Chapter Twenty-Eight

"We have to be getting close now," Niko whispered. "The scents are thicker and fresher."

"Yeah, and there's more of them, scents we haven't come across before,"I pointed out, able to pick out at least four more human scents I assumed were more witches. Witches smelled like humans, and one could really only tell they were witches when they did magic. "I don't think we're smelling any regular humans."

"Agreed. It's better to assume every one of them can use magic." Davor's head was on a swivel, constantly looking around just like Niko's, while I was keeping my nose to the ground and my ears open.

"Four others?" Niko said, but the question to it made me look up, seeing him staring at Davor for an answer.

"Six others. There's a couple who are really down there, older than the others or just have softer scents," Davor answered.

I sniffed around, trying to parse that information and find all the different individuals Davor could smell, but I could only properly count five.

"I'm going to leave the trail to see if I can relocate the werecat's trail from here," I said, knowing I was the only one who could safely do it. It had been some time since we caught any wind of it, but it had been coming from the same direction. While the witches were now at the top of our list to deal with, I felt uncomfortable not having any sign of the beast that would actually kill us.

"Go ahead. We'll stop here for a moment and discuss a bit more of a game plan," Niko said, nodding right as I was turning to run off the trail.

I took off, knowing the scent would stand out compared to anything else in the region. We'd been following it for some time, so I knew it well, but also, it distinctly didn't belong. It wasn't easy to miss. I wasn't worried about losing my brothers, knowing I could backtrack my own scent to them.

I was looking for obvious areas of disturbed vegetation, but it wasn't always clear to me. I could easily find those spots in my own territory, but it was vastly different from this forest. I checked everything, but as I moved farther, I found nothing. We had never smelled a point where the werecat had crossed paths with the humans we were tracking, so I knew it had to be on this particular side of the trail. I kept going, farther and farther, making sure to keep alert in case I caught a human scent, but I was greeted by only nature for a long time.

Until I wasn't.

Screeching to a halt after passing a game trail, I thought I was going crazy. I knew the smell too well, used to blocking it from my senses when I ran in my territory because it was everywhere. Turning back to the game trail, I took a deep breath.

No. There can't be werewolves right now. These must be werewolves who passed through the area before. We did have the Tribunal tell people to leave the area. They probably just passed through…

The rationalizing wasn't working, though, as I flexed my paws, sinking claws into the earth.

The offness of their scents… There's no reason he's popping up in my mind. I'm just… I'm still paranoid. That really got to me. It has nothing to do with what's going on right now…

I stepped back, nearly stumbling as I fought the reality of what my nose was telling me. We already had a werecat and witches. I couldn't handle werewolves, especially ones that made me think of Fenris, of Rainer, of his scent. Not his scent as I knew him. Day to day in Texas. I hadn't noticed a difference at the moment, not that I could recall, but my instincts told me otherwise. Maybe it was because I now knew the difference between normal and decidedly not normal.

All I could see was Rainer, finally finishing the brutal transition into the Last Change, his mind about to be fully lost to him as he did his best to kill everyone. I had always thought the thick magic in the air was because of our location. While I hadn't properly thought about it, my mind remembered details I never consciously considered, and now those details were haunting me.

Fuck. They have werewolves, too.

Finally, I registered just how recent those scents were. I had just missed them. They were fresh enough that I might have seen them if I had moved just a little faster.

And I wasn't trying to be that quiet.

I had made a mistake.

I turned my head slowly, looking to my left, knowing that werewolves were group predators, good at sneaking up on a target and using their pack tactics to bring down a kill. Even under the control of something, I figured they would be used to doing what they were best at.

I started running as I caught the tiniest glimpse of a hulking shadow in the forest and heard the paws pounding the earth out of pace with my own. It was joined by two more, then the last. While I had been distracted by the scent, they had gotten into position. I had crossed their path, and now I was going to pay for it.

I barely dodged the one that had gotten around me to head me off. Claws raked across my shoulder, but the werewolf didn't find the purchase to hold on and force me to stop or struggle.

They were fast. The one that missed me quickly recovered from the missed pounce it seemed, as it tried to knock my back legs and throw me off balance. I wasn't going to beat all four of them, though, not if they caught me.

I just need to follow my scent back to Niko and Davor!

Wait… I can't. Even the three of us, with no weapons… We'll get slaughtered.

I made a hard turn, causing the werewolf on my tail to hit a tree since it couldn't shift its balance in time to do the same turn. With a sickening crack on impact, I knew it would be shaken, but not down completely. As I ran, I heard the creak and crash of the entire tree, unable to survive the blow. It would certainly be loud enough for my brothers to hear as well, but I needed to get these werewolves away from them. I had to.

Insanely, I had an idea. My brothers and I could do this, but I wanted them safer in their werecat forms for it. So, I threw my thoughts to the world, not caring if the werewolves or anyone else heard them, in the hope it reached my brothers. I couldn't use telepathy, or whatever it was, to speak to people on a different part of the planet. I had tested its range a little, but generally, I was looking at someone when I spoke to them from my werecat form, and I could talk to people individually. This was different. I was yelling.

"CHANGE! THERE ARE WEREWOLVES!" I roared in my mind, hoping they would hear me.

