Chapter 1: A Breath of Spring

The wind tossed a few stray snowflakes across my shoulders. I may be snug and warm under a fur coat, but the chill air still made me shiver. Perched on the exposed rocky crest of this steep ridge I could see the human settlement that lay before me. They called it Horseshoe Bay, someone had seen the name on a sign when they'd first moved out here - I always thought it was a little pretentious for the meager collection of buildings they'd managed to save from crumbling to the ground.

I backed away from the ridge as another cool gust ruffled my fur. Returning to the comfortingly close concealment of the trees, a light skiff of snow slipped under my paw. Good thing my friend English wasn't here, he'd just as likely go flying down headfirst on the slightest hint of ice.

In the event that I haven't mentioned, my name is Tommy, and I'm a wolf. Or wolf-like at least. A hundred-odd years ago we went through the Cataclysm, it shook the world up a bit. Humans are in the minority now, most of us are more like something you might find in an old book of mythology.

I should be nicely snug and warm back at my apartment in V-town, but I made the mistake of falling for a girl who wasn't quite as she appeared - she's a human. Just my luck that English, a buddy of mine, is a bounty hunter, and the government had decided that they didn't much care for the hairless monkeys anymore. A few days, and more than a few broken bones later, here I am - stuck squarely between V-town and the new human settlement. Neither place really much interested in having me or Rebeca - the one who got me into this in the first place.

My black claws scraped against the weathered stone as I made my way between the evergreens. I could just make out a handful of gawking humans as I slipped from sight. They knew I was here, of course, without me they wouldn't even be alive. Yet they still couldn't trust me, couldn't welcome me. I wasn't human, so I wasn't trustworthy, wasn't part of their club, no matter how many of them I'd saved.

I returned to what I'd been doing before the sounds of children had distracted me, the exciting task of gathering firewood. Of all the things I'd had to leave behind at V-town, electricity was what I missed the most. While it might not work one-hundred percent of the time, it did help to keep the wet winter chill of the Pacific coast at bay.

My father had been a hunter, a wolf like me. He'd spent his life out here amongst the trees, before a broken leg had cut short his career. He'd always wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but it never happened. Until a few months ago I'd never been anything more than an office jockey - shifting my weight in paperwork every day.

Fat lot of good my old life does me now. I should have listened to my father, he'd tried to drag me out here by my tail when I was a pup. I can alphabetize and cross-reference in the snap of a tooth, but find dry firewood in the snow? Not so much.

We're on the coast, just a few hour's hike north of V-town - what used to be Vancouver - so the winters here are mild. Usually. It's late February now, so there's still snow on the ground and life is miserable. I've grown in my winter coat, it feels like I've gained an extra ten pounds, and my normally brown fur is bleached down to a light tan that almost matches the snow.

As I mentioned, were not far from the human encampment. Every few meters I can see some of their tracks in the snow, or pickup their scent on the air. I'd just as well leave Rebeca in their care, gods know they could do better with her than I ever could, but she kicks up a fuss and cusses me out every time I try to hand her over for anything more than a checkup with their doc. She keeps reminding me that last time she let me out of her sight I almost lost my leg. I don't mention that she almost got herself eviscerated just five feet away from me while I couldn't do anything but watch...

Anyway, here I am picking up kindling, my arms filled with haphazard and twisted branches, when a couple of kids, human kids, come whirling around the bend to smack flat into my back.

They're not surprised to see me, nor particularly I them after having lived so close for the last few months. You can still see a touch of fear in their eyes though. Even though they grew up with people like me around, neighbors, friends, teachers, it still amazes me just how quickly we can go from 'that guy down the street' to some kind of monster, ready to leap out and grab them at a moments notice.

I guess I can't blame them though. If I'd had to go through the same thing they had I would be just as shook up and turned around. They'd spent their lives in V-town, just like me, only to have our very government turn on them and do their darn best to kill off every last human. If I was in their shoes, not that I wear shoes, I probably won't trust me either.

