Chapter three; Alpha

"We who are dominant tend to think of that aspect of being a werewolf as rank: who is obeyed, who is to obey. Dominant and submissive. But it is also who is to protect and who is to be protected."

Rage sighed heavily as he finally caught up with the two werewolves, "What the HELL do you think you're doing? What if another goddamn slayer had come along? You'd both be DEAD." He growled. On more than one occasion, Rage had protected Fussa from werewolf slayers, killing them before even a single silver bullet was shot.

Fussa rolled his eyes, "If there was a slayer in the area, I would have smelled him in the area and gotten me and Mizho out, okay?"

Rage snorted in disbelief, "You know that they wear that fucking salve that makes them invisible to your nose; don't even try that shit on me." He looked around quickly, scanning for the life signature of a slayer.

Mizho bit her lip, "Anything…?"

Rage rolled his eyes at her, "If I had seen anybody, you'd know." He motioned for Fussa to lead the way further into the woods.

Mizho followed cautiously, eye flicking quickly from tree to tree. Now she knew why Fussa kept Rage around on full moon nights.

"You know the plan, right, Mizho? You and I will change in separate places and let our wolves meet each other on their own terms." Fussa looked at her.

"Right." She nodded, "Because we don't want to shock them by suddenly having them together."

"See you in the morning, then." He nodded to her and ran off in one direction through the woods. Rage nodded to her before following his master.

Mizho groaned to herself before heading off in the other direction, letting her renewed senses lead her through the maze of trees. It wasn't long before she found a little clearing and started to pull off her clothes. Instead of chilling her half-naked body, the cool wind against her bare skin made her feel comfortable, made her feel happy, almost. She smiled up at the moon as it rose. She had read many werewolf stories and decided to see if accepting the werewolf would really make the transformation hurt less, or even not at all. She winced and looked up in shock as she heard Fussa yell in pain somewhere far off. Her resolve to accept the werewolf nearly faded entirely. Surely Fussa had tried before to accept the wolf. She whimpered and looked at the moon again. Seconds later, she felt it coming. A shift in her back muscles, the shift of the bones around her mouth and nose. She took a deep breath and didn't fight it, though it was hard. It wasn't long before she felt something rise up in the back of her mind. Her instincts were kicking into overdrive and she let it. Her eyes open suddenly. Her eye patch was gone, and so her blind eye was exposed. It was still sightless, however. She realized that she wasn't in control of her body as she reared up and sniffed the air. It was in that moment that she realized that she had done it. She had transformed painlessly.

She now understood why Fussa referred to it as 'the wolf'. The wolf was a different entity. She was taking a back seat in her own body as it dipped her head to the ground and sniffed. It leaped forward and started following a scent trail it recognized as prey. Mizho loved the rush of it. Her wolf bounded on top of a rock out crop and looked around.

Panic shot through both of them as she heard a long, deep howl from somewhere nearby. Mizho knew who it was immediately. The wolf did not. It had thought it was alone. But the scent of freshly killed prey hit their nose and away they bounded. Mizho watched as the woods blurred past and felt her paws hit the leaves on the forest floor. She was shocked when the wolf came to an abrupt stop and wondered why until they looked up. On top of another rock outcrop was Fussa. She suddenly felt tiny as she looked at him. His wolf was huge. He had snapped his head around to snarl at the newcomer. Her wolf's ear went flat and her tail tucked between her legs as she lowered submissively to him. Mizho mentally groaned. This was it. She silently hoped that Fussa's wolf would accept hers into his territory. Fussa had assured her that he would, as his wolf would recognize her as a wolf he had sired. Now she wasn't quite as confident.

The black wolf before her snorted and went back to his kill. Her wolf's ears flicked forward and tried to creep closer. Mizho suddenly remembered something from a book Fussa had made her read, and she tried to mentally yell at her wolf, 'No! The alpha eats first!' She knew that Fussa was the alpha in this situation, and she didn't want her wolf to piss him off. Her wolf hesitated, not quite understanding. Mizho mentally face palmed as she realized it didn't understand English, and instead tried to push the idea of waiting her turn to her wolf. Her wolf whined, but sat on it's haunches to wait.

Fussa's would glance back at her every once in a while, then got up on all fours to walk a ways off before starting to wash the blood off his fur. Her wolf jumped forward to the prey in excitement and started eating quickly. Mizho was lost in the flavors of the prey and didn't notice Fussa's wolf coming back over, sitting on the other side of the kill. When she finished and looked up, her wolf whined and took a paw step back. But the other wolf seemed to just observe her. Her wolf hesitantly started to clean her fur, and when she finished, looked back at the large male. He padded around the kill and reached a human-like hand over and laid it behind her head. She whimpered and closed her eyes, expecting the worst.

A warm and wet feeling swept up the side of her wolfish face. She opened her good eye and stared at the other in confusion as he licked her, cleaning off some blood she had missed. Mizho found this disturbing, but her wolf seemed to relax at this. Mizho figured this was a kind of approval from the older wolf and let the wolf do what she wanted now.

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