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[i][center]Written and posted with permission from Leo_Todrius (who also provided the kickass thumbnail icon!)[/i][/center]

[i][center]You can find his profile and awesome stories here: www.furaffinity.net/user/leotodrius[/i][/center]

[i][center]---------------[/i][/center]

[center][b]Lykos - Wild Things[/b][/center]

[center][b]Chapter 14 – Il ragazzo col fucile (e poca felicità) [/b][/center]

His arm was made out of stone. Cold, heavy, unresponsive.

So why did it have to hurt so much? He tried to find an answer, but there wasn't any. He could only accept the simple truth that was being presented to him like a chalice full of poison on a silver platter: his arm was made out of stone, and it hurt terribly.

He turned around and around, in his restless slumber, suffocated in a cocoon that was at the same time ashen grey and blazing crimson, his forehead a pool of sweat, his long hair scraggy and tousled. He didn't know where he was - he barely knew who he was - but he knew it wasn't a good place.

He could feel the wolf inside his soul whelping, crying in agony, begging for the pain to stop... and that was the thing that scared him the most: he had always considered the beast in his heart as something primal, strong and unshakable like an ancient mountain; and now it was vulnerable and scared like a puppy.

Sometimes - maybe every couple of minutes, maybe every few days - he opened his eyes for a split moment, the lights around him hurting his brain. He could see faces hovering above him, mouths and noses and ears and preoccupied eyes with no bodies, floating like flesh-colored balloons in a demented fever dream.

He couldn't recognize any of those faces, and he doubted he would have made any difference. There was only the pain, the coldness and the blazingly hot cocoon.

And then, literally from a second to the other, the pain stopped. He sat on the bed, his mouth agape, his body enveloped in a placenta of sweat, his pupils lost in the darkness of his irises; he stood there, breathing heavily for some long minutes, his chest going up and down under the simple white t-shirt he was wearing.

It took him a while to recognize the place where he was lying: the bed of his room (Talia's former room, an unfamiliar voice in his head suggested), a room that was silent and empty and immersed in a crepuscular penumbra. He tried to say something - anything - but his throat felt like it was made out of papier-mache and sandpaper. He tried to climb out the bed, but his legs were prickling and tingling as if an entire anthill had taken residence inside of his femurs and his tibiae.

So, in the end, he just sat there, unsure on what to do - if there was anything he could do at all - until the door of his room opened and someone slipped inside.

"Oh. You are awake. Good," the old woman said curtly, before placing a glass full of dark green liquid in his right hand. "Now drink this."

He complied. The liquid was nasty and tasted like someone's dirty laundry, but he almost immediately felt his legs responding again.

"M-Moira," he said, his tongue still heavy and dry but now able to articulate words once again. "What... what happened?"

The old woman looked outside the windows, apparently to the line of old trees out there. "Someone shoot you, Drake. With a silver bullet. A very specific kind of silver bullet." Moira shook her head, her ruffled grey hair bouncing in the air like metal springs. "There's nothing I can do for that scar. Sorry."

"What... what scar?" Drake repeated, dumbfounded. He looked down at his left arm - that was still lying immobile against his body like a plastic prosthesis - and saw a blood red handkerchief tied over his skin like a small bandanna. His right fingers let go of the empty glass, that rolled between his legs - and motioned towards the piece of cloth.

"No," Moira commanded, her tone final and resolute. "Not yet, Drake. Leave it like this, for now." Drake stared at her stupidly, but nodded after a few seconds.

"Where... where are the others? Are they fine?" he asked. "W-where is Wyatt? Oh, god, I bet he's worried sick..."

"Everyone's fine, Drake," Moira replied. "Whoever shot at you ran away immediately afterwards. They even knew a way to erase his scent, because nobody seemed able to trace where they went... they just disappeared into thin air, for all we know."

Drake nodded. The beast in his heart seemed calm now, having retreated in one of the most remote outskirts of his soul. "A hunter?" he simply asked.

"Seems the most plausible explanation," the head keeper concurred. "They clearly knew what they were doing... you have to thank the fact that they didn't have a good aim."

"C-can I... see the others?" Drake asked... no, he pleaded. He wanted to see his packmates, make sure they knew he was alright. And most of all, he wanted to see his alpha, he wanted to hug him and be comforted.

"Now? No, of course not," Moira shattered his simple mental image in a mere second with her words as sharp as knives. "You have to rest some more. The potion should work its way any minute now."

"What do you m..." Drake managed to mutter before his tongue refuse to articulate another sound. His head felt heavy like a boulder, and his body slid down against the mattress, unresponsive. All he heard before the black tendrils of sleep seized him again was Moira's voice saying a single sentence.

"You need to be well rested, in order to face what's next."

[b][center]*** [/b][/center]

When Drake woke up again, the golden fingers of a sunny morning were creeping from outside the window, illuminating the whole room in tenuous colors. He didn't even have the time to sit on the bed, that an excited squee pierced his ears.

"He's awake!" Kaylee was screaming. "Oh, man, I was so worried!" The girl was sitting at the desk, and was playing some kind of colorful card game with Chance.

"Wyatt!" the boy shouted. "Guys! He's awake!" The two pups got back on their feet and walked towards the bed, even though they stopped a couple of feet from it.

"Is... everything okay, guys?" Drake asked, frowning. Chance and Kaylee exchanged a glance; they both looked a bit nervous, as if they didn't want to come too close to him.

"Y-yeah, of course!" Kaylee exclaimed, her voice a little bit too high-pitched to be genuine. "We were just, you know... worried about you," she added, in a more honest tone. "What happened to you is... horrible." Drake did his best to shrug and put on an awkward smile.

"Oh, come on! It's not that bad!" he exclaimed. His left arm pulsed under the scarlet handkerchief; it didn't hurt in the least, not anymore, but the sensation was unpleasant and foreign, as if the skin of his forearm belonged to someone else and had been simply grafted onto him. "I mean... it's not that bad, is it?"

"No. It is not," a calm voice came from the threshold: Angela was standing next to the door, a small and reassuring smile on her lips. With a seemingly casual gesture she took a side step inside the room, before Drake, Patrick and Inori burst inside at once with almost identical expressions of worry on their faces.

"A-are you okay, Drake?" the alpha exclaimed; from the dark bags under his chestnut eyes, it was clear he hadn't had that much sleep lately.

Drake grimaced. "Seriously, guys, you're scaring me a bit," he said, his voice trembling. "Is it really that serious?"

Angela stepped forward and sat on the bed before grabbing one of Drake's hands. Her fingers were warm and gentle, just like her. "We were worried because you were not waking up, nothing more," she explained in a calm and soothing voice. "Now that you are awake, there is nothing to be worried about."

"Nothing to be worried about?" Wyatt echoed, his eyes wide, his tone almost shocked. "He was shot, Angela! He was shot, and now he is..." The young woman, however, raised an open hand in front of Wyatt's face, silencing him.