"Sorry, mister." The younger one was picking himself up from the snow and brushing off the rags he had wrapped around his thin body. The older one just stood there, staring at me. "Come on Bert, let's go."

The older boy didn't move, just hung with his eyes wide and mouth agape. The younger tugged at his sleeve. It took a few moments, but at long last he started breathing again. Soon the two were off, just out of sight on the other side of a wall of shrubs, only a few steps away.

"Did you see him, Doug? That was him!" Their voices carried to me as plain as if they were still in sight.

"Who, Burt?" He paused for a moment, I could almost see the kid scratching his head through his touke. "The doggie?"

"That wasn't a doggie, Doug. That was him!"

"Who?"

"The Big Bad Wolf!"

Now, that was something I had to face palm over, even though I ended up dropping my load of twigs in the process. 'Big Bad Wolf' had been the name neighborhood kids called my father when I was young. He had earned the title, not me. He was the one who could bring down his own weight in meat every day to sell at the markets. He was the one who could make any mortal, and I'd bet some gods, tremble in their socks. Not me.

I was a cream-puff. Admittedly, a puff who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but a puff none the less. It was only recently that I'd even been able to get over my own squeamishness towards killing. I, a wolf, had gone twenty five years without hunting. Yep, I'm a wimp alright. It wasn't until I was stuck out here, without the convenience of fast food, that I finally got my claws bloody. Not to mention my teeth.

Speaking of blood, I'd better get home. My dear Rebeca had this thing for only eating cooked food, that's what the kindling was for. I'd managed to bring down a moose a couple of days ago, the winter temperature preserved it well. Now I just needed to char a bit of it up for her before she began threatening to gnaw my leg off while I slept.

I trudged my way east, inland and up, away from Horseshoe Bay. Home, or at least what I called home now, was a good ten minutes walk. The sky was that stark cloudless powder blue that you only get on an empty winter's day. The only sound I could hear was the whisper of my paws crunching in the snow beneath me, the children were long gone.

I hardly had to think as I made my way back, I'd walked the path at least a hundred times already. There wasn't much to see in any event, home was little more than a faded green canvas tent nestled in the crook of a hill between the trees. There were no decomposing buildings here to take refuge in, no remnants of past civilizations to hide behind. Just us and the elements that stretched out all around us.

It wasn't the tent that made this home, however, it was who lay within. She'd only recently recovered the strength to stand, Huston had torn her open with his claws when we'd last met, but she had still out done him by one. He had wounded her grievously, she had wounded him fatally.

Rebeca lay bundled in her sleeping bag, rolled over on her front, reading a book. "Wolfy, you're back." She turned towards me, long brown hair flowing over her naked fair skin.

"Sure, Babe. I know how you get every time I'm out of grabbing distance."

She threw a wrapper at me. "I told you I like my doggies with illusions of grandeur, but this is a bit much."

"What're you reading, Babe?" I could just see the book poking out from behind her, it looked familiar. Well, more familiar than everything else in this cramped tent.

She rolled back, hiding the book under her. "Oh, nothing. I see you brought back the firewood. Great, now I can finally get some real food."

Something wasn't right here. The cracked brown leather of the book beneath her tickled at the edges of my mind...

"Hey! That's my journal!" How had she gotten that? I always made sure to tuck it safely away every time I'd finished writing in it. I'd kept that journal ever since I was a pup, from the day I'd first learned to write. No one had ever read it...

I scrambled for it as she shoved the book deeper beneath her, sitting on it as I tried to push her away. "Babe, please... Rebeca..."

She looked at me, surprised. "Tommy, what's wrong?" I reached up to my face. Unexpectedly feeling tears. "I'm sorry, Tommy, I didn't realize. I never know it meant so much to you."

She reached down and pulled the book free, pressing its still warm leather into my hands. I stumbled over the words as I tried to speak, "I'm sorry, Babe, I really am. It's just... I don't know. It's my life - it's what makes me different from all the others." I broke eye contact and tried to cock a smile. "Did you like it? It's not much, but it's me."

She looked down, a mischievous grin creeping to her lips. "You're never what I expect of you. You were so regal in that suit when we first met - you've never warn it again." She never even blinked an eye as she shifted the conversation.

