MIAKODA


"You've lost it, Hart."

Black eyes took in the shop in front of her. One that reeked of blood, and something else with revenge drenching it. And she was going to go in. Well done, Koda, let's continue to make stupid decisions.

"Ah, fuck it," Miakoda muttered to herself, grabbing her leather jacket and slinging it on before she shut the door to her Jeep behind her. The sound of a brush on wood came to her ears as she loitered in the doorway. Rose Quartz made her nose burn with the incense well, burning, around the room. There were a few tables scattered around, covered in dark fabric and artefacts that made the Historian in her raise her head. It looked like a good place if you ignored the blood decorating the floor. There was a pale face in a long skirt that just, to Miakoda, seemed to get in the way, as she scrubbed. She was right in front of her, but her scent- cardamom, cumin and something sharp – was like an echo.

"Hello?" Miakoda greeted but the girl said nothing, still consumed in her robotic motions. "Excuse me?"

Nothing.

Clearing her throat, Miakoda raised her voice, "Hello?"

Grey eyes locked on her from their spot on the floor, and fear had encased her small being, that seemed to linger even when her scent came back into focus. "Sorry," Miakoda apologised, bashfully, "I've just been trying to get your attention for a while."

She said something in a foreign language. Miakoda went through the 'shelving unit' she had in her head. Victoria was right in the way that it was soft, but it wasn't Russian, if anything, going by her pronunciation of some of the words, maybe Eastern European. This must be Evdokiya that Victoria was talking of.

Evdokiya cleared her throat, probably realising she wasn't speaking English. "Sorry, you have?" her words were heavily accented but Miakoda said nothing of it, she'd worked with archaeologists with thicker ones.

Looking around her once more, Miakoda's eyes came to the wall, "Yes. I'd heard about you from a student in my class," her gaze turned back to the petite woman, "and I admit, I'm curious."

"Oh," the woman cleared her throat, "are you a teacher?"

Miakoda braced herself for the onslaught of questions as she answered with "A lecturer, at Harvard?"

To say she was shocked was a little bit of an understatement. Waving around, Miakoda questioned, "What happened here?"

"Someone broke in." Bitterness filtered into her scent and Miakoda caught the anger that lingered. The fear must have been from the victim. It wasn't from a Creature. Human, female.

Males and females had a differentiation between their blood. Not that Miakoda actually ate them. No properly trained or raised Wolf actually ate them. They could eat blue steaks or rare meat to satisfy that side of them, or even hunt wildlife in order to get a harness on the Wolf part of them. The lore on Werewolves was written by Hunters, making her kind out to be worse than what they were. If any recently turned Wolves ate hearts, it was because they went to the sources that were online, or they didn't have an anchor. Some humans were also...weird. Period.

Males have a sharper scent to them, mostly due to their…equipment, and because they consumed more meat than females, who ate more fruits or sweeter foods. It meant that women overall smelt sweeter than men, due to their diet.

Miakoda tuned back into the conversation, "Wanting to threaten me." The brush in Evdokiya's hand landed with a splosh before she wiped her hand on a patterned towel. "Come sit, what would you like me to do? Read your palm or card reading?"

Miakoda followed her to a small table, covered in a purple cloth that, ironically, had the Moon in various phrases embroidered into it. "Palm for today. If I like it, I may come back."

She could be right.

Miakoda put her linked hands onto the table as Evdokiya cleared her throat. "Well, I better do a good job." At the challenge, she straightened her spine. She had steel in her. "What's your name?"

"Doctor Miakoda Hart," Miakoda answered promptly.

"Well Doctor Hart," she held out a ringed hand, "Your hand please."

Miakoda slid hers into Evdokiya's and the shades and textures were abruptly noticed. Miakoda's were harsh, from being on digs or even from the woods; they were littered with little scars, especially in the palms, from her claws trying to get a grip on her Wolf. Evdokiya's weren't exactly smooth but not rough. She'd worked but Miakoda didn't know where.

Suddenly Miakoda heard Evdokiya's heart accelerate as well as howls, heartbreakingly taunting howls, in her head. Screams of her Pack entered next, with the scent of burning flesh and wolf's bane mixed with mountain ash. Her Wolf whined inside of her, wanting to get away from the memories that threatened to consume her every cell.

Suddenly the two locked eyes, grey on black, and fear were prominent in Evdokiya's scent.

The chair fell back with a clash that rattled in her head, her senses still a little discombobulated from what she'd just experienced. The psychic had walked back into a shelf, eyes wide on Miakoda. Her heart had picked up to an unhealthy rate, and her scent had become tinged with anxiety and panic.

Realising that Evdokiya was rapidly approaching anxiety attack territory, Miakoda slowly got up from her spot and crept forward, hands out. "Miss? Miss?"