"He is what?" she replied, her voice still perfectly calm. "He is like me?" She took her scarf off, revealing the misshapen purplish bruise at the base of her neck.

Wyatt's eyes went wide and watery. "O-oh... n-no, I'msorry, Angela, I'm so sorry..."

"I know. I know you did not mean that with ill intent, my alpha," the young woman replied with a small smile. "I can hear and smell your anger and confusion just like everyone else in this room can." Angela raised a hand and caressed the side of Wyatt's face, her fingertips brushing against his stubble. "Would a cooldown hug help?"

Wyatt pursed his lips and took a couple of seconds to nod. "Yeah..." The boy leaned over and let Angela's arms wrap around his back as he sighed and rested his head right over the weird bruise on her skin. One after another, the pack members joined the group hug; even Drake, though with extreme circumspection since he still didn't feel like he could trust his left arm... or at least not completely.

As Drake rested his body against Patrick's ample back and Inori's delicate shoulder, he could feel the pack's complex pattern of emotions swirling around him - and through him - like colored smoke: there were still lingering feelings of uneasiness, confusion and fear - mostly from the pups - along with the sweet and refreshing scent of relief. Angela was the most stable now, her calmness and simple happiness shining vividly, like a lamp in the night... but when he focused on Wyatt with more care, Drake almost let out a yelp.

It was like staring at an open field, stretching evenly from west to east. A field soaked in red. Wyatt was standing right in the middle, his lean and muscular body naked and covered in large, jagged stripes of crimson; his face was a mask of wrath, and for a second - before Drake diverted the eyes of his mind - Wyatt's stare was red too.

"Is everything okay, Drake?" Wyatt - the real Wyatt, the one whose body and mind weren't covered in blood - asked, his voice a little concerned. His head was slightly leaning towards his left shoulder, and the little fang of his earring bounced against the collar of his t-shirt. "You looked almost scared, for a moment."

"N-no... don't worry, it's nothing..." Drake replied. "I was... still thinking about what had happened, that's all."

"You shouldn't get worried about that," Inori murmured, extending her small hand and caressing Drake's cheek with cool, gentle fingertips. "We're here with you now."

"Yeah..." a small smile appeared on Drake's lips. "You're right." He leaned his head against Patrick's shoulder, and let his doubts and lingering fears drown in the vast and mostly calm ocean of his packmates' shared mindscape, until his consciousness transitioned into a dreamless sleep.

[b][center]*** [/b][/center]

In the middle of the forest, the boy with the rifle was waiting.

He was dirty and smelly, his light blond hair so tangled and dishevelled that they resembled a bird's nest; his clothes were torn and covered in mud, his skin was marked with countless cuts and scabs, even though they paled in comparison with the set of three long, wide scars going from the left side of his face down to his forearm; the hideous and permanent proof of the attack of a huge animal. Of a beast.

The boy rested his back against the uneven surface of a tree trunk, his breathing short and broken, his eyes closed. He felt the weight of the rifle - old but still perfectly maintained - against his shoulder, the coldness of the barrel, the metallic comma of the trigger right under his fingertips. Even when he wasn't touching it, he could always feel the weight of the rifle. Most of the times, it was the only thing in that world that still made sense to him.

The fingers of his left hand - nails broken, skin consumed like that of an old glove - rummaged in the pocket of his ruined denims, checking the bullets inside it. One, two, three, four. Four silver bullets left, he told himself for the millionth time.

They were not enough, of course. They were not even remotely enough. The boy with the rifle frowned: he still had a box of bullets in his backpack - well, the thing he carried around that once had been his backpack, at least. Now it was more like a greyish, jellyfish-looking thing kept together by countless emergency stitches - but they weren't as good, as powerful against them. That was what the man who had come at the hospital had explained to him.

[i]"These are special, kiddo. Those beasts are awfully resistant, but if you hit one of 'em with one of these... well, let's say these babies will leave a wound that will not heal." [/i]

The boy nodded. "I will not miss next time," he said to himself, his voice nothing but a broken whisper; despite that, his accent - South European, most probably Italian or Spanish - was clear and distinguishable. "As long as I kill some of them, I..."

The boy had a name, once. He still remembered it, of course... he still remembered everything, which was the thing that hurt him the most. The boy often wished he could be like the rifle, cold and emotionless and with no memory of his past... or with no past to begin with.

His fingers fiddled with the silver pendant hanging from his neck, blackened and ancient looking and shaped roughly like a birdcage, and raised it to his nose, causing his features to contort in a disgusted grimace.

[i] "This will protect you, kiddo. Stinks like all hell, sure... but it's a smell those beasts cannot stand. It will shield your presence from them, if you are careful enough." [/i]

The boy with the rifle closed his bloodshot pale blue eyes and once again pressed his back against the rough bark. He remembered everything about that day, and about that man: the scar on his chin, splitting his black and gray beard in two almost perfect halves, the smell of cigar emanating from his brown leather coat, the small leather knife - a letter opener, most probably - he was nonchalantly playing with... the boy with the rifle remembered everything except his name, since he had never introduced himself.

[i] "What's wrong, kiddo? Don't you want to avenge your family? Kill those savage beasts? You have nothing left to lose after all... am I right?" [/i]

The boy with the rifle sniffed and sighed as his tears left thin pink lines on his dirty cheeks. "[i]Merda...[/i]" he murmured, his teeth sinking in his lower lip. "[i]Papa'... mamma...[/i] Anna... I will avenge you, I promise."

Only four silver bullets left. He needed to kill at least one of them... the monsters disguising themselves as humans.

He just needed a single normal bullet for himself, after all.

[b][center]*** [/b][/center]

The next time Drake woke up, Wyatt was playing the piano.

The beta sat on the bed for a couple of minutes, completely still, letting the notes soak his body. He tried to move the fingers of his left hand, tapping them on the sheet from the thumb to the pinky, with painfully slow movements. At first it was as if his hand had been replaced with a hard rubber prosthetics, but after just a couple of minutes, Drake felt as if the limb finally belonged to him once again.

After he had relieved himself in the bathroom - the stream of piss bouncing against the white porcelain felt strangely liberating - Drake walked downstairs on slow and unsteady legs; he tried not to make too much noise, because he didn't want Wyatt to stop playing. The notes coming from the piano were wilder than the usual, faster, more intense... [i]redder[/i], Drake told himself with a shudder.

"Oh! My dragon, you're awake!" Wyatt didn't even turn around. As he played what sounded like a particularly complicated passage with his left fingers, his right hand patted on the large stool he was sitting on. "Come and sit here, won't you?"

The movements of Wyatt's fingers on the white and black keys were so fast that Drake started feeling a killer headache just by staring at them for more than a handful of seconds. "Have you ever tried playing the piano in your primal form?" he asked after about a couple minutes of contemplative silence.

