By: Squirrel legs

Um yeah, I decided to make my oneshot 'Promise Not to Bite' into a story. I made that oneshot three years ago and well let's see how this goes. So let's see if 3 years did anything?

: Primal :

"Dang, it's cold!"

Ayame Toriyama was shaking from head to toe. Not only was her nose so numb she questioned its existence, but the continuous crunching sound of her feet dragging against rocks and dirt made her want to punch a small child. It didn't help she couldn't get her jammed locker to open, which contained her coat and spare clothes to change into after soccer. The Reign Harbor High School just had their closing soccer game and Ayame played the center. The game was so intense her legs were painfully sore by the end of it. In fact, she was lucky that she was even able to drag those suddenly heavy limbs forward. Just an hour earlier Ayame was in the happiest state ever, jumping up and down in a frenzy with her team, over their close victory that was made possible by her last minute score. She was still adjusting to her new school and so this was the first time in a month that more than three people called her name in a day. Ayame's father had scored a new job working in the city 15 minutes away from her town as the Advertising Director for a company full of Suits. Suits, that's what she called her dear father's 'lovely' co-workers. She remembered having to follow her dad to work one day so he could drop off some applications and register Ayame into her new school right after. Everyone there was so stiff and business-like with their Armani suits, and it was the only word that gave justice to how she thought of them. Even the company building itself was, 'blah' and 'stiff'. It was probably all in her head but for some reason every other building around it in the city seemed to be tilting to the side just to emphasize the vertical perfection of it. Ayame had declared her father's workplace the 'Worst Most Boringest Hellhole in the World'.

The poor girl had only moved once in her life and she wasn't exactly quick in making new friends, not that she knew how. She spent most of the time at home on the phone with her best friends from her old home. Moving wasn't so completely terrible though. Her new location was close enough for her friends to visit every weekend and sleep over, and the people at her school were nice, she was just shy. Although she denied it, Ayame was generally a very attractive girl. Her hair came to her shoulder blades in the back and came up to her cheeks in the front. The rich auburn color complimented her stylishly layered hair that she sometimes tied into pigtails or a ponytail. Another striking feature about her, were her unforgettable eyes. Two deep emerald pools which took the place of her eyes always seemed to glitter like precious gems no matter what the lighting. Her eyes gave her a pure, innocent appearance, which she was. If there was one thing she was proud of though, it was her legs. They weren't too long to be lanky, too short to be awkward, or too pale or tan to be unattractive, but they were just right to make shorts look sexy and most importantly they gave her speed.

When Ayame moved she had just missed the Winter Track sign ups and took up soccer to keep her in shape for Spring. All in all, Ayame was okay with her new situation but her only objection was the fact that her parents HAD to pick the house that was on the outskirts of the town, hidden by woods. The only reason they had found it was because Mr. Toriyama's amazing skills of navigation had taken them off their original track to see nice development houses, onto a dirtpath road which eventually led them to the old, yet attractive house that Mrs. Toriyama immediately fell in love with. Lucky for her, the house had been on sale for so long that the price eventually dropped to an amazingly low price for a house its size since there were no takers for several years. The house was two floors tall, and the entire interior of the house was made of wood which gave it the natural touch that made the house in tune with its forest surroundings. The house had seven bedrooms upstairs and Ayame's room was the farthest room on the end. The only people Ayame lived with were her parents and her older brother, Yakiro, the house was kind of empty with all of the vacant rooms. When they first stepped into the house as the official residents, Yakiro claimed the study room next to the kitchen downstairs as his bedroom, and it was obvious her parents would take the Master Bedroom, which was the first room of the top floor right above Yakiro's room, much to his dismay. Because Ayame's room was the very last one, she had six rooms and a floor separating her from her family and she had more than enough privacy to scream without waking anyone up at night. Even though it got kind of scary when she had to walk to the bathroom three rooms down in the middle of the night with creaking floor boards, the view from her double window was all worth it.

"Why didn't I just catch a ride from Sango," Ayame grumbled, mentally kicking herself for refusing the ride offered for the sake of modesty. Right now, Ayame felt like collapsing on the ground and falling asleep but the fear of waking up with frost-bite and having to amputate a limb was all too scary. There was also the fear of being eating in her sleep by a possum or dear…what the…she WAS really tired wasn't she? Correction, the fear of a hungry bear or pack of wolves stumbling upon her sleeping body. At least she had the chance of running if she was awake. All of a sudden she heard a howl...speaking of wolves.

Ayame froze in her place, her emerald eyes shifting side to side scanning the place for any sort of predator. 'The faster I get home the faster I can go to sleep and get away from hungry animals.' She even tried singing her favorite song.