The foreign language came out rapidly. Miakoda stepped in when Evdokiya started to smack herself in the head. She wasn't going to let the girl harm herself, but she certainly wasn't human. Taking her by the shoulders, Miakoda channelled the Alpha into her next words.

"Evdokiya." The woman in question froze, hand still in the air as their eyes locked again. Squeezing gently to reinforce her next words, Miakoda spoke slowly, "Calm down."

Evdokiya, Miakoda mused as the woman was caught up in her head, was a few inches shorter than her, maybe coming up to the cleft in her chin. Her cheekbones were sharp and her hair was long and dark but unlike many of her people, had a curl to it. There was a warm undertone to her skin as well, which, reinforced Miakoda's hypothesis of her being Eastern European, or well, European at least. Her eyes were big, like a doe's. Big and bright in her head.

Protect.

Oh fuck.

The next five minutes came in a blur. Miakoda remembered leaving money with a tip, and a card for the girl to contact her on before she was on the road back to her house.

Miakoda hadn't even realised her Wolf had taken a liking to the woman until it had whispered in her mind when she was calming her down.

Werewolves had two sets of instincts inside of them, the Human and the Wolf. Bittens struggled to find a balance between the two for the first few months, which was why their control was so unsteady. Born wolves, like Miakoda and the Skidi, the name of her people, her Pack, had always had them so they never knew anything different. There were some Bittens, that melded so well with their Wolf instincts, it was like they'd meant to be one. When the Wolf had spoken in the shop, Miakoda didn't really realise how much she'd missed having some link to Pack, hadn't realised how shaken it had made her, till she sat on the side of the road, hands periodically clenching and releasing on the wheel of her Jeep, as she let out a keening whine.

Her heart throbbed painfully in her chest, distinctly letting her remember that she was on her own. Had been on her own for a while. Since she was 16. Tears burned in her eyes as she remembered being happy, being whole. God, she missed being whole. Losing Pack meant that to Bittens, they could go Rabid, but to Born Wolves, it was like losing everything – limbs, hearts, your soul, your will to live. The killing rate of Wolves, after a blaze like Miakoda's house, went up as Omegas – lone wolves – went up substantially as they basically lost their minds. The only reason Miakoda hadn't was because she wasn't going to give the Hunters the pleasure of eradicating the Skidi Pack off the Map. That was the reason she didn't succumb to her grief. Whatever Evdokiya had done, had just brought it back, tenfold.

Miakoda gave herself a few minutes to wallow before wiping the tears from her face and drove the rest of the way home. She glanced into the kitchen, only to have her stomach roll at the idea of food before she made her way up to her bedroom. She wanted to go for a run, feel the dirt underfoot but Miakoda knew, in the emotional state she was in right then, it would only make it that much harder to shift back.

Forgoing a shower, Miakoda threw on her fluffiest pyjamas before she climbed into bed. Her eyes connected to the little, slightly singed, wolf figure that she'd found in the rubble of her house and she caught her eyes flashing in the mirror before she shut them tight and rolled over.

The purring of the Special Agents' car alerted her from her daze. Immediately on alert, as any wolf would be with Hunters in the area, Miakoda kept an ear on them.

"Dean, we don't even know if she's connected to the case," McTaggart commented, exasperatedly as the doors creaked slightly and they made their way up to the house.

"Better to make sure, Sammy." Johnson seemed to grin, she heard in his voice. The doorbell went and Miakoda paused the episode of The Walking Dead in a particularly gruelling scene before she made her way down to the door. She could basically taste the curiosity from her neighbours and she opened the door.

"Agents?" Miakoda greeted, raising her eyebrow, "What can I do for you?"

Johnson raised a hand, "Just a few more follow up questions since one of the witnesses said you were at her shop, yesterday?"

Immediately concerned, she straightened, her Wolf clawing in her head, "Come in. The old biddies on this street don't need any more gossip."

The men smiled and she welcomed them in before she shut it with a wave to Mrs Danvers across the road. Dean glanced into the living room and blinked slightly at the sight of what was on the TV. "Walking Dead fan?"

"Yeah." She smiled up at him, ushering them into the kitchen where she flicked on the kettle. "I don't really get to watch it when it's actually on because of work so the weekends are for bingeing and trying not to cry at some essays that my students give me."

Sam laughed under his breath. He remembered some of his lecturers snipping about some less-than-stellar essays that had been handed in. "That's one thing I don't miss."

Dean sent him a look and they sat down at the island as Miakoda seemed to mother them, getting a plate of food out as well as offering them tea. "What were you doing at Rose Quartz yesterday, the owner said that you were there."

