A/N: Two more chapters coming up tonight. It gets a little interesting! :) Thank you so very much for the reviews, favorites, and follows. It means a lot and is motivation! Feel free to leave more! :) Enjoy.

Chapter 5

The journey to the Amazon land was a quiet one, and when they got there it was equally silent.

Xena jumped from her horse only to be greeted by a bunch of Amazons when she landed. They were always quick at checking out who was arriving in their camp.

"Xena. Gabrielle. What are you doing here?" A familiar voice asked as her curly hair bobbed through the crowd of women.

"I've come to ask you to watch over Gabrielle; protect her." Xena was straight to the point and Gabrielle rolled her eyes at the word protection.

Ephiny caught the expression. "Isn't she capable of protecting herself?"

"You'd think.." Gabrielle mumbled.

"Quiet, Gabrielle." Xena was harsh, but in order to save the life of her Bard she had to be. It was tough love and if she wanted to survive while traveling with Xena she would have to learn how to follow instructions.

"As you wish." Gabrielle snapped harshly and walked into the camp without further word or farewell to Xena.

"Why don't you cut the tone, Xena? Gabrielle isn't a child." Ephiny took to the defensive side.

"Why? When I told her to stay put, she came back as a Lycanthrope. Don't you know the only way to cure her is to kill her! Now I have to go plead to the Son of Zeus, if not Zeus himself for a cure. And if he doesn't-If I can't get a cure that won't kill her..." Xena looked down with pleading eyes. "She has to learn to control herself in Lycan form, how can she do that if she won't even li-"

"You love her." Ephiny cut her off.

"I-I...No. I mean, yes. She's like family."

"No. You love her as a lover would." The curly blonde smirked with admiration. She knew well that Xena was being so protective because she loved Gabrielle. The warriors mouth might have not been cable of speaking such things but Ephiny could read the whole story in the depths of those baby blue eyes.

Xena bit down and stared into the eyes of her challenger. She had mulled over the thought of loving Gabrielle many times, but she was so afraid that love would drive the Bard away, or would be the death of her. Xena couldn't take anymore heartache and she couldn't take the thought of being the cause of Gabrielle's pain, so she kept the love to herself.

"You're...you're wrong." Xena said as convincingly as she could and began to walk away. "Watch over her."

The stoic warrior mounted Argo."YAH!" And like the sun fleeing from the moon she was gone.

Ephiny sighed. She knew how complicated things were, and what Lycanthropes were capable of if they were out of control. It was a hard thing to deal with and even harder to find a cure.

She walked over to the hut where Gabrielle ran off to. When she opened the curtains guarding the entrance she saw the young blonde sobbing on the ground.

"Gabrielle..." Ephiny cooed.

Shocked, Gabrielle quickly whipped her eyes as Ephiny took a seat next to her.

"She loves you. You know?" She spoke with such sincerity but not even Gabrielle would buy it.

"Are you kidding?" Gabrielle stood flustered in anger. "Loves me? Xena? No..she couldn't...She loves people like Marcus and every other bad boy that comes along. I'm too good or too child-like for her to love me. She doesn't even want me around half of the time." Gabrielle started mimicking Xena's gestures and mocking her voice. "Stay here, Gabrielle. Don't do this. Don't do that. I don't have time, Gabrielle." Returning to normal. "No, she doesn't love me Ephiny. She's probably leaving me here for good so she won't have to deal with me and this curse." Gabrielle finally broke down in sobs and Ephiny continued to listen. "I love her. By the Gods, I love her so much. You know how many times I've just tried to get her to notice that. I can help her, I can fight right along side her, until death." She paused "...As long as I'm with her. But Ephiny...Can't you see. I'm not good enough..." The tears continued to fall. "Now, if you don't mind. I'm exhausted."

Ephiny sadly took the que and got up to leave while the young bard got into the bed.

"I'll see you in the morning."

Returning to the others was difficult. She was bombarded with questions and they demanded answers. When Ephiny told them everything she knew most of them agreed that the cause was worth fighting for. But there were some that didn't want to risk what they had to protect this woman with a curse.

"I don't like this one bit." One of the Amazons spoke to another.

"Me either." The other whispered back.

"I say you and I kill her. Save our sisters from the danger that we both know she is capable of. Princess or not she must die."

Her companion acceptingly smiled.

When the camp fell quiet, the two Amazons planned a strategy to bring Gabrielle down. They figured that Gabrielle would be a piece of cake to kill in her human form, but just incase they laced their daggers into their bracers.

"We don't want it obvious we want her dead. If we play it right they'll think she's the one who attacked us. We tell them she couldn't control herself, they'll think twice about her and join our efforts."

The other nodded.

"You take the back, I'll take the front."

They shook and split off to Gabrielle's hut.