"I don't see why," Wyatt replied after an amused chuckle. "I don't want to break such a delicate instrument."

Drake gulped as he flexed the fingers of his left hand, opening and closing them like the legs of a dying spider. "True. But, I dunno, the idea of a werewolf playing the piano is quite cute, don't you think?"

"You are right," Wyatt conceded. "Care to tell me what bothers you, my dragon?" he then asked, taking Drake by surprise.

"How do you...?"

"Oh, please. I'm your alpha, you know?" was the simple, straightforward answer. "You look worried, you sound worried, you even smell worried. So please, tell me what's the problem... even though I'm pretty sure I know already."

Drake sighed. "You want to hurt the person who shot me, don't you?"

"I don't want to hurt them, no," Wyatt replied, his fingers hammering on the piano keyboard. "I want to kill them with my own hands. Simple as it is."

"No." Drake shook his head. "I won't let you do that."

The intense and ferocious musical piece imploded in a cacophony of agonizing sounds. "[i]What?![/i]" Wyatt growled, turning his head towards Drake, the deadly points of his fangs protruding from under his upper lip. Drake, somehow, managed to keep his cool.

"You heard me. I won't let you hurt anyone... and I certainly won't let you [i]kill[/i] anyone," he said, his voice firm.

"And what's your plan, then?" Wyatt retorted. "Want to invite them over for a cup of tea and some cookies and a nice little talk?"

"Well... yeah. Except for the tea, maybe. Dunno about the cookies." Drake tried to smile at his own lame joke, but Wyatt's eyes were still burning in anger. "I want to know why they did what they did, Wyatt. And killing them won't help anyone anyway." [i]And it certainly won't help you[/i], he added in his mind.

"It won't help anyone? You mean apart from all the other werewolves around?" Wyatt sighed in frustration. "You are one of the most important persons in my life, Drake... maybe the most important one. How do you think I felt when I saw you getting shot right next to me?"

"Are you guys fighting?" the two young men turned around at the same time: Grace was standing in the middle of the living room, an annoyed glare in her gray eyes. She was dressed like a normal kid for once and not like the ghostly apparition out of some gothic novel, and she was also wearing a backpack.

"No, not really..." Wyatt replied, his lips pursed.

"You were [i]totally[/i] fighting," the younger sister retorted mercilessly. "And Drake, you need to go back to bed, you're still recovering."

"Who do you think you are? Mom?" Drake sneered.

"Well, someone has to do what mom does when she's not around," Grace replied in a matter of fact tone. "Why don't you both go upstairs? I have tons of homework to do. And stop fighting over stupid stuff."

Wyatt sighed, but did as she had been told along with Drake, who started climbing the stairs meekly, his head lowered; the alpha, however, turned around and mouthed a silent "I hate you" towards Grace, who stuck out her tongue.

"I love you too, Wyatt. And don't do your weird stuff up there, you perverts."

A couple of minutes later, Drake was lying in his bad on the back, his eyes closed. Wyatt was lying next to him, his hand busy caressing Drake's chest and belly from under his shirt, and from time to time licking his mate's lips with a warm and thirsty tongue, at least until Drake opened his lips and welcomed it inside.

"Are you sure about what you said earlier?" Wyatt asked after he broke another kiss. Drake nodded without opening his eyes.

"Are you?" Wyatt's hand stopped playing with Drake's pierced nipple for a moment.

"Yes. To be honest, I don't know why you would want to talk with a werewolf hunter."

"Maybe I'm just curious."

"Or suicidal," Wyatt mumbled, but his tone had somewhat mellowed a bit. "At least promise me you won't do anything stupid like going into the woods alone, and I will promise you I won't hunt that fucker down. Let the adult pack handle the problem, okay?"

"Okay..." once again, Drake's mind was feeling fuzzy and sleepy, and the gentle cuddles of his mate surely didn't help. It didn't take him long to slip into the realm of sleep once again, but Wyatt kept caressing and nuzzling him for a long time, a pensive expression on his face.

[b] [center]*** [/b] [/center]

Drake opened his eyes, except he didn't. He looked around: calmness, an infinite white void and no clothes on his body. "Oh," he exclaimed, a bit surprised. "Here I am again."

[i]Indeed, [/i] the beast in his heart replied. He looked a bit smaller and less imposing than last time, and there was a strip of dark fur missing from his upper left limb, leaving the grayish, leathery skin visible underneath. As always, his eyes were doing all the talking.

"I'm... well, sorry for what happened," Drake murmured, scratching the back of his head. Inside his dreamscape his left arm worked perfectly fine, but the purplish bruise was still there, a permanent mark of what had befallen onto him.

[i]It is not your fault, [/i] the beast's eyes said back to him. [i]It is not anyone's fault, to be exact... a bullet has no will of its own, after all. [/i]

Drake grimaced and sat down cross-legged on the warm white floor of his mindscape. From down there, the beast in his heart looked much bigger. "Well, someone did shoot me though..." he said with a wry smile.

The beast lowered its head a bit. As always, it was incredibly difficult to interpret its emotions, but it did seem a bit amused. [i]And yet you do not seem to harbor any ill feeling towards the hunter. [/i]

Drake tormented the beard on his chin. "Well, okay... it's just that hurting or killing him or her won't do me any good, right? It's not like this wound will heal if I do that," he explained while absent-mindedly rubbing the skin of his left arm. "So... well, you know... I just want to try and solve this whole mess without getting my hands bloody. Or anyone else's."

[i]And that is something your young alpha does not seem to understand, [/i] the beast observed.

"How do you know that?" Drake exclaimed, a bit surprised.

[i]Please, do not ask silly questions. I am you, and you are me. [/i]

"Oh. Right, right." The young man was at a momentary loss of words; he still wasn't sure why exactly was he there, but since there was usually some kind of purpose and the beast in his heart had mentioned Wyatt, he decided to follow that route. "Do you think Wyatt is wrong?" he asked.

[i]Well... you seem to think he is[/i], the beast replied.

"I'll take that as a yes." Drake lowered his head. "Does that... make me a bad beta?" he pondered, his voice a bit hesitant.

[i]You are a beta, not a slave[/i], the beast's tail wagged lazily behind its huge body. [i]You do not have to agree with your alpha all the time. That is a completely different thing than as challenge to his authority. [/i]

"I... I guess you're right," Drake replied with a small smile. "Thanks."

[i]You are welcome. [/i] A moment of peaceful silence followed. [i]Well, you should probably wake up now. No point wasting more time here. [/i]

Drake blinked a couple of times. "Oh," he said. "Well, that was quick."

[i]I am pretty sure you know what to do, [/i]the beast in his heart replied, his rumbling voice becoming more and more evanescent with every word. When Drake opened his eyes again, the red and pale yellow fingers of a Winter sunset were trying to climb through the bedroom window, and Wyatt was snoring peacefully at his side. With careful movements, Drake climbed down the bed, and after one last, long gaze to his sleeping lover, he left the room in complete silence.

