Fighting For Him

Chapter 8

“Good luck.” The guy says as I turn to leave the opening, I bark quietly in the only form of thanks I can give and slink into the shadows. As the breeze whips around the trees the first thing I do is inhale in its scent to see what it is carrying, that was the first lesson my dad taught me: to categorise and separate different smells. Animals hunt in different ways and have different strengths, cats are great at hunting by sound and canine’s strength is hunting by scent, it’s the same for shifters. At the moment as a wolf my sense of smell is my most trust worthy sense and if wolves use it to track down their prey then it is good enough for me.

On the wind I can smell the trees and animals and underneath that the unmistakable scent of one shifter, that means it is close, I take in the smell again but it’s a scent I don’t recognise so it isn’t one of my friends, however, it could also just be an official. Picking up speed I jump over roots and weave through trees in the opposite direction, I don’t want to engage in contact with anyone I don’t know, if I can help it. Slowing my pace I trot for a while just listening to my surroundings, letting my senses take over and expand way past the rate of a human. A branch snaps behind me and I pause and look over my shoulder into the depths of the woods, my eyes may be good but if there is only a wall of darkness not even a shifter can see through that. Out of the corner of my eye I see a blur of beige flash across the gap in a tree and I growl low in my throat following the sound of the paws in the dirt.

Then it goes silent again and my hackles raise, I spread my legs out in a defensive stance and my lips pull back to reveal my teeth. I look from side to side but there is no sound and no scent of the wolf, after a few more minutes of nothing I start to relax again and straighten up my posture, it is then that I am attacked from behind.

Claws sink into my back and I howl at the feeling of them tearing into my flesh, in a moment of panic, I lunge to one side and the claws scrape down the fleshy part of my right thigh before I have the chance to fully pull away and dislodge them. On instinct I spin to face my attacker and look into the blue eyes of a sandy coloured wolf whose cold stare chills me to the bone, this one isn’t going to fight nicely. With that thought in the forefront of my brain I launch myself at her and take out her front legs, she yelps in surprise as she loses balance and her weight hits me as she crumbles on to my back. She whines before she growls at me but with one shove I throw her body to the base of the nearest tree and jump back to my feet facing her head on. Her tail is between her legs indicating that she is actually scared of me and sees me as a threat and the predator inside of me rejoices at this fact and my wolf grins smugly. Slowly I stalk my prey, blocking out the pain from my own leg where blood is steadily trickling and congealing in my fur.

After a moment she forces herself back onto her paws with shaky legs and stupidly she attempts to pounce, but as she bends her knees she whines and falls back to the floor. I had apparently done more damage to her legs then I thought I would. I trot over to her but this time she licks my muzzle, rolls onto her back and whines, the sign of submission. Backing away I sit on my hind legs and nod my head, she rolls back onto her stomach and out of nowhere another wolf appears this one as dark as the night, it towers slightly over us and I can tell it is a male, one of the officials. He looks at me with dark brown emotionless eyes, tinged with a lighter colour, and nods his head then turns his attention to the girl.

I stay to watch what happens next, in no rush to come across some other female intent on my destruction. He bends down and sniffs the air around her, I can only assume sniffing for blood, satisfied that there isn’t any he lowers his body and lines it up next to hers, he places his head under her leg and with some light movements gets the girl on his back. Getting back to his feet he looks back at me, there is no expression in his eyes, this is just his job, he isn’t judging what I did and I guess he wouldn’t since this is the reason I am here. Nodding his large black head he turns and trots away with the beige wolf and I am once again alone.