"It's a little hard, Babe," I sat down beside her, the earth was cold and hard beneath me, "when it's laying in tatters somewhere about a mile off the coast." I put an arm over her shoulder. "Or don't you remember? You were there, after all. You were watching as English shot-putted me into the waves to chase after that bounty."

She barely winced in pain as my arm slid over her, the bruises were almost healed now. "You bet, Wolfy." She put a finger to my nose. "Now, I'm hungry. Are you going to get a fire going, or are you expecting me to pick up your taste for raw flesh."

"Meat, Babe, not flesh." I crawled towards the firepit. "Once they're dead it's only meat."

I had enough woodman's skills to get a fire going. Well, at least as long as the matches hold out. It took me more than a few tries, and a lot of cursing, but I did get a reluctant flame wriggling along the twigs. I've never thought of myself as much of a shamanistic person, don't really believe in the gods at all, but I can spend hours just staring at a dancing flame. Which is odd, before coming out here I almost never dealt with fire. The only thing I ever really needed fire for was cooking, and I am the world's worst cook. The moment Rebeca was able to move she demanded that I never come within reaching distance of her food again. Other than killing it in the first place, of course.

In any event, I fed the growing tongue before dropping an ice coated log on top to thaw.

"Babe? It's all yours."

She emerged from the tent behind me, slow and unsteady, but walking none the less. She was thinner than my mind's eye said she should be. She'd been perfect when I'd first met her, running about the decks of a floating casino in her black bunny suit, now I could clearly see ribs poking out beneath her skin.

I wandered away to carve a hunk off the carcase on the other side of the campsite. Grabbing the handle of an old sheath knife, I had to yank it a couple of times to pull it free from where it had stuck. I had to use the old contrivance rather than my claws as the moose was frozen solid.

My claws, they were another thing, I stole a glance at them as I hacked away. They had at least doubled in length since I'd left the city. Odd. Back in my old job they had been useful for little other than scratching an itch, now they were wicked instruments that had served me well.

Between my claws, coat, and newly built muscles, I'd lost almost all the domestication that I'd never known the city had mired me in. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

With the crack of frozen meat, I ripped two chunks free. One for me, and a smaller one for her.

Back at the fire, I dropped them both in the frying pan. Rebeca's nose wrinkled at the smell of fresh meat thawing out. I just laughed, that same scent left me drooling.

She tried to shoo me away as she worked, but I wouldn't let her. If I left it up to her, my meat would end up just as charred as hers. I always found the way she burned hers repulsive - like eating warn leather. I left mine in the pan just long enough to thaw out before nipping it away on the tips of my claws.

Between bites, I watched her as she stood there, covered from head to toe in all manner of furs and blankets. I could barely make out her form under all the layers, but I could see plain as day that she was improving. It hadn't been long ago that she could barely walk, now the motion was returning to her limbs in the way I remembered. She could move in ways that would drive any man wild - who knew a human could flow like that, without a tail no less.

"Feeling better, Babe?"

She looked at me and winked. "You're only interested because I have food. But, yes. And you know it. I've been fine for weeks, Tommy. You don't have to carry me around with kit gloves anymore, you know. I'm not made of crystal, I am getting better."

"Sure, Babe." I pulled her close as she finished. "You know I just don't want to get so close to losing you again."

"I know, Wolfy." She stepped closer and snugged into my side. My winter coat made me into one huge pillow to her, and she never missed an opportunity to take advantage of it. "But we need to figure out what's next. We can't stay out here forever."

"Why not?" I refused to look at her, "We have all the food we'll ever need, and I have you."

"You know what I mean, Tommy." She tried to stretch up and grab my mussel, I held it out of reach. "You can't stay with the human camp, and it's not safe for me to return to the city once someone figures out I'm human. It's not safe for the humans at all. Storm Front may not be taking the contract to hunt them down, but eventually someone will."

"I know." I couldn't bring myself to say anything else about Storm Front, the company that English and I used to work for.