[b] [center]***[/b] [/center]

After Drake had finished explaining his plan to Inori, she looked at him, quite perturbed and confused. "Are you... sure about that?" she asked in a tiny voice. The two were sitting on a bench in a small park a couple of blocks from Underhill house. The night was going to fall all around them any minute now, like a black curtain.

"Well... I did promise Wyatt that I wouldn't have gone into the woods alone, so..." Drake's words lingered in the air like his breath in the freezing breeze.

"That's the weakest loophole ever, Drake," Inori murmured, her dark eyes staring at the empty see-saws, creaking ominously in the wind.

"You're the only one I can count on," Drake replied. "The pups are a bit too excitable and might do something reckless, I don't want to put Patrick in any danger and Angela wouldn't do anything that could disrupt the pack's harmony."

Inori's gaze narrowed. "So why should I?" A legitimate question, one that Drake was expecting.

"Well, how can I explain it... I have this weird feeling about all this. Let's call it a hunch. Or whatever you feel like," he replied. Inori turned her head towards his, a quizzical look on her face.

"A hunch," she repeated, in a deliberately slow tone. "About the person who shot you, you mean?"

Drake nodded. "It's a bit weird, if you think about it: they shot me once and they hit me in the arm... and then didn't even try to finish me while I was down."

"Well... you had lost your senses, maybe they thought they had managed to kill you," Inori observed.

"Maybe... or maybe they never found the courage to pull the trigger twice. Maybe they are really young, or lost, or both," Drake said, before shaking his head like a big shaggy dog after a bath. "Listen, it sounds silly to me too, okay? I honestly don't know why I'm saying all this... but somewhere, deep inside me, I think that may be true, and I would feel terrible if someone who could still be saved would get killed by some enraged werewolf just because they had shot me in the arm... I think I would feel at least partially responsible for their death." Inori didn't talk for some seconds, and Drake felt a small shiver and his own cheeks got warmer in embarrassment when he heard her chuckle. "Did I say something silly?" he asked, lowering his head.

"What? No, no..." the girl replied; she had a small smile on her face, something that made her look weird, though maybe it was just because - Drake realized - he still wasn't used to see her smile that much. "Though sometimes I do wonder if you are too nice to be true. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this." Inori shifted her waifish frame on the cold bench. Now that she was dressed in a colorful overcoat and had her long hair donned in a simple ponytail, she looked more like a normal girl... except for the fact that she was still going around barefoot in the middle of February, of course. "What you said does require a big leap of faith, honestly... but you know I trust you. How can you be so sure that the hunter is still around here, though? Maybe someone caught them already... or maybe they just run away. That's what I would do, if I were them."

"Well, yeah, they probably aren't around here anymore... but it's still worth a try, I think," Drake answered. "Maybe I'm just curious, you know."

"Or suicidal," Inori mused.

"Wyatt said the very same thing," Drake chuckled. "So... will you help me?"

Inori cocked her head and stared at him with her huge eyes, like an owl wearing a human disguise. It was actually kind of unnerving. "Well, of course," she replied. "As if I could ever say no to you, Drake." The girl lowered her bare feet on the concrete and stood up after a tiny shudder. "Where should we start searching?"

Drake blinked in slight confusion. "You mean right now?"

"Well, yes. No point wasting time, right? And besides, the darkness will give us an advantage towards our prey. I mean, our target."

Drake gulped. [i]Oh, man, let's hope she just meant that metaphorically. [/i] "True. Let's start from the trees overlooking the graveyard and see if we can find some clues around there."

Drake's hopes were high, at first; the initial searching, however, didn't prove to be particularly fruitful: there were multiple sets of footprints, which meant someone had clearly beaten them to the punch, leaving a confusing mess of scents behind. "Well, of course someone had already tried to find them," he sighed. The night had now fallen completely, covering the world in its dark shroud, and only by using his golden werewolf eyes could Drake be able to look around and discern something. "Have you noticed anything out of place, Inori?"

The girl stopped sniffing the ground and looked up at him, her irises burning like crazed fireflies. "A lot of different animals, many werewolves, and at least a couple of humans. Nobody I recognize, so they must be members of the main pack," she summarized. "Nothing else."

Drake crossed his arms and nodded. "Well, I was expecting something like that... "

"I wasn't," Inori caught him by surprise. "To be honest, it's weird... I would've expected something small, but nothing at all? That's very unlikely. Which means..."

"They had something to cover their own scent?" Drake asked. "Does something like that actually exist?"

Inori shrugged. "Our noses are very sensitive, but they are not infallible. Werewolf hunters know how to trick us: they are well aware of our weaknesses, and how to exploit them."

Drake shivered, and it wasn't because of the cold. "If that's true, though... it still won't help us finding the hunter anyway."

"Maybe. Or maybe not," Inori replied, still busy scanning the area. She looked so focused and determined that Drake couldn't help but to feel impressed.

"You are pretty good at this!" he exclaimed. Inori looked sideways at him and pretended to swat some dirt away from her coat.

"Well, you know, I had to learn how to survive when I was on the streets... and after Jacob rescued me, I had to survive from him and the other betas," she added with a wry little smile. Drake felt his heart skip a bit before he pulled the girl close in a tight hug. "Hey... what's this about?"

"Sorry..." Drake replied, sheepish. "My body moved on its own. I'll let you go in a second."

"I never said I didn't like it," Inori said in a tiny voice, burying her face in the warmth of Drake's woolly sweater. "Although we should probably hurry and find the hunter now."

"Um. Right." Drake let the girl go and looked down at her. "You were saying that there may be a chance to track them down somehow? Even if they left no smell behind them?"

Inori nodded. "Well, you see, that's technically wrong... what you said, I mean. It's impossible to completely cancel a scent; you can only cover it with a stronger one."

"Makes sense. Although... wouldn't that be suspicious?" Drake scratched one of his ears , his lips a bit pursed. "I mean, we just need to search for a smell that is out of place, right? Wouldn't that make much more easier to follow such a track?"

"Well, keep in mind that there are thousands and thousands of different smells," Inori replied. She had crouched down once again, and she seemed pretty interested in the bark of a nearby tree. "And not all of them are the same. Quite the contrary, in fact. What we need to find, in other words..."

"It's a scary smell?" Drake completed the sentence for her, even though Inori furrowed her brow at that. [i]Okay, that was a pretty dumb way to phrase the concept. [/i] "I mean, a smell that is so wrong and repugnant no werewolf would willingly follow it?"

"Pretty much," the girl replied. "And i think I may have found something like that, here." Her expression was stoic as always, but she looked a bit paler than the usual in the faint moonlight. "Come closer, Drake."

