Her smell was intoxicating as ever, a sweet trail leading me directly to her.
Humans couldn't understand the complex aroma of a Lycan woman. She smelled like winter to me, a soft, invigorating scent that pulled me across the forest like a thread.
A couple of kilometers away and I could already start to feel her presence. A faint speck of her mind seemed to reach me, I expected fear or rage to hit me, but instead I met a soothing sensation, a deep state of calm.
Perhaps she had already resigned herself, to her fate, to me.
So this was the place she had chosen to face me, an abandoned mine in the middle of nowhere. From the looks of it, this place only had one entrance and no other exit, the poor thing had gotten herself trapped like a rat by her own volition.
I turned into my human form; she always feared me more in this shape. I then walked forward out of the woods and into the clearing where a pathway lead to the mine's entrance, I lifted a fist to put my people to a halt behind me.
''The girl is to be your Queen, you can harm her if you must, but I need her alive. Kill anyone else that crosses your path and feed upon their flesh.'' I spoke as my eyes shone a red hue in the dark of night.
Behind me dozens upon dozens of wolves bore their fangs and growled like a storm filling up the air.
''Only a lycan can defeat a lycan, so she will try to face me one on one. It's a lost battle for her, but she needs me to crush her personally to truly accept defeat. The rest of you will focus on killing the stray dogs that's she keeps around, so I'll lead the way.''
The night was dark but he light of the full moon was plenty to guide the army of wolves into the clearing. Jay stepped forward and immediately noticed a patch of the ground that looked odd.
''These cowards have laid traps. They think they're hunters now...'' Jay muterred under his breath, looking around to spot a couple of other patches of rough looking grass that looked like it had been replanted.
His eyes shone red and immediately, all of his man saw the traps just as he did. Without a second of hesitation, he walked around the obvious trap zone and the wolves behind him imitated him.
As he was crossing the clearing, he found that his footsteps resonated louder than they should have, like the ground beneath him was hollow. As he was issuing a command of warning, the first row of wolves walking behind him yelped and fell into a trench covered in iron and silver spikes.
The trap doors were covering all the perimeter of the clearing with the exception of the rough patched that had been disguised as traps. Not only that, but the trap didn't activate when he walked on them, only with the higher weight of a wolf.
''So she predited I would shift before I came to meet her...'' Jay thought with a sadistic smile. ''Naughty girl....''
He mentally gave his wolves the command to follow the rough patches to avoid more falling traps. A good dozen of his own soldiers had been put out of commission by the first trap.
''Change of plans, the ghouls will move forward, in case we encounter other traps...'' Jay ordered.
The first few rows of werewolves spaced themselves out and from the further lines humanoid monsters crawled forth.
Half beast, half men, the ghouls looked like straight out of a horror movie in their transformed forms. The skin was covered sparsely with patches of rough hair mixed with blood, tattered clothes hung around their gaunt forms and their front legs looked more like human arms forcing them to walk in a weird hunched forward position.
The faces had short snouts and empty black eyes, their human features stretch into a horrible animal mask. The mouth, too full of teeth, were salivating avidly at their master's promise of flesh and their gazes were filled with nothing but hunger.
Nature could never make creatures so recklessly engineered for nothing else but mindless destruction. Ghouls were clearly never meant to exist, and their every movement looked painful, with sharp bones revealing their silhouette under thin, overstretched, skin.
Jay didn't intend on using the ghouls except as a last resort. They had barely any intelligence, so they were much less useful than the werewolves he commanded, but they were that much more expendable and letting them open the way would be an efficient way of detecting traps.
The ghouls came forward to the path designated by their master as the safe way and immediately, the triggers of trip wires were heard clicking.
Jay expected the terrain to cede under his underling's feet, but instead he hear an explosion deeper in the forest followed by growls and screams on pain.
Small grey clouds started erupting from the forest searing the flesh of his men upon impact.
''Silver dust and iron powder...'' Jay muttered under his breath.
Mad from the pain of the pure metal burning their skin and seeping poisonously into their blood his people started rushing out of the forest, howling, and whimpering in pain.
Jay's eyes glowed red and he mentally ordered some ghouls to jump into the spiked pits and for others to lay across the rough patches of grass to ensure that no more traps would be triggered.
Once the way was clear the rest of his army marched on, trampling the bloody carpet of what used to be their comrades.
Jay's expression was stone cold.
How dare Yuki lay traps instead of facing him? Did he not teach her to fight with honor? Why was she disrespecting his teaching and fighting this battle like a hunter instead of a proud lycan?
For the first time the thought crossed Jay's mind that perhaps he didn't understand Yuki as well as he originally thought he did.