As always, disclaimers on the first chapter!

Sorry! Sorry! This one being late was all me! My brother got me caught up in an online game. For shame, right?

I finished Living with the Dead tonight. Sadly, it didn't get my creative juices going enough to continue on my sequel. I may need a sounding board. I'm working on it, though! Maybe Frostbitten will help me. It needs to be released sooner!! ::clears her throat:: Anyway, let me just say in advance "I'm sorry." The only pre-explanation you get is that I've been compared to Joss Whedon in doing terrible things to characters and tormenting readers. This is one of my more milder ones.

Battle

The last time I went a full twenty-four hours without sleep, it was the day of and after my Senior prom. The difference between then and now was that instead of overbearing parents and my first day of training at my first job, I was the "parent" and I had to deal with the problems my "child" was causing.

The fire was dying and I had just noticed the slice of dawn's light on the wall as Jeremy woke up and came out of his bedroom. "Did you sleep out here?"

"No," I mumbled.

"Want some breakfast?"

I nodded. It took me a moment to realize that Jeremy was about to make an attempt at breakfast before I leaped out my chair and dashed across the living room floor to stop him. "Woah, woah! I'm already up against certain death here, you don't need to bring it on faster!"

Jeremy smiled slightly as he put the pan back under the stove. "I was wondering how long it would take you. Now, why didn't you sleep, hmm? You know you need the rest."

"I know."

I took the pan Jeremy put away and set to work making the only hot breakfast type food I knew how to make: very cheesy omlettes. When I heard Nick's bedroom door open, I figured it was the smell of the food cooking that woke him up. I looked over my shoulder to give Nick my best "Problems? What problems?" grin, but it was quickly aborted.

Nick was leaning heavily against the door frame, his thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose. When he finally moved, he groaned and swayed a bit. While I sat up all night and quietly thought about the problems I had brought here, he looked like a demon rose in the middle of the night and dragged Nick by his toes through every circle of hell and back.

I quickly slid the second omlette into a clean plate and brought it over to Nick. He smiled at me as I handed the plate off to him, and I felt my heart flutter in my chest and the warmth of a blush rise to my cheeks. I bit my lip and turned away to go back to making breakfast. My hands were shaking as I pulled out a second pan for bacon and got started on cooking that.

"Didn't sleep well last night, either?" Jeremy asked Nick softly.

There was a slight pause. "That's the understatement of the day. I thought I was asleep, but..." Another short silence.

I lifted the plate full of bacon and turned around to push some onto each of their plates. "But it feels like you spent the whole night running a marathon while studying for an advanced Calculus exam?"

Nick nodded at me as he stuffed a couple slices of bacon in his mouth. Jeremy swallowed his bite of omlette, giving me a questioning look.

"I'm probably wrong, but it just sounds a lot like what the Leviathan does." I paused as I waited for Nick to stop his surprise choking on his bacon. "Essentially, it's a chaos demon. No body, thrives off of discord and hate and..." I stopped and swallowed as I remember the story I was writing when I created my beast.

Jeremy slid a sideways glance toward Nick and I could almost read in his look what he was thinking. Jeremy had always had a psychic connection with his pack mates, and now he was wondering if something was there that was beyond his realm of sensing. It was a connection that even Jeremy himself couldn't explain, but he always knew when there was something wrong with those in his family. Spurred by jealousy, I began to wonder if he had that toward me, then I wondered if he ever would, since I wasn't from his world.

I set my plate down on the counter across from Nick and pulled my stool around to sit on. "You look like you need more rest than you're letting on. How about we go for a bit of a run today? Just enough to push you back into the area of about to pass out, and we'll take a nap."

Nick shook his head sharply, much like a child who won't go back to sleep after a particularly nasty nightmare.

"Even if I lay down with you?" I raised an eyebrow and smirked.

He stared at me a moment then finally a ghost of his usual easy smile appeared on his lips. "Only if you lay down with me after."

"Drive a hard bargain, don't ya?"

I waited for Nick in the snow, my muzzle resting on my paws. He was taking too long in his Change and worry gnawed at my gut because of it. He was always done before me, waiting to pounce on me as soon as I came out of my hiding place. I was about to consider finding him a nice, fat winter hare when he finally emerged. He just quietly shouldered aside the branches and stepped out of the clearing. I jumped to my paws and went over to him, pressing my forehead against his flank.

After a moment, I felt him move away from me and rest his muzzle on my back, grumbling as he rubbed his chin repeatedly both with and against the direction of my fur. I leaned down and nipped at his foreleg playfully before dancing away, letting my tail wag a bit to entice him into the chase. When he didn't come after me, I bowed down, making it clear that I wanted him to come run with me, to run after me. All it took was him to feign an attempt to start chasing me and I was off in a flash, a blur of dark brown in an already dimly lit forest.

