A/N: Hello, this is fic number god knows what, but it is my first Kelley Armstrong one. Unfortunately I'm still only half way through Stolen so if anything is really wrong just tell me and I'll try and read faster and correct it. Please be a little lenient though, because this is an AU fic, set after Stolen. This is going to alternate between Elena's POV, possible into another character's POV, and third person narrative as I'm not that keen on writing in 1st person. Don't ask why, I don't really know. Well, wish me luck!

Chapter 1 – Bitten

I lay there in Clay's arms, resting my head on his chest. It was times like these that I really loved; just lying there together, not saying anything, and knowing that we were okay. At least for now. Until Clay opened his big mouth that is. At the moment his arm was wrapped around me protectively, his hand resting on my waist tracing small circles with his first finger on my bare skin. I sighed and felt Clay's arm tighten around me. I closed my eyes, smiling slightly as I felt sleep start to creep up on me. Just then someone knocked on the door. Clay growled in annoyance.

'Clayton, Elena, get up,' a deep voice called from outside. We both sat up.

'What's wrong?' Clay asked, somehow he'd managed to sit up without removing his arm from around my waist.

'We've got someone on the estate and I need you two to check it out,' Jeremy said through the door, 'Now get up, Clayton, I think it's a hunter. I need to stay here in case anyone comes up to the house.'

'Alright, Jer, we're coming,' I said, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and stretched. Partly to tease Clay, and partly because I felt like it.

'Don't act. If you can, scare him off but I'd prefer it if you just do surveillance for now,' and with that he walked down the corridor.

It took longer than expected to get out of the bedroom. We were going to Change and do surveillance as wolves, so we didn't need to get dressed, therefore there were more distractions than if we had been dressed. Eventually though, we found suitable places to Change. I stretched out, as I always did after a Change, and breathed in the many scents surrounding me. I heard Clay growling in the bushes, waiting for me to come out of my hiding spot. I padded out of my hiding place and nuzzled him in greeting; he spent a few minutes rubbing up against me before I managed to push him in the general direction Jeremy had given us of the hunter's position. Sometimes we really needed to learn when we had to get a job done without a lot of touchy feely involved. Not that I was complaining or anything, but I really did want to get back to the house ASAP. Would I tell Clay that? Not on your life. His ego's big enough thank you very much.

I picked up the hunter's scent not long after we set off. The only thing was there were two people and not one. This complicated things slightly. While one person was easy enough to spook, two were not so easy. Separating them would be our best option, but it was also the trickiest seeing as we'd have to be out of each other's sight whilst dealing with people with guns. We slowed as we neared the pair of humans and started to walk silently through the undergrowth, careful not to make a sound. The sound of flesh on flesh was the first thing that told us we were within sight of the humans, the second was the slight cry and thud of a body hitting the ground, and the sound of a girl's whimper. What the hell was going on? We crawled forward on our bellies and stuck our noses out through the bushes to get a better look at the two people. One was a man, tall and well built, with short brown hair and a hard face; under his arm was a 12.boar shot gun, at the moment it was loaded and the barrel pointed at a girl no older than 16 who was on the floor, one hand to her face. The reek of fear coming off her made me whine slightly; Clay push a reassuring muzzle at the base of my neck before turning his attention back to the scene in front of us. Auburn hair covered most of her face and, even from here, I could see she was little more than skin and bones. Next to me Clay growled, I turned to look at him and saw the gleam in his eyes. I knew exactly what that meant, though I wasn't sure how Jeremy was going to take this. We were going to have to drive them off, or at least get him away from the girl. If he killed her on Stonehaven estate and people came looking for her it would draw unwanted attention to us. I heard the sound of a gun being cocked and snapped my head round to see the gun barrel now aimed at us. We leapt to the side just in time, I heard the bullet go whizzing past us into the undergrowth. Great, now we had to get a gun wielding, girl beating maniac off the estate. Times like these I really wish we could just shoot them with our own guns. One problem there; werewolves wont use guns. I crept around the clearing and then flattened myself against the ground. Here was the plan: wait until I could see where Clay was and then try and get the message to him that we had to either kill the guy or get the hell back to the house and see what Jeremy wanted to do. I heard a noise behind me and saw Clay crawling up next to me. One look at him and I knew exactly what we were doing. The guy had to die, it was too dangerous to keep him alive and get back to Jeremy. I swung my head to look at the other side of the clearing, trying to get across to him to go to the other side. When all he did was cock his head to one side in question I resisted the urge to do a very human thing and roll my eyes. Unfortunately it's a slight impossibility as a wolf. In the end I settled for grabbing the back of his neck in my teeth and pressing him down to the ground, telling him to stay where he was, and then started to crawl to the other side of the clearing.

