Willow felt her phone vibrate and pulled it out of her pocket. "Buffy, Johnathan and Ana ran into a werewolf hunter in Millers Woods, he set a trap for it and Johnathan got caught in it."

"Is he alright?" Buffy asked, concerned for her friend.

"Yes, it was a net trap. They called Molly to come cut him down."

"A hunter," Buffy said thoughtfully. "where did he come from? Alex and the pack just found out about the werewolf last night and told us about it today. This werewolf isn't being discrete, it's not capable of it, so it's just become an issue now. So how did a hunter find out about it?"

"A good question." Giles agreed. "But right now not one we can answer. And since the werewolf has escaped us and we were unable to keep up with it, we will just have to hope that Alex and the pack can catch it or try again tomorrow."

"Hey, bummer about you missing the shot with the tranq gun."

"I was unprepared for it to lunge at me."

"Least it didn't tear out your throat. Well, let's head for our homes. It's a good thing there's no school tomorrow, Alex and the pack are probably going to be watching the edge of the National Forest 'til dawn."

"Until the moon sets actually." Giles corrected her. "It's hold on the werewolf will end then."

"Still in for a long night and we can't call them and warn them about the hunter because they don't wear clothes while in wolf form, let alone keep a phone around." Willow reminded them.

"And if we go near the wild pack's territory, Alex said they're liable to take exception to it." Buffy said tiredly, failing to catch the werewolf after it crashed through the skylight of the Bronze was annoying.

Alex padded along on four silent feet, the pack spaced out about fifty feet apart, continuously scanning for the werewolf, two senses engaged more than the rest, smell and hearing. Last night had been a bust, the werewolf had escaped Buffy, avoided Miller Woods and not shown up at the National Forest, so they needed to catch it tonight and he and the others were on high alert. Which didn't stop him from also sighting a truck being driven into the National Forest. 'Oh, crap. Who the Hell is stupid enough to ignore the no vehicles allowed in the National Forest signs?!' He thought. 'And it's not like there's anything I can do about it, I can't stop searching for the werewolf. Whoever that idiot is, they're on their own.' He knew that wouldn't end well. And then he smelled something, he sniffed and realized it wasn't a smell that should be here, it was the smell of a deer. Neither Miller Woods nor the National Forest had deer in them, certainly not freshly killed ones. He swung around and spotted Cordelia, who was looking toward the Forest, she turned her gaze towards him and he knew she was smelling it too.

It seemed clear, whoever drove that truck into the National Forest had driven a dead deer into it as well. And proceeded to open it up. They were setting a trap. That smell would carry for a long way and the werewolf would smell it and be drawn to it. But so would the wild Wolfbloods who were already on alert over the werewolf.

Which meant whoever drove that truck into the National Forest was a hunter and either they were illegally hunting the wolves officially allowed to live in the National Forest or they were hunting the werewolf.

Either way the wild Wolfbloods won't tolerate that human in their territory. Alex swung back around and ignored the smell, there was nothing he could do about the very stupid human hunter who was knowingly violating several of man's laws. The breaking of those laws didn't warrant death, but what werewolf hunters did to werewolves was another matter. They only had about an hour until the moon set, if they didn't catch the werewolf tonight they'd have to try again next month, unless it moved on.

A long, low howl reached Alex's ears and he recognized Jesse's voice, an alert, something or someone was approaching, Alex inhaled, catching the smells on the night air. There, an unfamiliar animal. He honed in on the smell and quickly transformed, the tranq pistol secured to a strap on his arm was now in his hand and he fired it. The werewolf could not be allowed to get passed them. He saw it stagger as the dart impacted and it wobbled as the fast acting formula hit its system. It slowly sank down onto the ground and he and the three wolves cautiously approached it.

"It's out, guys. Let's get it secured and into the cage Uncle Rory made." The others transformed as well and Jesse picked the werewolf up and carried it toward where Rory Harris had stashed the cage he'd welded together. It wasn't very big or strong, but they only needed it until the moon set anyway and that was in less than an hour. Then they'd work something out with the human the werewolf would revert to.

Gib Cain had hunted werewolves for years and made good money doing it. He gave no thought to the warning the two kids had given him about wolves being in the woods or that they might be in the National Forest too and had no idea Wolfbloods even existed and he figured it was far enough from people that no one would know if he baited a trap with a freshly killed deer he'd shot earlier in the day away from Sunnydale. He was expecting the werewolf to show up.

He wasn't expecting the wolf that landed on his back. Or the others that rushed forward on silent feet. They'd been humans moving in the trees until they weren't.