"So what are we going to do?"

"I don't know, Babe. I... don't know. Run away, perhaps?"

"What?" Her voice perked up.

"Never mind, it was a silly idea."

"What was?"

"Nothing." In the distance I could hear the sound of feet crunching in the snow, as subtle as a panzer tank running through a field of broken glass.

"Hello." They were behind me. I spoke, but I didn't bother turning.

It took them a few moments to come around, giving me a wide berth. There were three of them, and they eyed me as though at any moment I would leap up and rip their throats out. They were even thinner than Rebeca, as though they hadn't had a good meal in weeks.

They were human, of course, a delegation from Horseshoe Bay.

"Mr. Taggert." The oldest one spoke to me, his voice sounded like autumn leaves rustling over rocks, dry and brittle. He looked like I could blow him over with a huff. "We've come here to ask your assistance."

"Of course, anything. I've gone through this much to keep you alive. Whatever you want." I hadn't bother to look up yet, my eyes were still focused on the dancing flame.

"We need you to help us hunt."

"What!" My head snapped up, eyes locking on them. They froze, mid motion. Two of them had been warming their hands over my fire. "What did you just say?"

"Hunt." He repeated it slowly and quietly, as though the word its self might bite him - or perhaps it wasn't the word he was worried about.

"No." I wouldn't drop his gaze, and he was trapped in mine. "I have enough issues dealing with killing for myself. If you want food, you can track down one of the hunters. There are enough of them out here, and I'm sure Gowan, the hunt master, would release one long enough to help you."

"We've tried." His composure was returning, if not by much. "They won't even acknowledge our existence, and we can never get close enough to force the issue." He paused for a moment, "Please, Mr. Taggert, I'm begging you." He knelt down before the fire, staring at it as I had. "We're dieing, all of us, starving. You know as well as anyone that we were never meant to be out here - we're not hunters. We're civilized, we're not creatures of the wilds. We'll do whatever you want, just help us bring back enough food to survive." He paused again, longer this time. "I've been authorized to invite you to join us, permanently at Horseshoe Bay. Not as a... a beast, but as a citizen, an equal. We can't control how people will see you, treat you, but we will welcome you as best we can. That's all we can do. You've saved us once, Mr. Taggert, will you let us die now? Slowly?"

"I'm not here to see anyone die..." I watched the flame again, my mind was as unsettled as the tongue that danced before us. "You'll welcome us amongst you? Both of us, for real this time?"

He sighed. "I can't promise you anything other than that we'll try. If you provide a service like this to the community, then I can't see how we couldn't."

"Rebeca?" I looked over at her, she was still pressed up beside me.

"It's your choice, Tommy. I belong wherever you are, nowhere else."

I looked at the men before me again, pale and gaunt in the dying light of the sun, colored by the orange-red flames between us. They gazed back nervously, shifting from one foot to the other.

"I'll do it." Collectively, they let out a sigh, a breath I hadn't noticed they were holding. I waved a hand at them, "Tomorrow morning. I'll see you in Horseshoe Bay tomorrow." They turned to shuffle away. "And take what's left off the moose with you." They looked at me, surprised for a moment, before hungrily grabbing it up without hesitation. "Consider it a gift from the Taggert family, we are hunters after all."

The humans left. Rebeca looked at me strangely for a moment. "Did you mean what you said, Wolfy?"

"Sure, why not?" I poked at the fire with a stick, a handful of orange embers flared into the air over our heads, fading amongst the stars that were just starting to come out. "My father was a hunter, it looks like I am one too, now. I'll never be anything like what he was, but I guess I'm good enough to get myself by - get us by."

"That wasn't what I meant, Tommy."

I glanced over at her, "What?"

She shrugged and looked away. "Never mind."

We sat there for a while, staring into the flames. Without power, there wasn't much to do once the sun went down. It was still February, and we didn't get much sunlight these days. It makes you thankful for what little you do have.

