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Eleanor laughed and rubbed her eyes. With the girls, there was always something exciting happening. Something interesting. Unlike her own town. Nothing fun ever happened in Deepwood. Well, nothing except marrying off young women against their will.
She waited for Carla to add their other friends to the call, and toyed with the idea of returning to Silver Springs that evening. She knew it would piss off Xander, but she didn’t particularly care.
With everything that was happening in Deepwood, it was the last place she wanted to be at the moment. She was about to inform Carla that she was on her way over when she heard an impatient knock on the door.
She frowned and looked up, wondering who it was. She cursed under her breath as the knock came again, determined to give whoever it was a piece of her mind. She was climbing out of her bed when a third knock sounded, more impatient than the first, and she felt her ears burn red in anger.
What the hell?
Chapter 2 - Blake
The forest was awake.
All around Blake, things began to come alive. He felt more than saw as life sprung up systematically in the greenery. He felt connected to nature, an integral part of the cycle of life and natural selection.
He never felt quite so at home as he did when he was here. This was his element. This was what he was made for.
He listened and heard the crawling and creeping things as they went about their business under the dirt, beneath his concern, but still intricately connected to this ecosystem.
He heard a rodent twenty meters away scurry up a tree in search of its morning nutrition. Further down, a large buck drank cautiously from the cold brook, knees braced, legs prepared to disappear into the thick bushes at the slightest provocation.
Blake crouched low, his belly brushing gently against the needles and fallen leaves on the forest floor. His breath fogged in front of him, adding to the thick mist that shrouded the entire forest.
His only motion was his breathing. Otherwise, he was as quiet as death. From the top of the ridge where he was perched, his visibility was less than zero. He didn’t need to see, though. He knew exactly where his target was.
The deer could sense him too. He could smell its fear drifting up the ridge in thick rivulets. It drove his wolf mad, but Blake pulled him in.Not yet. Soon, but not yet.
His wolf conceded, albeit grudgingly. All he cared about was the hunt. The chase, the trap, the capture. The kill. The wolf pulsated with unbelievable strength, begging to be released. Begging to give chase.
If Blake had been younger, he may have given in to those impulses. But he wasn’t so young anymore. He was a seasoned hunter now. A merchant of death.
For him, the hunt was an art form, and he enjoyed the process more than anything. So he took his time and savored every moment of it. Relished it. Lived for it. Slowly, he edged forward, trusting the thick mist to mask whatever sound he made as he prowled closer.
The buck shifted uncomfortably as Blake drew closer, but it didn’t know where the threat came from. It ran a risk of running right into the mouth of the beast if it acted too swiftly. It had no idea how many foes were closing in on its position. All it could do was wait and watch.
And hope.
Blake was only a few yards from the buck now. His wolf bayed his impatience and pushed him to attack. He smiled. Not yet. He needed the buck to make a mistake. He was close enough now that the beast’s fear was so thick it was almost tangible.
He leaned down on his haunches, ready to pounce. His heart beat excitedly, but he controlled his excitement, holding himself back with a vise-like grip. He slowed down his breathing and counted his heartbeats, using them to time the buck.
The beast finally broke, the tension and fear beating out everything else it had learned about survival. Blake’s wolf howled happily. Finally.
Blake took off with a powerful pounce, and was on the buck’s side in two heartbeats. The buck turned to see him and panicked. It ran across the shallow brook toward a rocky incline that rose into a low hill, the exact place Blake needed it to be.
Too late, it discovered that it had maneuvered itself into its death. It was too full of vegetation and water to outrun an alpha on the rocky incline. It tried to correct its error, but Blake patiently cut off all its escape routes.
After fifteen heartbeats, he leaped high into the sky, swiping downward with a powerful blow that scored deep into the beast’s hind side. Its legs buckled as blood poured out of the massive wound on its side.
It cried in vain, but no one was coming to its rescue. Blake sank sharp, massive teeth into the buck’s jugular and ripped it out clean. He drank the warm blood greedily, savoring the rich taste of the healthy beast.
It twitched, its eyes wide open in disbelief. Blake felt bad for it. It had died the moment he’d marked it as a target. Slowly, Blake proceeded to gorge himself full with his kill. After forty-five minutes of feeding, he decided he’d had enough and called it a morning well spent.
***
Blake had needed the hunt. At that very moment, in Deepwood, Xander and his pack elders were preparing to find a wife for him. A woman he knew nothing about. Thanks to some ancient oath their packs had made.
He and Xander had tried everything possible to change the minds of the elders regarding the oath, but nothing had stuck. He had a responsibility to his people, he was told. And that responsibility trumped his personal views and preferences.
