Firetooth was angry.
He was angry for many reasons. His alpha's mate had run away, bringing his unborn children with her, and now his Alpha was distraught over the selfish bitch. Firetooth had been sent to hunt her down, and given only two adolescent males, too young and stupid even to have names yet, to help him do it. His own mate, Nightsong, had gone off to hunt for the bitch herself, instead of staying by his side or in the den where she belonged. He was tired, and hungry, and frustrated after hours of hunting, and angry for all of those reasons.
But mostly, he was angry because he was a werewolf.
Pure rage, strong even for a werewolf and as much a part of him as his tail, seethed constantly in the depths of his soul, held back only by constant and vigilant effort. The other werewolves could see the banked fury in his eyes and respected him because he controlled it, even as they feared the day when he could not.
"Smell," barked one of the youths under his command. Firetooth privately thought of him as Drooly, because of his habit of panting open-mouthed when excited. The other, whom Firetooth liked to think of as Fuzzhead as much for his stupidity as for his thick ruff, came over to sniff and growled excitedly.
"Bear," he said happily, wagging.
"Let's kill it," Drooly said with a wicked grin.
"I'm hungry," Fuzzhead added, as though this were a convincing argument.
The three of them together should be able to kill a bear, but Firetooth had his orders, and those orders did not include leading inexperienced youngsters with poor control over their wolves into combat with the forest's second most dangerous animal. Firetooth shook his head and flattened his ears in refusal.
"I'm hungry," Drooly repeated Fuzzhead's argument, living up to his name as he snuffled the trail again.
"You're always hungry," Firetooth snapped. "We will return to the den if you are such children that you cannot control yourself."
He gritted his teeth in frustration, hanging onto his own control by the tail, his general unhappiness with the situation bleeding through and making him weak. Predictably, the younger werewolves bristled at the insult and began to trot along the trail in open defiance. He chased after them, knowing he would only make himself look weaker by trying to call them back now.
"If we must persist in this foolishness, then at least let us hunt properly," he growled quietly when he caught up to them. "Let me strike and you flank -"
"You always strike," Drooly growled back sullenly.
"Because I am Striker," he snarled, raising his tail over his back in anger. "A position I earned."
"Bear! Bear!" Fuzzhead cried in a frenzy of eagerness, and lunged forward at a dark shape in the brush. The other werewolves followed, Drooly howling with hunting fever and Firetooth frantic to reach the bear before it killed the clumsy puppies. They burst into the small clearing and found -
A cub.
Fuzzhead struck the cub at full speed, fangs and claws sinking through the soft fur and baby flesh. It squeaked once before it died, its fragile spirit parting easily from the body it had known for only a few months. Drooly tore into the corpse and the two began ripping it apart, devouring the meat in huge gulps, fully occupied with their feeding and dead to the world.
Firetooth reared up on his hind legs, bitter disgust filling his mouth as he searched the forest for the cub's mother. Perhaps the idiots would finish eating her cub before she came back, and they could leave this shame and get back to their work.
An ear-shattering bellow came from behind him and he spun about to see a massive brown bear rocket out of the concealed entrance of her cave, too close, the young werewolves between him and her. He roared back and leaped, colliding with her vast bulk just before she reached the young males, who were only now beginning to look up from their meal and blink stupidly at the threat.
He sank four fangs and twenty claws into her flesh and didn't slow her down at all. With an irritated twitch, she flicked him aside, chunks of her fur tearing away as Firetooth was flung across the clearing. He twisted in midair and landed on all four feet, springing instantly back into battle, even as she struck Fuzzhead with one massive paw, breaking his back with a loud crunch. The stricken werewolf collapsed, gasping weakly.
Firetooth landed on her back, tearing frantically at her shoulders and biting great chunks from her neck in an attempt to reach an artery. She screeched in pain and tried to twist her head back to bite at him, sitting on her haunches and scratching at her attacker with her hind paws. Drooly scrambled away, and disappeared.
The bear shook herself mightily and finally tossed Firetooth from her back. He landed badly, his odd werewolf hind legs failing to support him, and he tumbled across the clearing, fighting to turn the tumble into a controlled roll and get back up. The bear stood, bleeding from a dozen wounds, and Drooly reappeared behind her, neatly slicing one hamstring. She bellowed again and staggered, falling to one hip as she struggled with her now-useless leg in confusion and pain.
Drooly howled in triumph and Firetooth suppressed a flash of pride at the effective attack – bear hamstrings weren't where a wolf would expect them to be – and the two gathered themselves to sieze their advantage, when something terrible happened.
Agonizing, unbearable pain shot through his body, forcing him to the ground. Drooly rolled into a tight ball, wailing and lashing his tail. To Firetooth's absolute horror, his skin split apart over his muzzle and peeled back, leaving red-raw flesh behind as all his thick hide fell away like the husk of an insect. The flesh turned soft and pink, hairless, and then his bones began to shift.
His face changed first. Grinding and snapping, his muzzle forced itself back into his head and flattened, his ears becoming round pink shells and his fangs shrinking into uselessness. In front of him, the bear heaved herself onto three legs and shuffled towards the writhing young male, opening her mouth for a killing blow.
Desperately, Firetooth surged to his hind legs and staggered after her, lashing out with his claws, dimly aware that he had perhaps a handful of seconds before they, too, would be gone and he would be helpless. He seized her head, opening gashes along her face and ruining one eye, and she swiped sideways at him with a scream of pain, bowling him across the clearing yet again. Weak, shifting bones shattered under the blow and he struggled to stay conscious.
But the she-bear was roaring and pawing at her face, staggering about the clearing in agony, and Firetooth felt his claws slurp back into his fingers and toes and let himself collapse limply to the ground in surrender. Either the bear would kill him or she wouldn't. He wasn't sure which he preferred. Drooly's cries of pain changed from a wolfish howl to a human's scream, with a sharp arpeggio when the wounded bear stepped on his arm, and Firetooth chuckled in morbid amusement.
Zathrian was dead.
Thank you to mille libri and Enaid Aderyn for being early adopters :D
This chapter corresponds to chapter 35 in The Great Escape, but that isn't required reading. I hope you're enjoying this so far!