Gabrielle laid in the bed almost motionless, she had finally passed out from all the fatigue and crying. However, her Lycan senses picked up on the outsides of her dream state. She heard rustling around the hut. While her dreams played around the idea, her body started tingling with alertness.

The young bards skin started crawling with goosebumps. The door to the hut rustled ever so slightly.

If only the two Amazons knew it was enough to wake up Gabrielle.

Gabrielle flung to her feet and took stance. It was a weird emotion that was flowing out of her body. She wanted to talk and reason with them, but the adrenaline

was splashing through her veins like the wrath of Poseidon.

"What is the meaning of this?" Gabrielle screamed to try and reason what she could. The rage kept banging against her head and she shook to keep composure.

"We're going to kill you Gabrielle. Just like your kind killed ours long ago."

"What?!" She screamed and raised her hands. The red wasn't slow to flare in her eyes. The alertness and heightened paranoia was driving the bard into a raging fit.

The two girls each took Gabrielle's flanks. Gabrielle backed up against the corner of the hut. And when they thought they had her they both tried to grab her by the wrist but Gabrielle was quicker and she reached for their hands twisting their arms behind there back and pushed them as far as she could away from her.

"Is that all you've got?" Gabrielle egged. "Come on! Kill me!"

One girl hung back as the other raced toward Gabrielle and tried a sweeping round house on Gabrielle's right but it was dodged by a jump and followed by a blow to the face. Gabrielle then ended it by pulling the girl's left shoulder and kneed her in the face then giving a second punch to put her back next to the other girl.

The second was quick to react at her sister's beat down and grabbed her daggers from her bracers. She took it by the blade and threw it at Gabrielle's head hoping to catch her off guard.

Gabrielle's senses shook with adrenaline and she caught the dagger in mid-air; shocked, she took a hard blow with a right hook. She stumbled back and gained her composure right before receiving a left punch into the stomach. The hit enraged her and she could feel the heat boiling within her body. The girl took one last move and landed a perfect kick on the side of Gabrielle's ribs, breaking them to pieces. She heard the crack and they both caught each others eyes with rage and excitement.

Gabrielle wasn't anywhere close to finished like the two girls figured she would be. In fact she felt the last nerve break within her. It must have been the Lycanthrope blood raging in her but she came out of the blow with more speed and power then they'd ever seen. She was transforming and she knew anything that happened after would be out of her control.

The two Amazons were standing wide-eyed and defensively side by side, with daggers drawn as they prepared to embrace the wrath of Gabrielle.

The pain raged within the bard."AHHHH!" Gabrielle screamed and ran as fast as she could towards both of them. It seemed to have caught them off guard because before they knew it Gabrielle had the Amazon on the left by the wrist. She twisted it so hard that the Amazon now had her back facing away from the action and Gabrielle used her as support to get in a few flying kicks to the the Amazon on the right. When she landed she used the pinned arm of the first Amazon to maneuver her to the front, posing as a shield. The second Amazon was enraged and lunged to try and stab whatever she could of Gabrielle. And before they all knew it Gabrielle completed her transformation. She snarled and her snout snapped.

"Stupid move, Amazon." Gabrielle grabbed the second Amazon's wrist mid-air and shoved it into the neck of the first. The girl was shocked and screamed loudly at the sight. The body of the first Amazon dropped like a large sack of potatoes.

The Lycan and the Amazon girl stood alert, their senses heightened, listening and watching for even the slightest of movement from each other.

Gabrielle stood tall about 6 foot and towered over the Amazon. Her golden-white fur was now soaked in blood, and her eyes matched the color of her kill.

"What's going o-?" Ephiny burst into the hut and saw the dead body of her Amazon sister. She had heard the yell and she was heavily armed with the other Amazons at her back.

"That beast! She attacked us. W-we were checking, seeing if she needed anything. And then she attacked us, killed Xantippe."

Ephiny looked at the Lycan standing in the middle of everything. She drew out her bow and took an arrow from her quiver. She knew that Gabrielle had no control over her form and would have to kill her if needed to protect her Amazon nation.

Gabrielle caught the movement of the bow and fear fluttered in her eyes. She growled and placed one overly enlarged paw and snapped the bow in half.

"Attack!" One of the Amazon's sounded from behind. They all rallied and Ephiny started to panic. She panicked for Gabrielle's life, but Gabrielle caught on quick and ran as fast as she could out of the angered crowd and into the forest.

The angry voices deafened her as she ran as fast as she could. She had no idea where she would go but knew she had to run. For her life. The air around her smelled of death and she couldn't shake the feeling of the blood soaking into the depths of her soul. Her feet pounded heavily with guilt and murder against the hollowed ground and the world around her started to collapse.

Her senses led her to a dark place. It felt so right to the Lycan, because it matched what she was feeling inside. When she stumbled upon a giant marble stair case that led up to a mansion in the middle of the town she collapsed from all the pain and guilt.

Nothing can save me know, Gabrielle thought. This time not even Xena.