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Cinder

Cinder tugged out her wand, eyeing the werewolf warily. Any moment now, she knew, it would pounce and rip the members of their small group to pieces. That's the sole purpose of werewolves after all: to kill humans. And, unfortunately, it was a purpose they were very good at carrying out.

"Does anyone know how to use the homorphus charm?" Kai asked, his voice trembling with fear.

"The what charm?" Thorne replied.

Cinder rolled her eyes while Jacin snapped. "None of us knows the homorphus charm Kai. We don't learn that till next year!"

The werewolf blinked at them with big, bright eyes. If Cinder didn't know better, she'd think it was amused by their banter. And then it did the unthinkable: it yawned and sat back on its haunches.

Cinder's eyes widened with shock. It… wasn't going to attack them? No, it must be trying to get them to let their guard down. But she thought that werewolves just charged their prey and set about killing them without a second thought. Why was this one just staring at them?

"Uh… isn't this thing supposed to attack us?" Thorne asked. "I mean, my grades in DADA are less than brilliant but I'm pretty sure werewolves are supposed to attack people."

"Wow Thorne, who knew you actually learned something in school?" Jacin drawled sarcastically.

"If you have quite finished with your meaningless banter…"

Cinder cursed under her breath. She'd forgotten about the centaurs.

She turned and looked up at the one she thought had spoken. She was assuming it was the silver-eyed centaur. He'd been the most threatening of the group, and he also had an arrow pointed at her face so that seemed like a good indicator of hostility.

"You dare to claim that you had nothing to do with these monsters," he snarled, "when you bring one into our territory with you?"

Kai raised his hands in a placating gesture. "We didn't bring the werewolf with us. We didn't even know there'd be any werewolves tonight! They're only supposed to show up on the full moon!"

"Save your excuses! You have brought this plague into our forest! And for that, you must pay!"

Cinder flashed an accusatory glare at the werewolf. Was it her, or did it look a bit guilty?

Whatever. It didn't matter if the werewolf regretted getting them into trouble, all that mattered was it did, and now they were all going to be turned into arrow pincushions!

Frustrated and angry, she reached down to tug at the hem of her glove, hoping it will do something to help calm her down. Instead, all it did was force her to notice the soft glow peeking out from inside it.

Cinder's eyes widened. Her hand. It was glowing! It was only a matter of time before the other's noticed, and she was not ready for that conversation, even if she was about to die! She didn't want her last image of these people to be the looks of disgust on their faces when the saw how inhuman she was!

Spurred on by her fear and panic, she stepped closer to the centaurs surrounding them.

"What if we promised to get rid of the werewolves for you?"

She could practically feel the others turn incredulous looks on her as soon as the words tumbled past her lips. Honestly, she would have done the same thing if any of them had made the suggestion. But she was scared, she was panicking, and right now she would have offered to become headmistress of Artemisia to keep the centaurs happy.

They seemed suspicious of her, but also a little curious. Their bows lowered just slightly, and they turned to one another, having silent conversations with their eyes.

Finally, one of the centaurs clopped forward. It was the aggressive one. Cinder held her breath, hardly daring to hope.

It felt like eons before the centaur finally spoke.

"Very well. We will allow you to go back to your precious school with your lives if you swear to rid us of this poison. But if we receive even the slightest indication that you aren't making good on your word, then we will not hesitate to snuff you out like stars as they wink out of existence."

And with that, the centaurs broke their circle and galloped off into the shadows of the trees.

For the ten minutes of silent walking that followed, Cinder tried to figure out which of her group members would snap at her first for making such a ludicrous promise, which turned out to be Jacin.

"Are you insane?" He shouted, "We can't rid the forest of an entire species!"

"It was either that or get used as target practice!"

"All you've done is delayed the target practice! Or, if you were actually serious, condemned us to be used as dog food!"