The young man walked to the tree and crouched down, feeling a bit ridiculous as he did so. "What did you find? What's wrong with..." then the smell hit his nose, piercing through his nostrils like a silver, poisonous dagger. It was putrid, rancid and almost made him throw up the contents of his stomach; in order to try and get rid of it, Drake started massaging his nose with the back of his hands, even though his attempts proved futile: it was as if the disgusting scent had planted tiny but really painful hooks directly into his brain. "W-what the hell?!" he sputtered. "It smells l-like an open sewer full of rotting corpses! Or more accurately, like something Moira would put in one of her disgusting concoctions!"

"That's probably not too far from the truth," Inori replied. "I think it's some kind of herb... maybe they treated some wolfsbane with silver nitrate or something like that. But you are right, it's disgusting. And, luckily for us, incredibly persistent." The girl shrugged. "I guess we should be grateful that Richard left for one of his trips right after the funeral. He would've probably picked up this scent in a minute."

"Are you sure this is the one?" Drake asked; the idea of following such a vile smell all around the woods at night with the possibility of a hunter walking around didn't seem at all appealing.

Inori shrugged. "It's the only clue we have. We can go back home if you think it's a waste of time, though." Drake, however, shook his head.

"No, no... sorry. This is something I need to do. Or at least something I want to do, since there's a chance I might get shot again, I guess... and the same goes for you, do you don't have to come with me."

Inori looked at Drake straight in the eyes. "Don't be silly. Of course I will come with you. And if they try to shoot you again..." Her claws popped out with a faint clicking sound. "I willgutthemlike a fish."

Drake gulped. "O-okay...." Man, even if she's my packmate and my friend now, she's still pretty scary. "Just promise me one thing: no unnecessary killing, okay?"

Inori stared at him as if he had just suggested to fly to Mars via farts. "You misinterpreted my words. I have no intention of outright killing them."

"Oh, thank god, that's a rel..."

"They have to suffer first."

"Oh. Okay." [i]Maybe she's just kidding. [/i] Inori's face, shrouded in the almost complete darkness, looked more unfathomable than ever. Maybe. "Let's... let's just go huh?"

Inori nodded, focused and serious. "You are right. No point wasting time." Her silvery slender tail slithered out from the confines of her pants as her ears became pointed and her fangs showed up behind her pale lips. She once again crouched down to sniff the ground in front of the tree, then she pointed to her left and started running. "Follow me, Drake. I promise I will lead you to the hunter."

[b] [center]*** [/b] [/center]

The boy with the rifle opened his eyes from under his bed made out of dirt and dead leaves. As soon as he woke up, the cold that the ephemeral barrier of sleep had somehow kept at bay sank into his skin and directly into his bones, making him shiver and wiggle, his body feeling as brittle and painful as broken glass. And yet, despite his limbs and his back screaming in agony, he sat up, really slowly: he had heard something, something that had woken him up. Even though his senses weren't nearly as developed as those of the beasts he hunted, he had at least taught himself to react to any suspicious noise, no matter how small it was. Made for a very shitty sleep cycle, of course.

With dull, insensitive fingers - they felt more like those of a marble statue than his own - the boy grabbed the old rifle resting next to him. Someone was around the woods, he thought, and it seemed like he was talking directly to his weapon. Get ready.

When the boy was a little kid, he was fascinated by the huge chessboard that his paternal grandfather kept on the coffee table of his living room. The board was incredibly old, made out of thick and slightly discolored wood, but the pieces themselves were made out of actual stone, masterfully sculpted and polished. His grandfather, a wise smile nestled in his fuzzy grey beard, had always told him that he was going to teach him how to play when he would have been old enough, but a sudden and cruel stroke had forever robbed him of that chance.

And yet, the boy still remembered that chessboard so vividly he could almost feel the smooth, hard surface of the pieces against his fingertips. He was fascinated by them, even though at the time he had no idea about why some had different shapes than others; he just liked the concept of two opposing armies facing each other, one white and shiny and the other black and ominous. That was exactly how he was feeling in that very moment: like a lone white pawn left alone on a chessboard against the entirety of the black team. He had no chance to win... but he could only move forward.

The boy with the rifle wiggled out of his meager shelter, careful not to make too much noise or attract unwanted attention, and pressed his back against the nearest tree available. There was definitely someone in the woods: someone who was walking around with the same grace of a tank and was talking loudly, possibly to himself. "...you sure... this way..." some of the words reached the ears of the boy, and he clutched the rifle with frozen fingers.

"[i]Merda, [/i]" he murmured, a drop of sweat travelling down his forehead. Had some of those monsters actually managed to track him down? His free hand clutched the pendant around his neck. Had that stopped working all of a sudden?

"Well, if you're sure... I can't smell anything, though." The voice was getting closer now, a lot closer. The boy with the rifle took a calculated risk and peeked from behind the tree: in the uncertain glow of the moon, he noticed two figures searching around the area, one almost crouched and the other walking behind, his eyes glowing of a supernatural and intense gold that made the boy's heart skip a beat. He was the one talking and - the boy realized with a long shiver that wasn't due to the cold night - he was the one he had shot in the graveyard.

[i]Fuck... he's trying to find me... and then he's gonna...[/i], his mind was racing like a terrified rabbit. The boy rummaged in his pockets and managed to find one of the special silver bullets. With shaky hands he tried to load the rifle, but the bullet fell from his fingers and into the humus covering the forest ground. "Shit..." an hissed swear escaped from his lips as he knelt down and began to rustle among the dead leaves. It took him long, endless seconds until his fingers closed around the small, curved and smooth surface of the bullet; the sigh of relief escaping from her lips, however, suffocated and died in the freezing air as the boy with the rifle's eyes met with the golden irises of the beast, who were looking at him with a curious expression.

"Hey, dude!" the creature said, flashing him a grin full of fangs. "Can you please not shoot me again, this time?"

The boy with the rifle didn't reply. He turned around, his eyes bulging, and started running in a random direction without even looking, as if the Devil himself was chasing him.

"Oh, come on!" the beast complained. "Come back here! I just want to talk!"

"What exactly did you try to accomplish with that?" a second voice inquired.

"I just wanted to be friendly... hey! Be careful!"

The boy with the rifle didn't notice the branch until it was too late. All he felt was a sharp explosion of pain on his forehead before thousands of black snowflakes covered his view. The ghost of a scream escaped from his mouth, and his body was plunged in a dark pool of unconsciousness.

[b] [center]***[/b] [/center]

When Inori knocked at the door of Moira's cottage, it didn't take more than five seconds for the old woman to open it, as if she was just waiting on the other side for them to arrive. "Oh. It's you two," she grumbled before puffing out a plume of silvery smoke from her lips, her cigarillo firmly stuck in the left corner of her mouth. "Have you killed someone else, Drake?" she then added, eyeing at the body of the young man he was carrying in his arms.