"In my heart I know! You couldn't love me but baby I just kept holdin' on! I shoulda le-" Another howl erupted from the woods, "Okay okay! Sorry sorry! I'll stop please don't eat me!" she cried. She wondered what the wolf looked like, was there more than one? Do wolves eat humans?

"What are you doing?!" Ayame tried to shake all the creepy thoughts out of her head, "Stop thinking and run!"

Ayame pushed her through the dark woods as fast as her tired legs would let her. 'Of all the houses dad could've bought, he picks the one in the middle of a freakin forest.'

It wasn't the first time Ayame had ever walked home from school, most of the time it only took her 30 minutes to walk home from school but her entire body was sore and she had never walked alone in the dark before. Every soccer game, one of her parents were always there to pick her up. But both parents were away that night, her mom was coming home late from Ayame's grandfather's house, her dad was on a business trip, and Yakiro was too lazy to go out and get his driver's license. Ayame was just glad the moon was full that night. Otherwise, she would've never been able to see anything at all.

At the sound of a snap Ayame spun around, her hair whipping behind her. The bushes rustled for a brief second and she stopped in her tracks. 'Odd…I swear there was something glowing.' A shiver traveled down her back as she began to hear her own heartbeat racing and her heavy nervous breathing. Behind the same bushes, several twigs snapped as if something was stepping around behind the foliage of the forest.

'Twigs don't snap themselves.' The thought rang in her head as she unconsciously stepped slowly backwards away from the suspicious area. All of a sudden something sharp poked her in the back. Ayame screamed and closed her eyes shut as she fell to her knees with her arms shooting up to protect her head, her back was hunched down in the attempt to make herself as low and unnoticeable as possible, it was the most pathetic thing to look at. Her body shook uncontrollably, her mouth whispered silent incoherent words through trembling lips, she was no longer aware of how cold she was earlier for she remained on she cold hard floor. When the expected attack did not come, she opened one eye only to come to the realization that it was just a branch that was sticking out of a tree that she backed into. Ayame rolled onto her back laughing clutching her stomach.

"It was just a branch," Ayame laughed, "I feel so stupid." She felt a wave of relief wash over her as a small smile emerged from her previously fear-stricken face. She brushed the dirt and dust from her knees and continued walking home. The sound of another wolf howling made the smile disappear within a split second and she ran faster than she had ever run before. She tried her best not to trip over any rocks or outstretched roots. She kept running, she didn't even feel sore anymore, her entire body was numb with fear.

'If I get home alive, I'm going to donate all my valuables to charity, I'll never talk back to mom, I'll stop teasing Yakiro,' Ayame continued saying similar thoughts to herself. Her house was in sight now, chest rising rapidly up in down, mouth open gasping for air, she tried running a little faster but she tripped on a broken branch and went flying. She fell hard on the rough path as her knees and her arm scraped painfully against the rocks and twigs on the path. It was worse because she was only wearing gym shorts and a small fitting t-shirt, so her exposed skin came in direct contact with the ground. Her elbow and hands stung a little but there were only little scrapes. Her knees on the other hand, were a different story, both her knees were badly cut and blood began to pour from the wounds.

"Great," Ayame winced at the sight of her own blood flowing freely from her legs. She clenched her teeth as she struggled through the torture she was experiencing from trying to stand back up on her legs. A throbbing sensation shot through her and sent her falling back onto her bottom, "Ouch! Alright, let's try slower," Using the hand with the least scrapes, she applied firm pressure to her knees to numb them, hoping they would ease the feeling from their injuries. She grimaced when the pressure caused more bleeding. Ayame slowly eased herself up, using the uninjured arm to support herself on the ground. Limping awkwardly, Ayame continued walking forward but something ahead of her made her stumble to a stop. It was hard to tell in the dark what it but with squinted eyes she was able to make out the general shape. Ayame's eyes widened, a cold chill spread throughout her body and her body became stiffer than a corpse. A wolf…she knew a wolf when she saw one, and the wolf up ahead was starting to stalk towards her. She tried to back away from it but her legs wouldn't comply with her and she fell backwards. The wolf's distance from her was closing in quickly, and she tried desperately to move away. She used her arms to drag herself and pushed off to the best of her ability with her legs.

Ayame backed herself into a tree. Her head looked frantically from side to side trying to find an escape but the wolf had already caught up. She could see the ice-blue eyes of the wolf, its midnight fur glistened as its shoulders rolled when each paw would smoothly lift to approach its prey. The wolf kept its head low with lips curled back showing razor sharp, white teeth, it almost looked like a wicked grin. A soft low growl sounded from its throat. Ice-blue never left emerald when the two were only a hair's length apart. Ayame couldn't take it anymore, she knew her life was at its end and she buried her face into her hands as frightened tears fell freely. She chattered away, not even thinking about what she was saying.