"I don't agree with Jacin on many things," Thorne spoke up, "but I do agree with him on this. You couldn't have just promised them that we'd torture the teachers in retaliation for sticking the wolves in the forest in the first place? I've been working on a few pranks lately that I think would satisfy them…"

"Do you even have a plan on how to get rid of the werewolves?" Kai demanded. Cinder felt a little hurt about that. She'd thought that Kai at least would be able to hold back his complaints.

"No, but I didn't see any of you offering any suggestions! What would you rather I'd said: "By all means, kill us"?"

"Well, maybe we can ask the wolf that's been following us for the past ten minutes?" Winter's soft voice suggested.

Everyone whirled around and, sure enough, there was the werewolf. The most embarrassing part was that it wasn't even trying to hide; it was only a couple feet behind them, and directly in their line of sight. The fact that Winter had had to point it out for them was downright mortifying.

Kai was the one to break the shocked and embarrassed silence that had settled over them all. "I think I know why this werewolf isn't attacking us, and also why it's here even though it's not a full moon. I think I read somewhere that when two werewolves, err, mate on a full moon, their cubs have a near human intelligence. Maybe this is one of those cubs?"

Kai evidently hadn't noticed how the werewolf seemed to shrink in on itself as he spoke, or how its ears flattened and its eyes widened, or even how its lip curled just slightly. It was a little strange seeing these signs on a non-human face, but they were obviously horror, and a little bit of disgust too.

Thorne, also noticing these signs, snorted. "Kai, I think you just gave this poor sap an even greater reason to fear the full moon."

Winter giggled and Jacin rolled his eyes, while the werewolf looked faintly embarrassed.

Cinder smirked with amusement at the animal's almost human discomfort. Some part of her brain was screaming at her to run, that this was a dangerous beast that would be more than happy to feast on her flesh and why wasn't she running?

But Cinder just couldn't bring herself to believe that this creature sitting a few feet away from her was dangerous. Not when it was shifting its weight and casting it's gaze around like that.

Kai was smiling too, as he continued. "Okay, so not that then. Well, there's an explanation for why it's not attacking us right now, though it doesn't explain what it's doing out and about tonight. They could have taken wolfsbane potion before they transformed, which would have allowed them to keep their human mind."

Everyone glanced at the werewolf, which cocked its head to one side, like it was thinking. Finally, slowly, unsurely, it nodded its head.

"Why are you in this form out on a full moon?" Jacin asked it suspiciously. The werewolf seemed to hesitate again before scratching at the ground. At first, Cinder thought it was just a nervous action, but then she noticed that the movements of its paws were too focused, too purposeful. It was drawing in the dirt.

She stepped forward eagerly, curious to see what it was going to tell them. Then frowned. She moved to stand beside the werewolf, trying to see the picture from a different angle. Again, her brain urged her to run, but the werewolf didn't move, so neither did she.

Cinder's frown deepened as she studied the image. There was a line a couple inches long with other, curved lines coming out of one end. And Cinder had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to be. A feather duster? A broom? Some sort of whip?

"Do you guys have any idea what this is?" Cinder asked the others. They came over and started studying the drawing from every possible angle, though none of their guesses made any sense.

"Can you write it down?" Kai asked the werewolf. Everyone looked at it expectantly, sure that it would comply. After all, it had already drawn the picture for them. But it shook its head, swiping at one of its ears.

"Why not?" Jacin demanded suspiciously.

The werewolf swiped at its ear again.

"Do you have an itch?" Winter asked gently, "I can scratch your ear for you if you want?"

The werewolf shook its head again and swiped at its ear again.

Cinder's brow creased thoughtfully. That swipe… was it trying to tell them something?

Suddenly, a long, low howl rang through the night air.

The werewolf's head snapped in the direction the howl had come from. With a final glance in their direction, the werewolf bounded off through the trees, disappearing into the shadows of the night.

A/N: Oh Cinder… what have you done?

Our group lives, but now they have to fulfil an impossible quest: get rid of all the werewolves the school's put in the forest. But why did they put them in the forest in the first place? And what was that werewolf trying to tell them?

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