Drake glared at her, even though he knew it was perfectly useless. "He's just out cold," he replied. The boy's body was so light in his arms that he was afraid it might have dissolved in a cloud of vapor any moment. [i]When's the last time he had bathed? Or eaten properly? Or slept in a bed? [/i], he thought, feeling his stomach churn in anguish; the boy looked so fragile and sad and lost, completely different from what he had imagined a hunter to be. [i]Not to mention these horrible scars... [/i] , he added, brushing the tip of his thumb over a strip of ruined skin over the young hunter's cheek. "Say, um... could we use your house for a bit, please?" he finally asked.

"You have any idea what time is it?" Moira asked, standing in the doorway like an ancient and pissed off guardian deity.

"Um... late?"

"Awfully so," she replied dryly, before she stepped inside to let them pass. "But!" she added, in a tone that would have made any drill sergeant instructor proud. "You'll take off those filthy shoes. And you," Moira handed Inori a pair of old plastic slippers decorated with a faded flower print. "Will put these on. No way I'm letting you inside with those horribly dirty feet." Inori looked at the slippers as if she was trying to incinerate them with her mind, but accepted them in the end.

"Thanks a bunch, Moira," Drake carefully lowered the unconscious kid on the pristine wooden floor of the cottage entrance and took his shoes off. "This is a pretty tricky situation, I'm glad we can count on you."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," the old woman mumbled while closing the front door. The interior of her house certainly didn't give off a grandmotherly vibe: it was minimalistic, all white walls and dark wood and cold steel; even the squeaky toys of her dogs were lined neatly next to their water bowls. "The guys are sleeping in their room in the back, so please keep your voices to a minimum," she explained curtly while guiding the two towards the living room; that, too, was incredibly modern and simple, with a big flat screen in a corner and a huge bookshelf full of ancient-looking books against the opposite wall. "The hunter who shot you doesn't look that threatening," Moira observed. She had pulled out a white sheet apparently out of nowhere and was spreading it over the sofa. "Here, put him down."

"How do you know it's him?" Drake asked, lying him on the sheet. Moira grunted and put the cigarillo out in a huge crystal ashtray placed on the small table next to the sofa.

"You came here in the dead of night with an unconscious stranger in your arms, and Inori is carrying around an old rusty rifle. That could be purely coincidental, though."

"Well, okay..." Drake nodded at Inori, who handed the weapon to Moira. "Can you store it someplace safe? And I'll also need one other thing, if you have one..." When he told the old keeper about the thing he needed, and especially the reason why he needed that, her eyes bulged a bit.

"You can't be serious, Drake," she growled. "I mean, I know that you can be stupid, but I never thought you would be this suicidal."

"Why is everyone telling me the same thing today?" Drake moaned in an exasperated tone.

"Because it's true."

The young man shrugged. "Well, do you have one anyway?"

Moira's expression turned dead serious. "Of course I do, but... are you sure about that?"

Drake nodded. "I'm sure. And should something happen, Inori will be here with me."

Moira sighed. "Heh, I give up. I'll wrap it in a napkin, though." The old woman started walking towards the door and stopped midway through. "Oh, and don't you dare bleeding on my stuff."

"Are you sure you want to do something like that, Drake?" Inori asked after Moira had finally brought Drake what he had requested and then left the room while mumbling stuff to herself. The girl even looked a bit worried, which probably meant she was scared to death on the inside. "It does seem pretty dangerous."

"Well, it is," Drake replied. "That's why I don't want you to intervene unless I tell you to do so." his eyes went to the unconscious boy lying on Moira's sofa: his expression, even in his sleep, looked pained and tormented, his lips pursed and some microscopic droplets of sweat on his forehead; even the scar tissue on his face and neck looked a bit swollen and tense. At least the rhythm of his breathing was regular, though. "I mean, he looks just like a normal kid... it shouldn't be, well.."

Inori nodded, even though her eyes were still narrowed in uncertainty. "I get what you are doing and why you are doing it... it's the same thing you did for me. You're putting your own life on the table for his sake, right?"

Drake shrugged and sighed, a wry smile on his lips. "I guess it will all depend on what kind of person he is. We still don't know the story of his life, but... just by watching at these scars, you can tell it wasn't an easy one." He suddenly felt the strong impulse to pet the hunter boy's hair and tell him everything was going to be alright... but then the kid's grey eyes snapped open.

"[i]Cosa... dove...?[/i]" he murmured in a language that certainly wasn't English; one of his hands moved to the swollen bump on his forehead, before a small shriek of pain escaped from his cracked lips. Finally, his gaze focused on Drake and his pupils shrank into pinpricks. "You!" he shouted, jumping from the sofa and taking a couple of step backwards until his slender shoulder hit the wall behind him. His youthful and mud-encrusted face was distorted in an expression of pure hatred and fear. "S-stay... stay away from me!"

"Well, nice to meet you too!" Drake grinned, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible. "I'm Drake, by the way, and she's Inori." The boy's eyes became even wider and started shifting between the two werewolves. He looked like a small hare, frozen in an open field in the middle the day, waiting for the inevitable claws of a buzzard to pierce the skin of its back. "Do you want some ice for that?"

"W-what... what do you want from me?" the boy whispered, his tongue licking his dry lips. Since he couldn't back away more than that, he started walking like a crab towards the corner of the room.

"Well, I wouldn't mind knowing your name," Drake said. The young hunter stared at him, circumspect and wary, probably sensing a trap of some sorts. [i]Guess he wasn't expecting this kind of question...[/i], the werewolf said to himself.

"L-Leo," the kid finally replied. "My name... i-is Leonardo."

"Cool! Like the Ninja Turtle?" Drake exclaimed, before Inori cleared her throat. "O-oh... um... I mean.... nice to meet you, Leonardo. Do you want, like... something to eat? A cup of tea, maybe? I mean, it's freezing out there."

"I... I don't... [i]mi stai prendendo per il culo, dannato figlio di puttana?! [/i]" Leonardo growled in his native language. His eyes were darting around the room, without a doubt searching for his old rifle and his stuff. "Stop pretending you are nice, okay? If you want to kill me... just fucking do it." Drake's stare widened.

"What?! Why should I want to kill you?" he asked.

"Probably because he tried to kill you first," Inori intervened, deadpan. "Also he is a hunter."

"Yeah, but..." Drake turned around again to face Leonardo, who was staring back at him, pale and livid. "Seriously, dude, I don't wanna hurt you!"

The boy clicked his tongue in annoyance. "And why exactly should I believe you?"

Drake took a deep breath. "Listen, Leo, we are all good people here, and..."

"Oh, please!" Leonardo's remark dripped with sarcasm like a poisonous dart. "Stop pretending you are human."

"I'm sorry, what?" Drake replied, taken aback. "I am human. What are you talking about?"

"You are just a wild beast pretending to be human," Leo said, his voice harsh and cold. "You may fool others, you may even fool yourself, but I've seen your true self, and... I will never be able to forget that. Never in my life." He shuddered, his eyes unfocused and distant for a couple of seconds.