Nick was right behind me, running as fast as his exhausted body would allow him to. I left him a twisted trail to follow, weaving in and out, over and under, and even going so far as to run straight through the stream near the property. Paws soaked to the bone, I stopped and looked behind me, actually surprised to not see Nick there until I realized that I hadn't heard him behind me in quite some time. I threw back my head and howled, calling to where ever he was. After my howl faded, I heard a distant howl back, not far from where I had stopped hearing Nick behind me. I waited a while longer, listening for the soft crunch of paws on ice and snow.

A mass of fur exploded from the forest behind me and shoved me to the ground, growling as teeth locked onto the scruff of my neck. I kicked and whined, struggling against my attacker, but Nick held me firmly into place. I dropped to the ground, which surprised him enough to let go of my scruff.

I rolled away from him, a time or two extra to throw off his timing, before I jumped to my paws quickly and sprang onto his back. His legs buckled under him and I grabbed a muzzle full of the fur that protected his neck before he could roll farther.

Growling, I shook him a bit before I shifted to get a better grip. He was expecting me to loosen my grip, and he was not in the least disappointed. He scrambled out from under me and pounced on my back, knocking me to the ground and effectively pinning me.

As his muzzle rested on the top of my head, I heard a growl vibrate in his chest and I knew he was chuckling at me. I flicked my tail, making sure to hit him with it. It only spurred him to bite at my ear, mock growling into it. When Nick slid off my back, releasing my poor ear, I lifted my head and glared at him.

He didn't notice. His muzzle went right for using my paws as a pillow, his nose burying into my chest fur as he made a contented sound. I rolled my eyes and lay my head over his, joining him in sleep as the sun gently warmed our resting place.

I knew I was twitching in my sleep as my brain tried to make sense of the colors and blurred images that I dreamed about. I heard a whimpering moan in the distance and I ran to investigate. I was still in wolf form, feeling the wind through my coarse fur as I pushed myself faster and faster, far beyond my limits in a race to get to the source of the sound.

As I got closer, I heard a chuckle. It wasn't warm and friendly like Nick's or Jeremy's. It was far more devious, evil and cold. The sound of the laugh froze my legs into place, and I trembled all over with genuine fear so thick that I could smell it on myself. The whimpering grew louder, and in it I could hear someone calling my name. My legs wouldn't work. I couldn't find the source of the call.

Suddenly I was human again, doubled over in pain. I felt the first prickle of tears coming to my eyes as I hit my knees, and I was gasping as if unable to breath. The chuckle had grown louder, becoming a full on laugh and drowning out the whimpering call. Something within me screamed that I needed to get out of this nightmare, but all I could bring myself to do was try to fight back against my invisible opponent. I let out a scream of pain while my ears heard a lupine yelp, but none of that mattered after I realized I was unable to make any other sounds.

My eyes flew open...

Nick had his jaws firmly clamped around my throat, snarling and trying to toss me from side to side. I panicked and tried to pull away, struggling to get both free of Nick's jaws and my next lungful of oxygen. His teeth bit down harder, and I managed a strangled sound. I brought my back legs up under him and gave a hard kick, making sure to move my paws so that the kick also had the bite of my blunt nails in it.

It shocked Nick enough to release me, and I coughed and gasped for breath. Despite the feeling of dizziness, I tried to stand up, but Nick had recovered and barreled into me again, this time knocking me to my side and biting down into the soft flesh of my belly. My scream of pain came out as another loud, high pitched yelp that echoed through the forest. I snarled and tried to curl up to bite at Nick's muzzle so that he would release me. When that didn't work, I tried to kick him away again. Only one connected, and as he flew off of me, he tore away a chunk of fur and flesh with him.

I scrambled to my feet and faced off with Nick, who still had the bloody brown chunk of fur between his jaws. He growled at me and lowered his head between his shoulder blades, his ears flat against his skull and his eyes wide with unseeing frenzy. As he jumped to pounce on me again, I scrambled under him and turned around, not letting my back face him for any length of time. Nick landed right where I was standing and kicked snow over the dark red puddle I had left in my wake.

Distracted by the amount of my own blood I had seen soaking the snow, I can't say that it was surprising that I was overtaken by another tackle of Nick's. This time, I snapped to right away and gave him another hard kick to the gut. He wouldn't let go of me this time, and shook me like a rag doll. My memories went back to when my dad brought home two Alaskan Malamutes and when they tore the crap out of my little American Eskimo.

While memories of my dogs and their fights flashed through my mind, my eyes didn't register the blur of black that came out of the forest and knocked Nick off of me. I lay dazed in the snow while I watched Nick and the other wolf duke it out, far better than I could ever defend myself as a wolf. Blinking stupidly, I watched the black wolf overpower and eventually knock out Nick with the same wind-pipe crushing maneuver that Nick had used on me earlier.

I struggled to get to my feet again, my mind racing. Nick was down, could even be dead! By a normal wolf, no doubt. Or maybe it was a mutt! A mutt had taken down Nick, and I had just laid there and watched it happen. What if he came after me next?

During my struggle, the black wolf turned around and looked at me, eyes full of concern. Black eyes. Familiar eyes. Jeremy's eyes...

That was the last thing I remembered before the world went dark.