Revolting

All day long Hannah had the uneasy feeling that she was being watched. She kept scanning the trees and the ridgelines, but she couldn't find the source of her unease. She'd briefly forgot her anxiety while she'd been playing around with Michael in the pond, but as soon as she darted back into the forest she felt it pressing heavily on her again, like a physical hand holding tight to the back of her neck. She slipped away from the game trail that she and Michael had used to access the pond, and quickly shifted back into her wolf form. With her wolf's enhanced senses, she put her nose in the air and searched for a scent that didn't belong. At first, she found nothing, but then the wind shifted and her lupine nose was assaulted by the sour smell of human sweat. More than one, and they were close, too close.

She turned her head back toward the pond. She wanted to warn Michael, but if she howled, the humans would know her location. She moved swiftly and silently through the trees, but her head kept turning involuntarily back toward Michael. Her heart was beating fast and fear clouded her mind.

She knew this feeling... this fear, this choking anxiety.

She knew what it was to be hunted.

A memory hit her so hard and fast that it caused her body to cower against the ground. It was as though the memory were happening at that moment. She saw Michael, his handsome face twisted with malice, his eye squinting down the shaft of a silver-tipped arrow. Her eyes followed the trajectory of the arrow to a big, scruffy looking man with auburn hair and brown eyes similar to her own. Fear rose up out of her gut and choked her as the arrow was loosed and sped straight toward the man. His body jerked backward at the impact, and the arrow embedded itself just above his pectoral muscle.

Hannah whimpered and crouched lower. Peering beneath the underbrush she watched a pair of tan work boots creeping down the game path. The feet stopped, there was a rustle, and then the distinct ping of a bow-string being released. Immediately she felt a strange burning in her shoulder. But the wound wasn't hers. Her mind swirled with confusion, and her soul cried out. Michael!

"He's hit!" the human hissed, "But he's not down!"

"Where's the female?" a woman's voice whispered back from a position up the hill.

"I don't know, I lost her. But I know she's close. She's not going to leave her mate."

Hannah felt a slow rage beginning deep in her middle. She didn't understand it, but she wasn't about to question it either.

"Let's circle back to the camp," the feet started moving back up the hill.

"John's going to be pissed you took the shot before we were all in place."

"I had the perfect shot, how could I not take it?"

Suddenly a bellow erupted from the woods near the pond. "HUNTERS!"

The two humans turned and released a barrage of arrows toward the source of the noise.

Hannah's heart beat faster. She flattened her ears against her head and began to slink through the brush, her small, narrow body barely stirring a leaf. Her eyes were watching their feet as they headed back down the trail toward Michael. Something was stirring in her, something fierce and possessive. She followed close on the human's heels. Their attention was on Michael, they didn't even notice the shadow creeping behind them. Another burning pain stabbed her in her hip. "I got him!" The man hissed. "He's down! I'm going in for the kill!" The man lowered his bow and pulled out a long, curved hunting knife.

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"Something is not right, Odin," the woman said, she kept her bow raised as she turned quietly and carefully in a circle. "That was too easy."

There was the sound of shouting and struggle from the camp up the hill, and the woman swore. "Shit, they moved in without us."

"There he is," the man grinned and raised his knife. "My god he's huge!" He was ten meters from the big male, who was grasping his hip and trying to pull himself up by a tree-limb. The hunter started to run toward his target, knife raised. He launched himself over a fallen log, prepared to plunge the knife into the man's heart. At the moment his feet left the ground a white-gray blur launched out of the brush. It was small, but it knocked him to the side, and he couldn't get his feet back underneath him. He tumbled through the leaf litter and dropped the knife. He scrambled through the undergrowth in the dark but just as his fingers closed on the hilt, the pale wolf was on him, her jaws closed around his throat before he could even scream. His cry came out as a muted gurgle as his neck was torn open. The wolf disappeared again into the underbrush like a phantom in the dark.

The woman swore, but the man had fallen into the thick undergrowth, and she couldn't release her arrow without possibly hitting her companion. With a gasp she turned back to the large male, but he was gone. She felt a nervous sweat slide down her back as she looked around her frantically. "Odin! Odin! Fuck!" She waded through the brush to the place he had fallen, and tripped over his body. She fumbled for his pulse but as her hand searched for the artery in the man's neck, she found only blood and raw flesh. She grimaced and wiped her hand on her pants leg. She retrieved his knife and stuck it in the back of her pants as she started to make her way back up the hill.

The yelling had stopped, and the night had gone eerily silent. She swallowed down the bile in her throat and slowly made her way back to the werewolves' camp. The smell of roasting meat tickled her nostril's, but the camp was empty. No sign of werewolves. No sign of McKnight or Bradley.

A gun shot echoed to her left, making her flinch and gasp. McKnight was the only one who carried a firearm. He was the one who insisted they had to make the silent kill. The hunting rifle he kept slung over his shoulder was strictly for emergency purposes. The woman stood frozen, uncertain whether she should move up the ridge to try and help McKnight, or if she should turn tail and run back to their base camp. Before she could make up her mind, McKnight came tearing into the camp. His face was torn open at the cheek, and his shirt was in tatters. "Run! Run Sierra!"

He didn't have to tell her twice! She spun and took off. She could hear snarling and growling from the trees behind him. "What happened!" She gasped as she ran behind him. She could see claw marks running down his back. "Where the hell were you?" McKnight yelled as he skidded in the pine needles on the steep hill. "You and Odin weren't in your positions!"

The woman slid down the hill behind him. "We stumbled on the big male!" she said in her own defense. "Where is Bradley?"

"They got him." McKnight spat. "What about Odin?"

She stopped and leaned heavily on her knees. "Dead," she whispered.

"The male?"

The woman shook her head. "No. I think it was the small female. I never got a good look at her." She paused, resting her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

McKnight opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes grew round as the grey-white wolf came out of nowhere. With a vicious snarl the wolf's canines sank into the back of the woman's neck. Her mouth opened in a scream as the wolf's jaws closed on her spine. There was a crunching noise, and the woman cried out as a strange electrical sensation shot down her back.

"John," She gasped, "I can't..." she fell forward heavily onto her face as she lost all control of her body.