[i]What does he mean with "my true self"? [/i] Drake pondered. [i]Was he spying on us during our last full moon? It's not like I did something weird then... well, except for the foursome, maybe. [/i] "Well, okay, I am also a werewolf," he mumbled. "Oh, and Inori is too." The girl was staring intently at a bookshelf. "But we really are the good guys, seriously! I mean, sure, we turn into big humanoid wolves every full moon, but we are completely in control at all time. We don't go around... killing... anyone..." Drake slowed his speech down as Leo's feverish eyes pinned him on the spot. The boy's lips were white and pursed, and the hideous scars on his face and neck looked lucid and almost shiny against his pale complexion. At the end of his slender arms, his fists were shaking. "Um, you... don't believe me, do you?"

Inori sighed and stepped forward. "Drake, you know I love you and I would gladly die for you, but sometimes you can be awfully dull," she said in her trademark expressionless voice, before she turned to face Leonardo. "You should sit down and listen to what we have to say," she whispered, her tone still flat like the sea during a calm... but it was the kind of sea that had sharks right under the surface.

Leonardo shifted his eyes towards her; he looked like someone trying to decide whether what he was seeing was a dream or an acid trip gone wrong. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times with no sound coming out. "I... um..." he finally managed to say.

Inori casually raised an open hand, and for a moment Drake was afraid her long and deadly looking claws were going to pop out... but they didn't, which for some reason made the gesture even more intimidating. "You should really sit down, Leonardo."

Leonardo did. He looked incredibly small on that sofa, like a lost kid waiting for his parents to come and pick up at the information desk of a mall. [i]Except nobody is going to pick[/i] him[i] up[/i], Drake thought with a small pang of sadness. "Listen, Leo..." he said; for a moment he considered sitting next to him, but he decided against it. "We should, um..."

"What?" Leo spat out. "We should [i]what[/i]?!" Drake sighed, grabbed a chair and sat in front of Leo.

"We should talk," he said. "Or, well, you should talk and I will listen, and Inori too." The girl nodded without adding anything. Leonardo furrowed his brow.

"Just... lemme get this straight: you kidnapped me, took my rifle and my things away... because you wanted to talk to me?" he growled, his tone half-angry, half-incredulous. Drake shrugged.

"You look like someone who hasn't been around other people for a long, long time," he said in a simple voice. "Sometimes it helps to, you know, just talk and stuff." A moment of extremely uncomfortable silence followed. "What... what left you with those scars?"

Leonardo bit his lower lip, his eyes fixed on the sofa arm. "Oh, [i]fanculo[/i]... I have nothing to lose after all... I have... nothing." The young hunter's right hand kept closing and opening rhythmically. "It was a monster, just like you two. A monster did this to me. And the same monster, it... it..." a fat tear rolled down Leo's cheek, leaving a humid trail on his dirty skin. "We were here in America on vacation. Me, my mom and my dad and my sister. It was supposed to be my and my sister's first big trip outside Italy together... but it was also our last."

A long and unpleasant shiver travelled down Drake's spine. "I... I am sorry f-for... for you loss." Leonardo quickly diverted his gaze and clicked his tongue in annoyance.

"You really expect me to believe you?" the boy growled. "I don't want or need your useless and fake pity."

"Hey! Okay, maybe it's not that useful, but I'm honestly sorry for you!" Drake exclaimed.

"It's useless, Drake," Inori sat on the arm of the sofa, next to her packmate. "He won't listen to your words, or anyone else's for what matters. Words alone can only take you that far."

"The scary girl is right, you know?" Leo added. "I don't trust you... no matter what you say. So that leaves you with only two choices: you can kill me and prove that you are a monster, or you can let me go and show me that at least a small part of you is still human," he said in a wistful tone.

"Or I can take a third option," Drake said with a tiny smile. Leo scowled.

"What do you mean?" the boy grumbled. "Lock me somewhere?"

"I'll tell you as soon as you finish your story, okay?" Drake replied. "But no, seriously, I won't lock you anywhere, I promise."

Leo shook his head. "Not much to say. We were attacked one night. That beast did... horrible things to my parents and sister, and to me, well..." he pointed at his own scars. "It's like he wanted me alive, to... to watch... w-what he was... doing." Leo's voice became more and more broken, but there was no trace of tears in his eyes. [i]Wow, despite all that happened to him, his will is still this strong... [/i]Drake thought in admiration. [i] I would've probably been broken a long time ago[/i]. Drake opened his mouth, but Leo froze him on the spot. "Yeah, you are sorry. I don't fucking care."

"Direwolves like to play with their victims like that, sometimes..." Inori murmured in a distant tone; both the young men stared at her until she noticed and shook her head. "Don't mind me. Please, Leonardo, go on."

"I wasn't going to say anything else," the Italian boy replied. "And I'm pretty sure you already know what your kind does to humans anyway."

"For the last time..." Drake cried in frustration, only to be stopped by some polite coughing.

"Remember what I told you about words, Drake," Inori inquired.

"Heh... you're right, but still... you were not a hunter, originally." Drake turned towards Leo. "Who gave you those bullets? The ones that burn like fuc... I mean, the ones that do this?" Drake pulled his sweater's sleeve up to show the hideous bruise, and couldn't help but smirk a little when he noticed some visible discomfort on Leonardo's face.

"It was this man... he was the one who gave me the rifle and the bullets and all the knowledge I could need to hunt down your kind," he explained in a colorless tone. "He paid all the hospital bills and.... well, taught me how to get my revenge for what had happened to my family."

"Though he didn't really helped you, right?" Inori said. "If anything, he used you, like a pawn in some kind of game."

Leo shrugged, a bitter expression on his dirty face. "And what's the difference? He made something for me, I made something for him. Everybody wins." [i]Except us[/i], Drake thought grimly.

"And what's your plan? Keep walking around like a hobo until you stumble by chance into another werewolf?" Inori went on, her eyes narrow. "Seriously, when's the last time you slept in an actual room? Or took a shower?"

"Inori, you do have to be so..." Drake said, but she didn't let him finish the sentence.

"I lived on the streets for years, and even compared to my first pack, it still sucked." Drake could feel his own muscles tensing and getting ready to jump into action purely by instinct: hearing Inori act in such an emotional way was so weird that he was afraid she might do something unpredictable. "At least when I was with Jacob I had someone... even though they were horrible people." She looked serious, and sad, and small than ever before. "People are not meant to be alone all the time, Drake. It's something that can shatter your mind."

"I still don't get why you guys should care about me," Leo repeated. This time, however, he sounded more confused than antagonistic. "I mean, I did try to kill you, you know? I was totally serious about it."

"And the keyword is 'try'," Drake replied. "I'm not angry with you, Leo. Believe me."

Leo shook his head. "Pretty sure you're lying."

"Why? Because I'm a werewolf?"