"Please don't eat me...good doggie...please don't eat me...I wanna live..."

She gasped when she felt something wet on her right knee. Through split fingers, Ayame saw that the wolf was on the laying on its stomach, paws under chin, licking at her cut knees. A shaking hand reached out to slightly push the wolf away but it gave a low growl. She quickly snatched her hand back. She watched with wide eyes at the wolf that was lapping hungrily at her blood, it seemed like she had been there on the floor for hours which had actually only a few minutes. By now, her legs had stopped bleeding and the wolf had licked off the last drops of blood on her knees. Its piercing gaze directed toward her again and Ayame felt her heart skip a beat.

Ayame pulled her knees to her chest when the wolf began to rise up. The wolf's nose was merely inches away from her face. She turned her face to the side, from the corner of her eyes she looked at the wolf. Its eyes...there was something weird about them. She could feel a warm breath hitting her collerbone, it caused her to shudder. 'It's gonna eat me...' She closed her eyes, awaiting her dreadful fate.

"Don't worry, I promise I don't bite." A low husky voice whispered into her ear. Ayame snapped her eyes open but her view was blocked by a human, a male, human hand. A warm, moist tongue traced her ear, as the velvety feeling traveled to her jaw-line and the feeling retreated at her chin. Her lips tingled as she sensed the intruder's next action. But a chorus of howls in a far distance interrupted the boy. She was taken aback when his hand returned to his side in alarm.

Emerald eyes traveled from legs to face. She saw long toned legs, what she saw next made her bush furiously and her heart skipped another beat, although not from fear. Her eyes then hesitantly continued as it took in rock solid abs, to an entire chiseled chest with strong arms at side. It was all muscle, and she had to admit his body was extremely attractive. But the finale surprised her the most. The muscular, tan body was headed by the most amazing face she had ever seen. Ice-blue eyes, hooded by long black eyelashes and defined eyebrows, were above high cheek bones, complimented by a bold jaw line. He looked about two years older than her. The boy had midnight long hair that spilled onto his shoulders. The boy was looking in the direction of the howls but he must have sensed her staring because he turned his head down to look at her. His icy orbs met her gaze and his lips revealed a smirk.

Ayame felt her face burning up, as she looked up at him from the ground. She was confused when the boy disappeared into the bushes. For a few minutes she sat there not knowing what to do or think for that matter but her thoughts were interrupted when the boy emerged again fully clothed, and this time his hair was pulled into a pony-tail with a head-band keeping his bangs out of his eyes.

"Well, sitting in the middle of a road with you all night sounds fun but I think we'll be having some company soon and I think you'd prefer to go home right not. Don't you agree? Right." He didn't even wait for her response, not that Ayame could speak at the moment, and he walked right up to her figure on the ground to pick her up in one easy sweep of arms.

"Hold on tight." And with that everything became a blur around Ayame, and all of a sudden Ayame found herself in the arms of the boy which she didn't mind except for the fact they were on top of the roof under her bedroom window.

The two stayed in that silent position, but a soft deep laugh tore the silence and Ayame was snapped out of her trance. She realized she had been staring at him for god knows how long. And it just hit her that while she was observing and appreciating the appearance of this random stranger, she had completely overlooked and even forgot what had exactly happened. She flailed her arms, kicking wildly.

"Let go of me!" The boy obviously didn't expect this reaction as he set her on her feet and let go. Still waving about wildly, Ayame lost her balance and almost fell off the roof had a strong arm not caught her. He opened one of her window doors with one hand, and then took one hand of the panicked girl and placed it on the windowsill.

"Geez, no thanks? I see how it is, you humans are ungrateful." He said this all through a cocky grin, and jumped backwards to land gracefully on his feet, knees slightly bent. When he stood straight he looked up at her with a final wink and turned around to leave.

Ayame who was still on the roof called out, "Wait! Who are you?!"

"Heh. Wouldn't you like to know?" With a raised eyebrow he crossed his arms, this time his grin grew even bigger. Ayame couldn't feel uneasy when he gave her a smile like that. Before his eyes were an eerie glow, almost dangerous, but now they looked playful and the transition was intriguing.

"I'm Kouga. As much as I'd rather chat with you than those shitheads coming this way, there's some things I can't put off. Later babe."

"Ayame."

"Huh?"

"My name's Ayame." She didn't know why she was telling him this, but words were coming out of her mouth without the approval of her brain.

"Ayame…pretty. Like you." The boy…Kouga was then gone in a matter of seconds, it was like he disappeared into thin air. Ayame would've stayed on her roof in confusion all night until her brother barged into her room.

"Ayame?! I heard screaming out there…are you alright! What happe-why are you on the roof?"

"Um…"

Review please! Otherwise I might not bother continuing. ;;