"Dean...come back, I need you to think, not just kill. As much as she deserves it." My mate's voice. Dean? Who's Dean? I am wolf, her mate, names are pointless.

Eight wolves, plus our enemy. Numbers mean nothing. Two of them attack. Good. The reddish one flies towards me, meet him midair, claws tearing into his flesh, blinding his left eye. Rip a chunk out of the other one's shoulder. She digs her claws into my side, no matter. Pack is stronger than pain.

"Dean!"

The blood tastes good, their flesh tastes even better. They are weak. Red rivers flow from the second one's throat, right into my mouth. Rip into her neck.

Roy slams into me, knocking me away from my meal, "Dean! Help! Coyote needs you!"

Coyote? Who...

Coyote! Shit! I had no control. The wolf side was so caught up in the kill it was ignoring the bonds for some reason. Mairyn had gone straight for Coyote, along with two other wolves. Somewhere in there she'd shifted back to wolf. I must have missed it while trying to have a wolf for lunch. Sam was just finishing off an enemy wolf but there was red streaks of blood staining his fur. Oliver was dripping blood from his back right leg and a huge gash in his chest, he was still fighting with a huge brown wolf and Roy was in the process of getting cornered by two others. He had hit me with his back leg as he tried to keep from getting pinned against a wall. He bunched his legs, jumped over the two wolves, rebounded off a low hanging part of the cave and landed behind Mairyn and her helpers. Once his paws were on solid ground he hamstrung one of the wolves that was trying to attack Coyote and jumped to the right. The wolf had seen all of it, he was just too damn hungry to care. I couldn't blame him, my, our, whatever, whole body had just been completely restructured in a matter of minutes. No wonder we were starving. I had to control this and fast.

I pulled on the bonds, mainly the one between Coyote and I. She'd somehow managed to stay rational, Roy was barely holding on, same with Sam and Oliver. Me losing it wasn't helping them at all, or her.

"I'm back guys, kind of. Give me a minute."

"Hurry the hell up." Sam growled, literally. He was looking at me as he sent that thought and I got an up close look at his huge ass teeth.

I fought with the hunger. Coyote yelped and a slice of pain shot through our bond. Fuck this!

-Look bastard, I'm in charge here.- I told my wolf side.

-Hunt, kill.-

-You want our mate to die?-

-Mate die?-

This weird lust laced sorrow filtered through me. He was pure instinct, wolves mate for life. In his mind if she died, he wouldn't get laid ever again.

-Yeah. If we don't help her no more sex for any of us. Eat later, save her now.-

That got him focused. He pulled our mouth away from the dead wolf he'd been chowing down on.

-Look, let me handle this.- It felt like I could force control away from him but I remembered what Fenris' had said about accepting this other side. If I forced it, it would backfire and bad. I'd had enough of forcing things down until I snapped. Since the wolf side could think, it could be reasoned with. I wanted it to let me take over and help, not fight me. He surveyed the room and that's when he tuned into the pack bond again.

-Pack needs help!-

-Exactly, now let's work together.-

-Yes.-

And suddenly I was in the driver's seat of my body again. Not only was I in charge of the body, I got all the knowledge on how to fight like a wolf, how to move and react to attacks. I also felt a dull pain in my left side, I'd gotten tagged by something but I knew it wasn't life threatening.

"Let's finish this." I told the rest of them.

"Finally!" Sam snapped. "Was getting worried."

Oliver had taken out the one he'd been fighting. He'd gotten on top of it and pretty much ripped it's heart out with his claws. That left five.

Roy had jumped again and a grey enemy wolf reached up, hooked it's claws into Roy's leg and brought him crashing to the ground.

"No!" Oliver hissed and went ballistic. He moved so fast all that registered was the blood and guts flying as he tore into the grey wolf.

"Dean!" Coyote's thought almost made me black out, it was that strong. I saw her strike out at Mariyn, who got her teeth into Coyote's leg and shredded it all to hell.

All the sides of me came together as I launched myself straight for the back of Mariyn's neck. Sam cleared my path by shattering the back legs and hips of the wolf that was between Mariyn and I. I barely noticed it's howls of pain, I was too focused on taking out the bitch that had hurt Coyote.

Unfortunately my growling let Mariyn know I was coming, she spun around faster than I expected. Her right paw nailed me in the face, ripping my cheek and muzzle while narrowly missing my eye.

