Okay, first things first…

DISCLAIMERS: So, apparently my plot borrows from the Lion King, Ghostrider and Romeo and Juliet. But, the characters, all mine! So there! Also, I do not own Dungeons and Dragons. Otherwise, LARPing would be required. Always. Especially when hot men were involved. Ahem. Anyways… Which means I do not own any of the classes, spells, races, et cetera mentioned in the following text. Leave a response if you want me to publish further adventures, otherwise, enjoy!

As a pup, she'd known she was different from the rest of the pack. Felt a heightened sense of awareness. Then one day, while pursuing a hare solo, she was cornered by a huntsman. He'd drawn the arrow across the bowstrings and let it fly. But it had only glanced into her shoulder. In that moment of agonizing pain, her true heritage revealed itself. The man had stared horrified at a nude little girl, bleeding where the arrow had hit. She blanked, and had not seen her family since.

The huntsman had taken her in, knowing her for what she was-a werewolf, a half-breed. He'd raised her the only way he knew how-as a Druid, worshipping the spirits and powers of the earth. But in her adolescence, she had become too dangerous. The free spirit of her kind raged full force in her passions of anger. The hermit druid had begun to fear for his own life. Not knowing what else to do, he'd reported his crime to King Billog's high court. Keeping a werewolf was punishable by death to the creature and banishment of the keeper, but what other options had he had?

Strangely, the King had not banished him, only sworn him to secrecy on the matter. And the she-wolf?-kept by his majesty. This was not the first time Billog had felt himself above his own laws, however, and the people became unhappy. As all kings, he had fathered illegitimate children, but his own wife was barren. It was not long before one of his bastard sons came and questioned their own right to the thrown. Billog hid in his castle, building a massive dungeon maze to keep anyone and everyone away. So, Morvin, the usurper son, called in a legendary crew of adventurers to oust the King. The group was led by Ebyn, a mysterious outsider. All told, the assembly was made up of a cleric, a sorceress and a fighter, in addition to their fearless leader. But they had all abandoned his quest, because of her-the she-wolf that had only brought mischief to them. Strema had been locked away in the dungeon, as a last resort of defense by the rightly paranoid king. But she was too weak and eager for a chance of escape to be dangerous to, much less fight, Ebyn and his band. As fate would have it, the dark warrior took pity on the weakened she-wolf. In the dungeons, the star-crossed lovers felt as though destiny alone had set Strema to be found by Ebyn. But it was a much darker purpose that led him to her, far more evil than either of them could have imagined…

Strema woke in the cool night air to the howling. Quietly, she rose from the hard ground. As soon as she was outside, she regretted it. The air was cold, and the beginnings of a harsh storm whipped a wind about her feet. But she knew she had to do this. This pact was something she'd started-and was now something she had to finish. Shouldering her quiver and bow, she sensed him behind her. Not the one whose arm had been around her all through the night, no, he would lay still even though he knew she stalked to her death. Ebyn had never been too big on letting his emotional walls down. Instead, it was her only loyal companion that stalked out of the shadows on all fours. The soft brilliance of his white coat lit up the otherwise starless night.

"Didn't think I'd let you go do this alone, did you?"

She smiled to him. In response, his sharp wolf's teeth glinted back in the night. She'd never been able to lose her pack brother, not then, not now. Not ever.

"Thought I'd try and shake you from my trail one last time."

She smiled back. It was amazing, to be truly happy again. Perhaps it was because for the first time in months, she was doing something on her own. Not skirting in Ebyn's wake. Her half-demon lover might be cursed by his own existence-yes, he was a half-demon. Born of a far more tumultuous love affair then their own, he was more rejected from society than she. But he took it in stride, used it to his vantage. Unfortunately, that left everyone else in the dark.

"Not anymore. For once I'll have a battle that's all my own making and breaking",

she thought

For weeks, she had had nightmares guiding her to this place-the woods of her fathers. Something had drawn her here, like the hare that had led her to the huntsmen. Once in amongst the trees of her childhood, she had smelt a familiar scent of foreboding and fear. And, now looking at her brother, she knew he had sensed it too. That was why they were here, tonight. Surely Elhonna guided their destinies. The thought put a gravity of thrill through her spine.

Then again, maybe the shivers of excitement were just because she knew how unlikely it was that'd she'd come out of this alive. With this numbing thought, she morphed into hybrid mode.

"Let's go"

Durzas's tail wagged and he held back a yip as together, they bounded down the trail. Both their senses collided with what they hunted. Even with the only a pack of two, the frenzy of the hunt filled them with hunger for the death that was yet to come. Strema had not hunted with another werewolf for over a decade, but it seemed like only yesterday she and her brother had been chasing each other after an elk. Unfortunately, their prey tonight was something much more menacing than a meal.