By the time I reached the other side of the clearing the gun had been reloaded and was being swung around the outside of the clearing as he tried to find a target. As the gun swung round to a few metres left of where I was hiding Clay pounced from his hiding place, leaping straight at the hunter's back. I swear my heart stopped beating as he swung around and raised the gun; I was halfway out of the bushes, not entirely sure what I was going to do, when the gun went off. It was only when Clay landed a few steps in front of me and I had to dive to the side to stop from crashing into him I fully registered what had happened. The girl had dived from the ground and managed to push the gun out of the way, the man had followed and Clay had gone soaring over the top of them. It was then I saw the girl go flying onto her back and land with a sickening thud on the ground, groaning in pain; I leapt at the man as he reached for the gun that had landed a few feet from him. Knocking the gun away with my hind leg I faced him, snarling and felt a slight satisfaction at the fear that came off of him. I swear if Clay hadn't of been there I would be six feet under by now. I hadn't noticed the smaller gun he had in his hand, though in my defence he'd partly hidden it behind him; Clay's jaws clamped down on his wrist. A loud crunch told me all I needed to know and I sprang at him, jaws clamping down on the arm he threw up to protect himself. We both back off and he climbed to his feet; as we circled him he watched us, I must admit it was a bit disconcerting him being as calm as he was. Don't get me wrong, you could smell the fear coming off him as clearly as if he'd pissed his pants. It was just the outward appearance of calm that was starting to unsettle me.

We continued like this for a few minutes, and then Clay leapt at him again. I was facing the guy's back so I couldn't really see Clay, what I could hear and smell was the yelp of pain and the blood that came from him. He landed awkwardly and I saw the knife sticking out of the top of his leg; growling I leapt at the guy's back. I really couldn't cope with honour when the guy had just stabbed my boyfriend/bane of my existence; if anyone was going to have the satisfaction of killing Clay it was me, goddamn it, not some hunter. Seriously though, I was pissed that he'd stabbed Clay and that we hadn't noticed the knife. Who the hell was this guy anyway? As I clamped down on his arm- again- and heard a gasp of pain from, what was unmistakably, a girl's throat. I let go quicker than I thought possible and rolled off the girl and back onto my feet; then the horror set in as I realised what had happened. He'd pulled out another knife and was going to stab me with it; the girl had, again, intervened and the knife was stuck in her thigh. If this wasn't bad enough, I'd bitten her. I spun round as a footfall sounded behind me. The man was standing above me, a small pistol pointed at the back of my skull. Where the hell was this guy getting his weapons from? Before he could react, Clay had his jaws wrapped around the back of his neck and had clamped down. A sickening crunch told me his neck was broken and I turned my attention back to the girl on the ground. Not caring I was in the middle of a clearing and that there could be more people around I settled down and hurriedly Changed back. She needed help I couldn't give her as a wolf.

It took a surprisingly short amount of time for both of us to Change; as Clay Changed in the bushes nearby I shredded the girl's jumper, using the pieces of material to try and stop the blood flow. At least some of Jeremy's first aid had rubbed off on me; but we needed to get her back to the house. As Clay knelt down beside me I saw the knife sticking out of his shoulder blade. I reached to pull it out but he grabbed my hand to stop me.

'We need to get back to the house,' he told me; I nodded, still too overwhelmed to speak. I'd bitten her and now the same thing was happening to her as I'd seen happen to Bauer in the compound. Except this time it was completely my fault. I'd been a wolf and I'd bitten her. I'd done to her what Clay had done to me all those years ago.

'Elena? Come on!' I heard Clay talking to me but it wasn't penetrating my brain. I just couldn't process everything; my brain was trying to catch up with the time that had passed.

'Elena! Will you bloody well snap out of it we need to get her to Jeremy or she'd going to die!'

That got my attention. I looked into Clay's eyes and swallowed.

'I'll carry her,' I said, voice quiet; Clay opened his mouth to argue but thought better of it, probably because we'd wasted enough time already just sitting here. Okay I'd wasted enough time just sitting here. We stood up, the girl safely cradled in my arms, and then set off at a full run towards the house.

A/N: Hey, what did you think? Good? Bad? Terrible? I must admit I found it more difficult than I thought to write this chapter, mainly because it's the chapters after this I've got planned out. I only knew roughly what happened in this chapter so it was a bit of a battle to write it, especially when the muses start putting scenes from later chapters into your head while you're trying to write it.

Please R&R I do love reading the reviews and changing anything to make it more enjoyable for you to read. Next chapter should be up soon.

Ciao for now,

Starsword