Sleep wasn't nearly as exciting an affair as one might hope for. I was the only one with a fur coat. As a result, I didn't get a single blanket. We didn't have many, and those we did were wrapped both above and below Rebeca's thin body. She had to insulate herself not only from the chill night air, but also the frozen ground beneath her. All I could do was hug the indistinct lump of cloth to my chest and remember the closer summer nights. Even my very fur conspired against me to feel her as anything more than a vague pressure beside me.

It must have been two in the morning, though I had no way of knowing when I woke. It wasn't that I heard anyone around, or even felt any unease. Quite the opposite - I felt the calmest I had in weeks.

It took me several long minutes to disentangle myself from Rebeca without waking her. Crawling out of the tent, I watched the nighttime world unfold around me. Even the simple canvas wall had been enough to keep it at bay.

I wandered amongst the snow covered evergreens for hours, not bothering to worry of where I was going, though mostly in circles. The forests held no threat to me anymore. My eyes had always been far more keen than a human's for this; there was nothing but the stars out, yet I could see as plain as day. In any event, I couldn't get lost despite my best efforts, my scent trail unspooled behind me, as obvious as a bright blue thread in the slate clean wilderness.

Thoughts rolled slowly through my head, as if airborne. How could I have promised to help the humans hunt? I was barely a hunter myself, and now I wanted to teach others to kill? My father had spent years trying to bring me to hunt with little success, how could I do the job when there was so much that needed to be taught in such as short time?

I looked at the stars above me, they were still a sight that could take my breath away. You could barely make them out between the rain clouds and the street lamps in V-town. Here they looked like they had been laying in wait just for me to arrive and watch them. The northern lights glimmered at the edges of my vision, waves of purple and green that tugged at my eyes, promising to be seen right up until I turned my head, then they slipped away into shards of nothingness on the horizon.

I sat on an outcropping of stone, a smaller cousin to the great Rocky Mountains that hemmed me in, out in the distance. Beside me I could almost see the gray furred shape of my father hunched over a rock of his own, studying the tracks that lay in the fresh snow.

"Am I doing the right thing?" He didn't answer, didn't look up. If the apparition heard me, it didn't give any sign. "It's what's right, isn't it? It's what they're asking for, what they want. If I don't help them, they'll die out. No one deserves to die - that's what got me into this in the first place."

I watched one of his silent hands float down to trace the outline of a snowshoe hare that had been here recently. He turned to look at me while still hunched over.

I set off, following the tracks in the dim light. It didn't take long until I could pick up the scent as well. There it was, standing not meters before me.

The hare sat nibbling on the dried and frozen skeleton of a bush, not even sensing me a single leap behind it. And it never did. I landed upon it silently, fangs rending its neck in a single bite.

I wasn't hungry, and its skinny, winter warn body still didn't make much of a meal. But by the time I was done there was little left but some bones, skin, and a red spot marring the ivory snow.

The forest had sunken into an even deeper slumber then when I had first found it, nothing moved, not even me.

Well, that was it then, wasn't it? I was a hunter, and I would have to turn them into hunters too. That was all there was, nothing to it...

I made my way back to the tent, and Rebeca. Taking my time, I stumbled over every root and rut the whole way there.

The morning sun came the next day, as it always did. I woke before Rebeca, as normal. It took me some time to get the fire going again, and some snow melted into warm water for Rebeca. She still had wounds that needed cleaning every day, and guess who's job that was.

Any mystery to the female body was well and gone for me. It doesn't take long when the person you're taking care of is comatose for a week, then can't move for another month. Any type of dignity or discretion was long stale between us.

I had to work fast, even with the tent flaps tied shut she still shivered every second her naked skin was exposed to the winter air.

We'd done this enough that it went quick. I finished off with a light kiss to the back of her shoulder, newly cleaned. "A promise for next time," I whispered.

She laughed, "What, a tongue bath? Well, it certainly beats out anything they'd give me at the hospital. I think they max out at sponge baths there."

"For you, Babe, anything." I helped her cover back up in our blankets. "Are you going to be alright for the rest of the day? I don't know how long this is going to take. I doubt the humans are much for chasing down a buck, and I'm expecting they want to be masters by sundown."