It made the werewolves pick up their pace, telling me they certainly heard it. Whether my brothers did or not, I had no idea, but I knew I would need to head toward them, one way or another. I couldn't run from these werewolves forever. The witches would certainly want me dead now that we were coming for them, and these werewolves were going to make that happen. I just hoped they could Change in time for the moment I looped around and ran for them.

One lunged, trying to sink fangs into my tail, and missed with a snap of air. The strength of the bite would have broken my tail, and given the werewolf the control over me it needed to let the others come in for the kill if I couldn't shake it off in time.

Another came barreling up, and I was forced to really think about how much stronger and faster than me they were. It snapped at my shoulder, but I swerved in time to get away from it. My balance was off from the movement. Skidding over dead underbrush and through bushes only slowed me down. I was a single, young werecat, and I couldn't kill four normal werewolves. I had killed Rainer, but that was with the help of Landon and by tapping into power that I wasn't supposed to have. Like this, against these four, I had little chance of winning. It was as hopeless as beating the werecats who had ambushed me in my territory years ago.

I used the slowdown in my favor, knowing I needed help. I continued to shift slightly to my right, and at the last moment, before the werewolf behind me could get its awful hands on me, I spun and left it going in the wrong direction. I took off at full speed again, dodging the last two in front of me as they tried to jump on me, letting each of them hit bushes and trees. They were faster in an all-out sprint, but they weren't fast enough to react in time when I was setting the pace of this chase and knew how I wanted to move. I had a fleeting image flash through my mind of the tiny impala that could shake a cheetah's pursuit.

Unfortunately, I was the impala.

I hauled ass, knowing the werewolves were going to be back on me, and my brothers weren't going to have a lot of time, but my legs were beginning to burn. Sprinting at full speed, while trying to keep enough control over my momentum to dodge my hunters, was draining. There was a reason most predators didn't do much more than a quick burst of energy, and if a chase took too long, they would give it up.

As I neared the trail to my brothers, I was grateful to see that Niko had finished the Change and Davor was nearly done. Niko rushed up, taking a defensive position in front of Davor, and I tried to stop myself, having to move or I would have crashed into both of them. Right as I passed Niko, he collided with the werewolf that had been able to make up for my U-turn the fastest. Fur flew as blood hit the ground as the two monsters engaged. A second later, I spied the next werewolf, deciding now was it.

"Let's see how you deal with three of us,"I snarled into its head, and it was actually taken off guard by the words, giving me the slightest opening to attack, getting my jaws on its thigh and crunching down. The wolf clawed at me, nails sinking in as it tore flesh and tried to pull me off, but I knew just how much a predator needed its legs, and I put more power into each small snap I could do without losing my hold. I shook violently, ignoring the pain in my shoulders and back, keeping my eyes closed and protected. With one more crunch, I heard the satisfying sound of its femur breaking as the two ends of the break slid, and the leg felt much less stable in my mouth. As it howled in pain and went into apparent shock, I twisted my body violently and released it, letting it roll away into a log.

By the time I was done with it, Davor had finished his Change and was fighting another while Niko continued to roll in a violent flurry of blows against the one he had started against. The fourth, too late to take advantage of the numbers they had on us, finally arrived, coming straight for me. I braced for the impact as I saw it running for me. It seemed a little wounded already as it hit me, and I began the wrestle of snapping at it and trying to keep its jaws from my neck. It wasn't giving me the same power as the first.

A broken howl distracted the one with me just enough to let me push it to its back and go for its neck. I nearly had it and growled in pain as it nearly broke my jaw with a blow. As I went again, the paw-like hand didn't come up, and I got ahold of its neck, sending my long fangs through its air pipe and all the other important parts it had been trying to protect. Knowing it couldn't ever heal from that, I shook only once to break more before releasing it. I looked up to see that its left arm had been torn off, but I didn't think about it as I ran to help Davor with his, jumping on its back as it focused on my brother. It slammed to the ground with me on its back, and in the next second, Davor lunged. His bite-and-shake combination was seemingly so precise and calculated, he ripped its head off with ease.

I stepped off the dead one and looked for the one I had broken in the beginning, seeing Niko was near it. It was now very dead, its neck torn out just like the one I had killed.

We all panted for a moment, standing in the middle of death. It wasn't long before Niko and Davor were initiating the Change back to their human forms. I waited, keeping my eyes on the trees, hoping not to see any more monsters headed our way—like a certain werecat.

"Let's move," Niko said in a gasp, pulling on only his pants. Davor didn't say anything but wore as much as Niko, and we started running, their arms full of clothing. Niko didn't take us off the trail, and I realized he didn't intend to.

"Niko, we should regroup for a moment."

"No. We need to take them while they're in shock of their lost pets," he snarled in response. "We're going to barge in, get our things back, and fucking kill all of them. You just need to distract that werecat for long enough that Davor and I can get through the witches and get our weapons back. Or steal theirs. If it's not there, help us clear the witches out of the way."

"Why not be werecats?"

"Because we can't talk like you," he answered sharply. "Davor needs to be able to communicate with our family as fast as possible, even if we're in the middle of a fight." He growled, but not really at me. It was aimed at whatever we were going to find. "And I want to use my claws. I didn't want to risk it against multiple werewolves in their Last Change, but… I would be really happy to use them against some witches."

His bloodthirstiness at the end was all I needed to stop asking questions.