Transformed [W&W Book 1]

Chapter 6

She ran with all the frenzied speed she could muster towards the rocks.

Only too late did she realize she had reached a terrible spot with tall sheer rocks surrounded her on either side.

The gray dog cornered her against the very cliff face that she had thought might be a refuge.

She looked up desperately. The rock was too smooth here for her to hope to scale.

She had no choice so Theresa faced the dog, fur on end.

This dog had looked smaller than the others, but up close it towered over her. It closed in steadily, no longer running.

She could smell its foul scent. It knew that it had her cornered and that there was nothing she could do about the situation.

It moved forward, growling softly, closer and closer.

She could no longer imagine there was intelligence in those eyes. They were filled with only the mad joy of a successful hunt.

She had no control over the panic that swept through her entire being.

Theresa knew it was going to kill her with a pure, sadistic pleasure. Her mind was hopelessly blank and she cowered in the corner of the rocks.

Its small, mean eyes stared at her. Drool continued to slide down its panting mouth.

Theresa could feel its breath on her and she could do nothing but wait for its teeth to close into her flesh.

She was frozen in fear. She could not breathe. She was going to die.

Then something happened that Theresa expected no more than the dog in front of her could have.

Some brutal desire for survival welled up inside her. She hissed and lashed out with her feline speed and raked the beast across its face with her sharp claws. The dog howled in pain.

For a second it was as if everything froze and Theresa stared at the face that she had ripped. Both eyes were shut, although the one on the right had clearly born the blunt of her attack.

Every detail etched itself in her mind as blood began to well up in the vicious cuts. It pooled around the dog's eyes before slipping down the sides of its face.

Theresa felt bemused horror that her small paws had done such brutal damage.

Then the dog's lips pulled back from his teeth and he lunged blindly forward, snapping at her.

Theresa dodged and scrambled past the dog. She ran along the base of the cliff. The other dogs barked and snarled as they pursued, but she ignored them as she streaked away.

She leapt upon up a ledge of the cliff face and climbed frantically until she was certain that she was safely out of reach of the dogs.

She paused for a moment and took a deep breath before she continued to climb. She could hear the injured dog's pained, enraged whining behind her when the braying occasionally subsided.

When she reached the top, Theresa glanced down behind her.

She was extremely high up; she doubted she could have made it to the top in her old human form.

The gray dog was still snarling and whining, but had curled up pitifully. The other two danced around and howled their defeat.

Theresa felt the smallest glimmer of regret that she had to hurt the animal, but she pushed it aside began to run.

Her heart was frantically pumping, whether from her close scrape or exertion she did not know.

She was shaken up by the violence of her nature. She was disgusted by the vision of what her claws had done to its face, though she had only done what she needed to do to survive.