"I'll be fine, Wolfy. Just don't be too hard on them, OK? They're doing everything they can. Just imagine they're English."

I gave her a gentle squeeze as I walked away. "I hope not, Babe. The humans might have a chance of pulling this off - all English could do is hope to fall on something and crush it."

"Speaking of English," I could just make out her voice as she disappeared under the covers, "When is he getting back, anyway? Did he even tell you where he was going?"

"Haven't a clue." And it was true. My easternwhile partner had disappeared over two weeks ago. He hadn't said much as he left, only that he needed to 'take care of business'. And with him that could mean anything from a trip to the outhouse to preventing the government of V-town from collapsing. With how long it was taking, I was willing to bet it was closer to the latter.

I just had to hope that he'd managed to make it all the way to the city in one piece. English was a lion, born and bred in the sun baked plains of Africa, despite his name and accent. He fit into the snow covered landscape about as well as a birthday cake at a funeral.

In any event, I was off and working my way towards the human encampment. Before my eyes the cracked towers and moss covered ramparts of Horseshoe Bay hove from between the trees. The humans were expecting me, they even had a welcoming comity waiting for me on the edge of town.

The humans who stood there were young, thin, and more than a little feral looking. Any elegance and urbane manor they may have had was long gone, scrubbed away by the snow.

"Wolf." The lead one looked up at me, long blond hair falling in his face.

From behind him I could hear a course of 'wolf', almost like a chant. They all watched me, almost seeming to shift their weight every time I did, trying to follow and mimic my motions.

"You're here to teach us how to hunt, right?" Blondy looked up to meet my eyes, not flinching.

"I'm here to help you survive the winter." I realized that he couldn't be more than eighteen, this was just a kid - what were they doing sending me a kid?

"Whatever. Just tell us how to kill, and we'll do it."

"Wait, Blondy." If he even noticed my nickname for him, he didn't acknowledge it. "There's more going on here than just ripping something apart. You're hunting, not just killing - not slaughtering. Beasts slaughter, we hunt."

"Whatever."

"No, not whatever - are you even listening?"

"Wolf, you're the one who isn't listening. Have you even bothered to look around? Have you?" His gaze was harder now, challenging me, a match I wasn't willing to lose. "We're hungry, we're cold. I don't care what you think, we're in this for the meat. You and your little princess have spent the winter cozy in your tent with full bellies while we've been starving to death a stones throw away. Don't give me any of your mystic bull - we're here to kill, nothing more. If you're going to help us, then so be it, otherwise get out of the way. One way or the other, we're going to bring back dinner. With or without you."

The morning went downhill from there.

It was obvious that whoever these kids were, they had more testosterone than brain cells. Whooping and hollering, they streamed into the forest, scaring off any prey in a square mile.

I followed behind them, watching as they made a mockery of everything my father had ever taught me. They didn't think about where they were, didn't look at the world around them, didn't even seem to care where they were going. It was no surprise they hadn't caught a single thing, they treated the whole approach like a theater performance, all theatrics, all snap and sizzle. They leapt from every stone and swung on every branch before calling out to each other in shrill voices.

I couldn't help myself. I crept up silently behind one of them, cuffing him soundly of the back off the skull with my padded fist, he fell boneless into the snow. None of the others even noticed.

One by one, each of them fell the same way until only Blondy was left. He seed to have just noticed that no one was returning his calls.

He was just about to turn to look behind him when I grasped him by the neck, causing him to go stiff. I lowered my lips to a hair's breath from his ear, "You humans are no hunters - you may never be. How can I, a single wolf, decimate a whole pack of you without a sound? Do you even think of the world you are in? You're not in your city anymore, you're not in your self made land, you're in mine. You don't make the laws here, you follow them - or you don't," I waved a hand towards his unconscious friends, "And deal with the results of your actions."

I loosened my grasp just enough to let him gasp in a breath as he nodded his head.

"Very good. Now, shall we try this again?" Behind me, the other humans were starting to get to their feet.

