His Alpha’s body started spasming in pain and her knees wobbled as her whole body shook. Hysminai gripped her and held her while her body rapidly repaired itself.

  When her body stopped shaking, her eyes regained focus but she immediately shifted back into human form and her arms snaked around her midsection, gripping her stomach. Hysminai went to where they had dropped everything to fight the intruder. In the brawl there was only two jars of fish that had remained intact. He ripped one open and gave it to his Alpha.

  Soter helped Michelle off the floor. She was gripping her sides painfully as she coughed up a little blood that sputtered and stained her light fur. She covered her snout and slipped painfully to her knees, holding her sides. The Healer went to her and inhaled deeply her scent. Then he bit her softly on the sides. The damage to Michelle wasn’t nearly as extensive as what Keva suffered so her healing wasn’t nearly as traumatic or painful. But her eyes bulged and when she breathed deeply, and was calm, she too reverted back to her human form.

  Hysminai looked at Soter who shook his head. Hysminai got the last unbroken bottle of food and gave it to Michelle. He knew that the human born detested fish with everything that was in her being, or at least that’s what she said. But he hoped that she knew that right now, her regaining her strength and eating was just as important to their life and freedom as what she had forced herself to do when she had come to free him.

  When the short blonde woman was eating again, he turned his golden eyes back on the blond man who had attacked them. He had never felt fear before. The fact that this human could elicit that kind of a reaction from him, especially in the heat of the hunt, sent a faint shiver down his spine. He looked at the two human born eating silently. He had spent too much time around humans if he could experience such an emotion from a mere human. He would have to do something about that.

  “Who is he?” asked Soter quietly.

  Hysminai was taken out of his quiet meditation by the sudden question. He shook his head.

  “I think he’s what we were sent here to find,” Michelle answered quietly as she grimaced hard swallowing a mouthful of distasteful fish. “One of the Berserkers? One of the bear people or whatever?”

  Keva nodded, “I think you might be right. He’s definitely not normal.”

  “No human should be able to do what he did,” Hysminai responded. “No mere human would be able to fight off four Shape shifters, regardless of how weak we were.”

  Soter looked over at the Healer and looked as if he was about to speak but instead remained silent.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Keva nodded, “I agree, but this guy obviously has issues and he is not the friend that we were sent to find. But if he exists then maybe there are others? If just one of these Berserkers could almost fight off and win against four of us, just imagine what a few of his kind could do to some unsuspecting vampires?”

  “Ok, so what do we do? Do we leave him here tied up like this? He’ll die if we do that,” Michelle said in a concerned voice looking between her four pack mates. “You guys aren’t really thinking about doing that? I mean we can’t be like him. I wont do it!”

  “Calm down Michelle,” Keva snapped. “No one’s going to leave him here although that’s probably exactly what he deserves,” She shook her head and ate another fish.

  “Do we take him with us?” Hysminai asked.

  Keva noticed there was just a hint, ever so subtly, in just how he said that sentence. There was a harshness to it, something that she had never heard in the Healers usually soft tones and incredible emotional control. He was always calm and compassionate. But what she heard in his voice was almost hatred, at the very least a deep apathy that was as disturbing to her as the thought of leaving this man to die from starvation, tied up in his own root cellar was.

  “The distance to Javier and most probably Elder Huan Li as well isn’t that far,” Hysminai continued. “Several miles, at least, but nothing we couldn’t traverse in our werewolf forms.” Hysminai’s voice and tone was back to its usual even cadence and timbre.

  Keva brushed away the previous moment. She doubted if what she thought she had heard in Hysminai’s voice had even been there. Shaking herself out of her concern she nodded. “Yes, we could probably make that distance, easier if we could risk the Whyte Plain, but we can’t. What we need to do is eat, and I’m done with these fish.” She dropped the empty bottle on the floor, letting it roll away from her on the dirt. “Come on, lets see if we can find some actual meat and sustenance around here.”

  Michelle practically jumped up at the thought of not having to go through with finishing her pickled Herring. She handed the half-eaten jar to Soter, who dumped the remaining fish into his jaws and swallowed hungrily. Michelle just grimaced and swallowed uncomfortably at the ravenous display of hunger.

  Keva led the four of them out of her prison and out into the snow-covered woods. The first thing she noticed was the biting cold. She was painfully aware suddenly that she had none of her heavy winter clothes on. Something else that Paley had relieved her of. She wrapped her arms around her torso to ward off the cold as best she could, and moved forward.

  No sunlight filtered through the heavy curtain of dark clouds above them. The light of day was muted and bleak, it gave no warmth and very little comfort. Snow drifted down rapidly through the branches of the trees around them. The storm had dissipated somewhat, but it would still be very dangerous to go out at night. None of them knew what time it was, nor did they have any real idea of how long the daylight would last.

  Keva allowed Soter to take the lead of the group and he followed Paley’s quickly disappearing tracks through the snow. The four clambered over a mound of a root cellar which had been Soter’s prison. As they rose above the crest of the mound the four of them saw a handsome log cabin, with a thin line of smoke that reached up into the sky, disappearing in the multitudes of snowflakes as they fell from the dark storm clouds overhead. The door was facing towards them and from where they stood it was closed. Keva moved ahead and pushed on the door; it swung open easily.