The pain brought the wolf side raging back up. I held on, pushed through it and hooked my paw around her right leg to try to trip her up so I could get on top of her and dig into her belly. She kept her balance, barely. I could see her confusion. She had no idea how we were resisting her bond and managing to not go completely feral. Coyote took advantage of her spinning around to attack me and made a move for her back legs but Mariyn knew that was coming. She side hopped out of Coyote's reach, realized she was outnumbered and bad so took the only real option left to her. She tucked tail and ran. I bolted after her, Sam was right next to me.

"Wait!" Coyote said.

"Stay there. Your leg is shredded, so is Roy's. Oliver, guard them."

An intense desire to argue with me came back up the link from Coyote. "We need information! Remember the portal to Purgatory? Don't kill her!"

"Not letting her go." I sent back, but I found myself slowing down. What the hell?

-Kill now?- The wolf whispered in the back of my head.

-Kil...wait...-

"Kill now." That was Sam's voice, but not quite. He surged ahead of me, blood spurting out from a wound in his leg and side each step he took. The first hunt, this was it. Sam had held on before, but with Mariyn running he'd gone feral on me. He caught up to Mariyn and threw his paw out in an attempt to trip her as she ran. She stumbled and Sam plowed into her. They rolled over the top of each other for several feet until Sam hit a tree, which didn't even phase him. High pitched barks and sounds erupted from them as they wrestled each other.

"Sam! Don't kill her!" I ordered. I saw the thought register with him because he paused for the briefest of seconds. Mairyn took advantage of that and went for his throat, her jaws wrapped around his fur just as he pulled back. Blood started gushing.

-Kill now!-

My brother swayed. She must die.

"Do not kill her!" Mate's voice. Can't refuse mate.

"Dean! Sam! Stay with me. Please."

Enemy, Mariyn...Coyote...

Mairyn twisted out from under Sam and took off, limping, but running as fast as she could.

-Chase!-

-No! Sam's bleeding, needs us. We'll get her later.-

It was so hard not to chase her as Sam crumpled to the ground. I needed hands. I forced myself to go through that hellish pain again so I could change back into human form. A few minutes later I was standing naked and sweating next to Sam.

"No, no...c'mon. Not now!" I pushed through his fur to try to judge how deep the wound was. He snarled and snapped at me, catching my forearm with his incisors and drawing a decent amount of blood. "Sam! It's me!" He was so far gone but too weak to actually move much. Coyote, still in wolf form, limped up next to me.

"Let me try something."

Now that we weren't in the middle of a battle I began to notice some rather interesting things with the pack bond. When my wolfie half had said he couldn't refuse his mate I wasn't sure what that referred to. Now I did. Coyote had managed to help pull us all back from the edge while staying sane. Mariyn had gone after her and it was Coyote that had kept Mariyn at bay. I tried looking her directly in the eyes, I almost couldn't pull it off. This was going to get damn awkward. I'd deal with that later.

"Sam...listen to my voice, use it..." She repeated a few times. He started to calm down. The blood flow was slowing down pretty damn fast since his skin had started healing already. Damn we heal fast. Coyote was pouring a crap ton of energy and strength at him too.

"Coyote?" Sam whispered.

"Yes, that was a bit too close for comfort."

"We needed her.."

"We have the other ones back at the cave. They'll talk."

"What? How? She owns them," he pointed out.

"Not anymore. Pack bonds are interesting things it seems. We'll deal with her later. Promise." She looked at me, "Never realized how white your ass was until now. It's kind of blinding actually."

"Oh shut up. Sam? Are you able to walk back? I shifted because I thought I might have to carry you, didn't realize how fast we healed."

He stood up, "I think I'm good."

"All right, let's get back and talk to these guys."

"Uh Dean," Sam said. "You do realize our clothes are shredded, right? You going to stay like that or put fur back on?"

"Oh man, I don't want to go through that again!"

"I don't mind if you stay like that." Coyote stated and I could hear her laugh.

"Well I do. This sucks!" I put myself through the whole painful ass process again. I was beyond starving, we all were but with Coyote and the rest of the pack rational I could put a lid on it for now. The three of us padded back to the cave. Coyote's limp was almost gone by the time we made it back. There were some serious upsides to this, especially for hunters.