Chapter Three

Xander was not happy. He was not happy in an epic running through the Savannah chasing prey barking at the sky way. He wanted out. He wanted to crawl out of his skin because it was too tight, itchy, vibrating with energy and power and magic. Lots of magic. He could smell it and it was like fried bananas. It made his stomach turn.

Need mate.

He shook that thought off quickly. Kyle was fine. He was fine. They were only a hallway apart, after all. A hallway apart in Sunnydale High, home of the Hellmouth. Oh Goddess. No. No, he was choosing to believe that Kyle was fine.

Oh right, Willow. Willow was the reason he wasn't pressed against a nice willing mate right now.

"We're worried, Xander," she said, probably wrapping up some long intervention speech he had blissfully tuned out. Well, maybe not blissfully, but the effect was the same. She waited for a response.

"I'm fine," he said, and forced his smile to reach his eyes.

"It's just different," she said.

"What is?" he said.

"You and Kyle being all, you know, with the naughty touching and the not growling," Willow blushed and Xander basked in the memory of said naughty touching, although.

"We still growl," he said, distracted by thoughts of a pliant Kyle, "just in a good way." He trailed off. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Ignorance was not a convincing look on Willow, Xander noted as he strained to hear more.

"It sounded like a thump," he said. A thump coming from where Kyle was.

Mate. MATE!

Every sense screamed at Xander to run, so he did, clawing past the redhead in his way and tearing down the hallway. There it was! The Slayer was threatening His Mate. How dare she? He screeched to a halt and stood beside Buffy and Kyle, not at all winded, but glowering.

"Put him down."

Kyle met his eyes and he was almost overjoyed to see relief in them. His instincts told him that this was good. It meant that Kyle was accepting his leadership and was fully submitting.

There was still Buffy to deal with, though.

"DOWN!" he growled, and she complied without thinking, dropping Kyle, then scowling at Xander.

"Maybe I should be asking you the questions," she said, reaching around to grasp something in her back pocket. Kyle skittered around to hide behind Xander, an action that almost made him purr.

"You come here, assault my mate, and you're asking me questions?" he said, disbelief bleeding through.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Xander?" the little blonde pedantically continued, brandishing the dagger she had drawn.

"Uh, I am Xander." He really hated to burst her bubble…ooh, he could smell his mate. Nice mate, nice smell.

"My Xander doesn't talk to me like that."

Stupid girl.

"Really," he said. "Your Xander?"

"Yes," she huffed, "he's my friend."

"First off," he had to concentrate very hard not to pounce on her and claw at her vocal cords until he tore them out, her hands scrabbling to gain purchase on the tile as he slowly crushed her windpipe… "Friends are not property. And secondly, overreacting much?"

He may have been able to smell the magic, but he was pretty sure she couldn't.

"Xander's not gay."

"Okay," he said, "I think we're going now." Kyle gave a little nod of assent and they turned to bolt.

"Wait a minute," said Buffy. "You forgot something."

Xander spun on his heel out of courtesy and faced her. "What?"

"This."

'This' was apparently the union of her fist and his face, a fact he realized as he slumped to the suddenly soft and appealing ground. The last thing he saw before the stars went out was a stunned Kyle going down to a swing of Willow's book bag. Traitorous bitch.

Black. Thudding pain. Screeching laughter. A hot, dry wind that smelled of dust and death. Earth. Fried bananas. Silence.

When the hyena opened her eyes she was confused. All she could see were bars on a cage, and all she could feel was a cool, smooth ground.

Tile.

Her body was strange and new. Two legs, and arms now, like the men she sometimes hunted. Pale and furless, only a little crop of hair on top that she could feel. Male. That was new.

She seemed to remember this body, as she seemed to remember that the ground was called tile, and that the place she sat was called the book-cage in the library. She wasn't sure what those words meant, but she knew that she had to get out because it was bad. She had a wounded mate to help, and these people were keeping her prisoner!

