CHAPTER 4

"So, what do ya say, Dean?" Sam stood up and clapped me on the shoulder. "You ready to gut this bitch?"

"I don't know, Sam", I breathed. "This is a really bad time. My first full moon is coming soon and I haven't gotten control of my Alpha yet. Reverend Jim doesn't know how I'll act when the moon is full! I could hurt you or another innocent person if I'm not locked down by then."

"Dean, you need this. Need to..."

"No, Sam I can't risk it!", I shouted cutting him off. "And besides, I don't know if I can leave Lydia all alone! She needs me! I can't just leave and..."

"Yes, you can, Alpha", a small feminine voice said from behind me. I turned to face her, not even knowing when she had come into the room. "Go. Please."

"Lydia", I whined. "I can't. What if something happens?" I walked to her and tried to hug her, but she put her hand out to stop me. I suddenly had the urge to growl at her. She had never rebuffed me before and it had my Alpha kinda riled up.

"Garth and Bess are here, Dean." Her frown turned up slightly into half a smile. "And it's not exactly like I'm helpless. I have my own teeth and claws and everything!", she said excitedly like this bit of werewolf trivia was news to me. I rolled my eyes and heaved a defeated sigh, folding my arms across my chest. "Hey", she whispered, finally wrapping her arms around my waist. "I know you're worried about being able to control yourself around everyone. And I know you're afraid to leave me, but you need to get away from everything for awhile. And that includes me."

"But, the full moon..."

"Your brother said that it's only for a few days", she said putting a finger to my lips to stop me. "Right, Sam?" She looked over my shoulder at my brother and smiled.

"Right! 2... 3 days! Tops!"

"See?", she said, looking back at me with a wide, toothy grin. "You'll get back in plenty of time! And my next heat will come around the same time!", she whispered, wagging her eyebrows suggestively. I snorted despite my agitation. But then her expression became serious and she grabbed my chin. "If there's one of our kind out there killing people, you have to stop it." The sorrow in her eyes nearly broke me and I just nodded, closing my eyes. I could never say no to her.

Next thing I know we're on the road, hurdling toward the unknown. I hated to admit it, but it felt good to be doing what I was good at. But I was still on edge being away from my mate. If this hunting trip lasted as long as I feared it would, it would be the longest I have ever been away from her. But, I needed to get back in the game sometime, right? And the only thing that was keeping me going right now was the knowledge that very soon I would get to gank something.

As usual, Sam sat in the passenger seat, typing away on his laptop. The tapping was getting on my already frayed nerves. I wanted desperately to turn on the radio and drown out the noise, but I just knew that as soon as I did, Sam would have something important to say about the case. And just like clockwork...

"So get this...", Sam sighed as he stared down at the screen. "There's been another attack. I hacked into the local police servers and..." He paused and I glanced over just in time to see his face scrunch up into what looked like disgust.

"What? What is it?" I tried to keep one eye on the road and one on him.

"I knew from that newspaper article that the murders were brutal, but this..." Sam seemed to turn green before my eyes.

"That bad, huh?"

"Yeah, Dean. It's that bad." He looked like he was trying to hold back the bile as he stared at what i could only assume were police crime scene photos. "Two more bodies were discovered in an abandoned warehouse by a vagrant. Two teenage girls were mutilated almost beyond recognition. The coroner is waiting on dental records to be able to identify the bodies."

"Oh, this freak has to die, Sammy!", I growled, my hands tightening on the wheel.

"Dean, I pulled up the coroner's reports on the other vics and they are almost identical to the latest two", Sam breathed, looking like he was trying not to be sick.

"And?"

"And I've never seen a werewolf attack that looked this... this savage. These people were pretty much ripped apart. I mean... it looks like these people were caught in a Cuisinart!"

"Were they eaten?", I croaked.

"No, just butchered", Sam murmured. " The only things that appeared to be missing are the hearts."

"Than why all the violence?" This case was getting weirder by the minute. "This sounds personal."

"Yeah, it does", Sam whispered, running a shaking hand through his hair.

"What the fuck have you gotten us into here, Sam?" I could hear Sam swallow hard before he answered.

"I wish I knew, Dean. I wish I knew." I had a sneaking feeling that I was gonna be sorry I asked. With things like werewolves, I thought I knew what to expect. But this? This was way beyond what either one of us was used to.

"Let's hit the coroner's office BEFORE lunch, OK Dean?", Sam groaned, closing his laptop.

"Yeah, no kidding." The rest of the almost 4 hour drive to New Hampton, Iowa was quiet except for the purr of Baby's engine.

Needless to say that when Sam said that the bodies were butchered, he wasn't lying. They had literally been torn limb from limb. But that wasn't really what got my attention. What got my hackles raised was the smell that clung to the bodies. And I don't mean the smell of decomp. It was the overpowering scent of Alpha. It was so strong that I wasn't in the room more than 5 minutes when I had to leave before I attacked the nearest person. Which happened to be Sam.

By the time Sam caught up with me, I was leaning over the steering wheel of the Impala, trying to breathe through the rage that threatened to tear me apart. I jumped when the passenger door was pulled open and Sam slid onto the bench seat next to me.

"Are you OK, Dean?", Sam whispered, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"DON'T!", I snarled. I jerked away from him and my back slammed into the door. "JUST... DON'T!" I sat there growling at him like an angry Pitbull. He raised his hands in surprise and moved against the other door, mimicking my position.

"Whoa! Easy, Dean!", Sam said, attempting to calm me down. I closed my eyes and breathed through my mouth, trying not to smell anything that might set me off again. "What happened in there?"

"It was an Alpha, Sam", I croaked when I was finally able to string more than 2 words together. "He... he didn't just kill those people. He raped those women!"

"How do you know that? There's nothing in the coroner's report about any sexual assaults."

"BECAUSE I CAN SMELL IT, SAM! He was in rut! I think he was looking for a mate and I think that the one male victim got in the way!" Sam was quiet for a moment and stared far away at nothing. I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head. I would have laughed if this had been any other situation.

"Well with the level of mutilation of the bodies, it's possible that the coroner missed it."

"We need to check out that warehouse", I growled, positioning myself back behind the wheel and starting the engine. "Maybe I can pick up his trail there and it'll lead us to where he's hiding." Before I could back out of the parking space, Sam shot me his patented bitch-face.

"What?"

"Slow down, Dean", Sam grumbled. We need to find a motel, change outta these suits, and have something to eat. And since you can't eat regular human food anymore without chucking it up, we gotta get some take-out for me." It was a real drag that I could now only eat raw cow hearts now and not my beloved bacon cheeseburgers, but just thinking about eating anything that was cooked, made me wanna hurl. Lydia had chopped up 4 cow hearts, put them in plastic containers, and stowed them in the cooler. It was something that I was just gonna have to get used to.

This was my life now.