscles he'd been working his whole life to be able to protect Axel from anyone who might try to hurt him. That day would serve him well in protecting Ethan.

Almost out of breath, Lars managed to free him and, without a second thought, he slung him over his shoulder and ran back the way he had come.

Axel's face when he saw him return was one of pure relief. He picked Yule up off the ground and carried the two bodies back to his home.

“Don't you ever do anything like that to me again, Lars. I swear I thought I'd die,” Axel snapped at him along the way as he tried to hold back tears. Lars smiled under his mask, happy to see how much his partner cared.

Back at home, Lars treated Ethan's wounds and let him rest on the bed with Axel's approval. His leg was broken and he had burns all over, but it didn't look like his life was in danger.

Yule started screaming at them as soon as he came to his senses. The boy had too much rage for such a small size, and not even the slap Axel gave him managed to quell his fury.

“I owed you,” Axel told him calmly, although Lars didn't quite understand what he meant. It didn't matter, before long they would kill Ragnar and Yule would be next, because something told him that the wildcat wasn't going to leave them alone after seeing his boyfriend die.

Lars focused his attention on Ethan despite the other boy's screams and absurd threats. He would be okay, he would apologize to Ethan and Skye for what they had done and they would surely forgive him because even though they had burned down the house, they had redeemed themselves by saving Ethan's life. That would be enough, wouldn't it?

Lars nodded his head, wanting to affirm with his body what he knew in his mind was not true. Axel seemed to notice he wasn't alright, because he sat down next to him on the floor and held his hand.

“You are the nicest person I know,” he told him with absolute seriousness. “There is no one in this world who deserves to have you torture yourself for them, and I include myself in that list.”

Lars relaxed and squeezed his hand. Ethan was safe and Axel loved him. Though cracks carved by guilt were beginning to appear in his heart, he would have to be content with that for the time being.