She snarled at the two figures standing on the other side of the bars. The old man was mumbling and fidgeting with his glasses while the yapping blonde child stared at her. The hyena stood and lunged at them. Keep her locked up would they? She would get out! She would GET OUT!

She needed her mate. Her skin was starting to itch and she knew that she had to complete the mating or else it would get worse and she would start to hurt and she just needed to be close to her mate who smelled so nice and was so soft…Where was he? What had they done with him?

She sniffed the air, and found that she couldn't smell anything. Well, that wasn't true. She could smell herself and the man and the girl and the books and the cage, but no mate. Compared to her old nose, this new body's nose was pathetic. She leaned forward instead and listened to the old one and yapping girl's conversation.

"That's not Xander," said the girl.

"No, it would seem not," said the man.

"Giles!" whined the girl. The hyena winced at the sound. "Fix him!"

"Well, we do need to ascertain what the trouble is first…Has Kyle said anything yet?"

Mate! They had her mate somewhere and were questioning him. She had to find him. Then she could make them pay.

"Dontcha think it's time I was a bit more persuasive?" said the girl, vibrating with excitement.

The hyena growled softly. For every hair of her mate's head that they touched, she would break a bone.

"I'm sure that won't be necessary, Buffy," said the man. "You must remember that there is still a very human boy in there."

"We don't know that," the girl sulked. "For all we know, he's some kind of gayifying demon!"

The old man coughed. "That's highly unlikely."

The hyena had to agree with her captors there. She might not know much about this place, but that was still highly unlikely.

The blonde growled. "Just fix my Xander!"

What if your Xander doesn't want to be fixed, thought the hyena. She examined herself and felt no nagging sense of discomfort that suggested that her presence was unwanted. She just felt a bit off, and twitchy. She needed her mate.

They had to have him nearby, but far enough that she couldn't smell him or sense him in any way. That put him somewhere in this building. He must be uncomfortable, as she was. She wanted open sky and the savannah, not four walls and a tiny window.

Window?

It was high up, and small, something that she would have ordinarily had little trouble crawling through, but now judged to be a tight squeeze. Still, if she could get her captors to leave for a moment, then she could make her escape and find her mate. She stretched out her senses, following the tingle and itch that told her of her mate. He was close, perhaps a fast run to the west. Now to get out of the cage.

The blonde yapping one would never let her go, so she was forced to wait as the two stopped talking. As she sat on the cool floor she thought of sand and wind, dry air and the scent of the long grasses. All she could smell now was sweat and children, dust and tile. She hated this place and this clumsy body. She wanted her mate and her pack.

The girl stormed out of the library, and the old man turned to regard her. The hyena wrestled against the need to slam herself against the walls of the cage again. She just knew that the blonde was going to Kyle now. Kyle was HERS! HER MATE!

She breathed. The only way out was the window, and the only way out the window was to get the old man to trust her. She delved deep within her borrowed mind and found a name and speech.

"Giles?"

The old man started when she spoke, surprise etched in the lines around his mouth.

"Good lord! You can talk?"

"Why wouldn't I be able to talk? I'm Xander," she said, attempting what the mind called a 'smile'. "Can I have a glass of water?"

"I know you're not Xander," said the old man. "Who are you?"

She laughed and the old man winced. She had no reason to lie to him. "I am Xander still, the same but different—more."

He seemed to consider this for a moment. "Is Xander all right?" he said finally.

She thought for a moment. She felt no other presence in her head, but she knew she had not always been as she was now. "I am in Xander. Xander is in me. I feel fine. And thirsty."

The old man looked at her for a while, then seemed to nod to himself. Her answer satisfied him so far, though the hyena could see that he had many more questions. Still, he turned and stepped out to get a glass of water. This was her chance.

Moving silently, she climbed up and opened the window. It was just large enough for her to slip through, out into the open air beyond. She tumbled down to the ground below and sniffed the air.

Her mate was to the west.