With the proper encouragement they were undoubtedly quick studies - hunger can do that to a person. The biggest problem was to force them to come to terms with the fact that they weren't the stars of their own theater productions. Drawing attention to yourself is a bad thing when you're trying to sneak up on your next meal.

At last we were off on a real hunt. I'd had to find the mark first, of course, a sickly doe that had not weathered the winter well. There wasn't much meat on her, but she'd be a feast compared to what they'd been eating up until now.

I let Blondy lead, I just hung back to observe as the human pack came together for the first time. It was an odd thing to watch. You could see plain as day that humans had been pack animals at some point in the distant past, but they'd been suppressing that in favor of 'individuality' for centuries.

Clumsily, haltingly, and looking like nothing so much as a clanking steam power machine, the pack slowly became one.

The doe heard them long before they reached her. She bolted into the undergrowth, right into the main force of the attack. She didn't know they were there until it was too late, the outriggers had already closed in on either side.

From all directions they fell upon the doe, a wreathing mass of cloth and skin atop her as she struggled to escape. One of her feet kicked, a boy went flying through the air. He was lucky, he got up again afterwards.

She was still kicking, that was odd. I closed in on the melee. She should be dead by now, what was taking them so long? I heard a scream as I neared. Not from the humans. I started running.

A hole opened in the mat of humans that covered her, for just a brief moment I could see the doe. She was covered in slashes and gaping wounds from where humans had carved her with their knives, but she was still breathing. They were playing with her. I doubled my speed as I sprinted towards them.

"Kill her!" I screamed it from my breathless lungs. Why were they doing this? Why were they puting her through this pain? She was prey, she was food, that was enough. No need to put her though this torture.

Blondy glanced up at me from where he held his knife thrust into her flank, a wicked smile split his lips. His eyes were filled with wild abandon as he looked back down, not bothering to heed my words.

I reached them, shoving the boys out of the way. They swiped at me with their knives, yipping in protest as I forced them back. It was all I could do to stare at the doe for a moment. Her body was a horror of wounds, blood spilling from every inch that the knives could reach, yet her eyes were still wide and seeing.

I cradled her head in my hands, her eyes almost focused on me. A single flex of my claws and I rended her throat. Her life followed soon afterwards.

"What did you do that for? We were having fun." It was Blondy, behind me.

I didn't bother to turn as I set her head gently down. "What were you doing?" My voice was calm, calmer than it should be. Tears were edging at the corners of my eyes. "What were you all doing? She wasn't dead."

Blondy walked into my vision, knife dripping viscera. "Why do you care? She wasn't your kill."

I looked up at him, a single hand reaching out to grasp his shirt. "You didn't kill her. She was still alive. You were torturing her. You'd won, why didn't you kill her? Then you could have done whatever you wanted to the body."

The kid shrugged and drove his knife into the cooling corpse. "Why do I care? She was just a beast, anyway. It's not like she was human."

I stood up, towering over them. "And what am I?" A couple of the kids took a step back, gripping their knives closer. "What am I? I am not human, am I a beast? What would you do with me?"

He just shrugged off handedly, as though the question meant nothing. "You're a wolf. It's a deer. Now it's dinner." He stopped as though that answered all my questions. I suppose it did.

I turned and walked away. Behind me, I could hear the humans whooping and shouting again, as though I had never thought them a single thing.

It took me a long time to make it home, back to the tent. And Rebeca. I'd had to stop and catch a rabbit on the way there. It didn't suffer.

The sun was just beginning to set when the green canvas came into view. I wasn't sure whether I was relieved to be home or not.

Rebeca was out in front of the tent, warming her hands. She'd kept the fire going. I didn't say a word as I walked up and dropped the rabbit carcase on the ground next to her.

She looked in my eyes and stayed quiet. I reached a hand up to trace the curve of her face. Slowly, I felt the texture of her pale skin beneath the thick black pads of my fingers.

"What happened?" She whispered it, "Did you teach them how to hunt?"

"No." I sat down beside her with a sigh, "I taught them how to kill."

From behind me, I could hear the drip of water. It was still late February, but it seemed that we were in for an early thaw.