"As you know," Miakoda motioned with a biscuit, "Victoria was a student of mine when the news came on last night, I don't know, I looked it up. As a historian, we're not supposed to shrug off other old…extra curricular but sometimes your own bias can filter through. Victoria had mentioned that she'd gone there to get some advice about Ross, her husband, or rather boyfriend of the time, and on a whim, I looked it up."

Sam snapped a cookie in half, looking at her, "And what did you do after that?"

"Wrote the address down on a post-it and stuck it to my laptop." Miakoda held up a finger to pause the conversation and she grabbed it from her spot on the sofa. "Here."

On the blue post-it was the address and name of the shop in a clear, near blockish writing.

"Then what?" Dean asked her, seeing an essay up, with little notes scattered throughout on it.

"I went to bed. Next morning, I nearly forgot my laptop because I thought I slept in. Got to campus actually twenty minutes early for my office hours. I was there till 2. It takes around thirty minutes from her to get to Rose Quartz."

Sam leaned forward, resting his elbows on the island, "Why'd you go?"

Shrugging Miakoda pushed a few locks of straight hair behind an ear, looking them both in the eyes, "Curiosity. Victoria always spoke of it, every time she went she came into class with a hop in her step. I wanted to see what made her so happy."

"What'd you get?" Johnson asked, mouth full causing her to raise an eyebrow and for him to swallow roughly, and clear his throat and then talk again, "What did you get?"

Miakoda gave him a pleased little tip of the head, causing Sam to laugh under his breath. Professor Hart hardly looked threatening, clad in leggings, what looked like a loose Harry Potter t-shirt underneath a red and black flannel. But then again, Dean always did respect women. Something good that John Winchester had actually taught them, apart from trying to not die.

"Palm." Johnson's head tipped once to the side as if weighing something in his head. Sam noticed the doctor space out a little like she was stuck in memory or something.

"Doctor?" Sam asked tentatively and the Wolf in her head immediately jumped on the defence.

"Mm?"

"Did…something happen to you at Miss Vankov's shop? Did you notice anything strange? Cold spots? Weird smells?"

Getting a snapshot reel of the death of her Pack. "You mean apart from the 'itch' spelt out on the floor in blood?"

The Agents looked down at the table in sync, almost identical smiles stretching across their faces before Johnson seem to think of something. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a 3x2 photograph of a girl, young, smiling with the fortune teller, her arm around Evdokiya's shoulders in front of the shop. "Do you recognise this girl?"

Scanning the picture, Miakoda thought that she was rather pretty. "No," shaking her head, she handed it back, "No, I didn't see her when I went there. Why?" tipping her head to the side, Miakoda took in their scents and heartbeats. "Has something happened to her?"

"She's dead." Agent Johnson said bluntly. Agent McTaggart sent him an exasperated glance before giving her an apologetic one.

"We came across her body early this morning and went to notify her family and her mother said she worked at Miss Vankov's shop, who then notified us that you were there last night."

Miakoda nodded. "So you're covering all your bases, I understand."

McTaggart gave her a slight plan and she gently nudged the biscuits towards them, her Wolf going mad at the slightly haggard look to them both. She caught the slightly dark scents to them like they were bearing more than they let on. There was also something that connected them both, not the gunpowder that lingered, but a link. Maybe familiar or they were just in sync with each other.

"These are good," Johnson spoke up after he'd finished one of the biscuits she'd made that morning and put away, "the biscuits."

"My father's recipe. It's been in his family for generations." Miakoda smiled at them both and the boys noticed the melancholic look to her eyes, as well as seeing the flash of grief going through them.

The brothers drained their mugs and Miakoda felt a chuff of amusement come through her as Agent Johnson glanced at the biscuits, two left on the plate. "You can take it. I have more in the cupboard."

They took one each, Agent Johnson with a slightly gleeful glint in his eye. Lifting his in a silent thanks, Agent McTaggart led their way out to the car.

"Good luck with the vultures." Agent Johnson grinned back at her, as she walked them down to their car.

"This an Impala?" McTaggart rolled his eyes as Johnson straightened like a peacock.

"Yup. My dad's from '67."

"She's gorgeous."

"That yours?" he tipped his head to the Jeep in the driveway. Miakoda nodded.

"A bit bulky but I like to go hiking and motorbiking so she does her job well. I have a BMW S1000RR in the garage. Not very Doctor-esque so I drive the Jeep when I'm working."

Dean pictured her on the bike, in her leathers and held back the noise that he wanted to make and Sam gently tapped the roof. "Well, we best be going."

"Have a nice night, gents. Hope you find the asshole." She gave them a wave as they drove off and basically bolted as the vultures descended, getting inside before Mrs Davis managed to hobble across the road.