"No. Because what you said makes no fucking sense. I hate you, and there's no way for you not to hate me. That's... that's what that man said, again and again, that you are savage beasts fueled by hate, and that even if you look like normal people there's nothing human in you." The boy repeated those words but he didn't sound like he believed in them that much anymore.

"Listen, Leo," Drake sat on the sofa, resting his back against the sheet covering it. "I will try and prove something now. I'll prove you that not only I don't hate you, but also that you don't hate me either."

Leo burst into a short mocking laughter. "Oh, please. That's ridiculous and you know it. You can't prove something like that."

"I'm dead serious," Drake replied with a friendly smile. "Just give me... five more minutes, okay? Five more minutes of your time, and if you still aren't convinced, I'll give you your stuff back and let you go. How about that?" Leonardo gazed at him with his inquisitive grey eyes. He looked very unsure, clearly trying to understand where the catch was.

"I'm listening," he replied in the end. "But only for five minutes."

"We have a deal, then," Drake was trying to look as calm and in control as possible, but he had to hide his hands under his legs for a moment, because they were trembling a bit. He knew he was walking on a very unstable ground, that he was essentially making shit up as he went along and that what he was going to attempt was magnitudes more dangerous than what he had done when he had rescued Inori from Jacob... but he couldn't stop now. He was way beyond the point of no return. "So... you want to know why I know you don't hate me, right?"

"Um... sure," Leonardo shrugged. Drake put a knowing smile and pointed at his own heart.

"Because of this." Leonardo, however, looked at him in confusion.

"What? What's with your chest?"

"What?! What do you... no, dude, come no! My heartbeat! ...I mean, [i]your[/i] heartbeat. I can hear it, and... well, know what you're feeling and if you're lying or not, or... you know, other stuff."

"That sounded like the least convincing explanation ever," Inori observed. "Also, what does 'other stuff' mean, exactly?"

"That's not helping, okay?" Drake exclaimed, before the weirdest sound made him freeze on the spot: Leo was chuckling. It was awkward and stilted, since it was coming from someone who clearly hadn't had fun in a long, long time... but it was definitely there.

When Leo realized what he was doing, his face got devoid of any color all of a sudden, before two crimson flowers of shame bloomed on his cheeks. "You just caught me by surprise, o-okay?" he muttered trying to justify himself.

Another lie, Drake thought, but saying that at loud wouldn't have been very nice. "Anyway, I know you do not hate me, and if you don't believe me, I'll prove it to you." The young man tried to put on a serious face without in the meantime looking scary or intimidating. "Let's make a deal, you and I. And if you are not satisfied... I will give you my life. You'll be able to finish the job, so to speak."

Leo's eyes narrowed, but he nodded. "Go on."

Drake cleared his throat. He was perfectly aware that what he was doing was crazy: he was basically playing with fire and putting his own life at risk for a boy he didn't even know... but he had already done the very same thing once, he told himself as his fingers closed on Inori's hand. [i]Wyatt would definitely try to stop me if he knew what I am doing[/i], he through. [i]But Wyatt is not here right now. [/i] "Well... first of all, I'll give you another choice. You can go away right now and never come back. I'll give you all your stuff back, of course, even the rifle, and won't tell anyone about you... but if you stick around and try to shoot someone else, I can make no such promise. If you want to stay and listen to what I have to say, though... there's no going back after that. It's like the Matrix movie, you know, blue pill and red pill."

Leo stared at the two werewolves in silence for a handful of seconds, then nodded. "No, I'll stay. I'm not a coward." His tone was obviously confrontational, but he also sounded determined.

[i]Yeah, figured out that much, [/i] Drake thought, barely suppressing a grin. From what he could tell, the beast in his heart seemed to like the young hunter. "So...as I said, I'll give you a chance to finish your job, but if you can't do that..." A moment of pause for dramatic effect. "I will bite you."

Leo gulped and shifted his gaze. "Figures," he murmured in a sour tone. "You were even starting to sound like a human being. But after all, all you want to do is to kill me."

[i]Well, I could say the same about you, you know? [/i] "I said 'bite', not 'kill'. I mean, have you ever read a book or watched a movie about werewolves? You know what happens when someone gets bitten?"

Leo's grey eyes widened in shock and sudden realization. "You gotta be kidding me..."

"Not at all."

"One of you monsters killed my family, for fuck's sake!"

"No, not one of us. One of them. Direwolves and werewolves are as different as day and night, even though we do share the same origin. I mean, I killed one direwolf myself, some months ago."

Leo shrugged. "Well... let's say you bite me. What's gonna happen then, huh?"

Drake's mind immediately went to the previous summer when he was lying in a hole in the middle of the woods with a broken leg and a mysterious and slightly creepy guy had given him that very same speech. He took a deep breath and raised three fingers. "Well... a werewolf bite can have three different outcomes. I don't know the exact percentages of each one, and honestly I doubt there are any... it's something that probably varies from person to person. Every werewolf has their own theories about what may cause each different outcome, but in my opinion it might be something at least partly related to your personality, and also how are you feeling when you get turned. Does that make sense to you?"

"Not at all," Leo replied, furrowing his brow.

"You say really weird stuff, sometimes," Inori added.

Tough crowd, huh? "Well, okay, so..." Drake lowered his first finger. "You become a werewolf just like me and Inori here. You'll be stronger, faster and more resilient than the average human, you'll be able to change partly whenever you want and you'll get an awesome healing factor. When I got bit, it fixed my broken leg! I'm sure it will also heal the, you know..." Drake pointed at the side of his own face

Leo's eyes narrowed. "I don't want to lose my scars. They are the only thing I have left to remember my family," he murmured in a gloomy talked while caressing the ruined skin of his face.

"Well... it's not like they have to heal at all costs... I mean, one of our packmates, Patrick, he's deaf, you know? And he still is, after the bite, 'cause... well, I guess being deaf is an important part of it. Or something." [i] 'Or something'? Seriously, Drake, stop sounding like a bumbling idiot. [/i] "Oh, and of course you get to change into an actual werewolf every full moon night! It doesn't hurt in the least, don't worry... to be honest it's one of the awesomest things ever, and then we all have great s...[i] fun[/i]. Fun, that's what we have. Together. In the woods." Drake looked at Leo: the young man looked appalled, and for good reasons. "Then, um... there are some downsides, of course. Silver becomes toxic, even to the touch; you've seen what happened to my arm, right? And you become allergic to chocolate. Sad but true. You might also notice some slight changes in your personality... nothing serious, mind you, but with a wolf inside your head you tend to become a little more instinctive. And you'll also become a lot horn... I mean, hungrier. For, like, meat and other stuff."

Leo cocked an eyebrow. "Are you trying to hide something from me?"

"I think Drake is worried because we still don't know how old you are," Inori suggested.

"I turned nineteen last month. Why?"

"Oh, thank god..." Drake sighed in relief. "But, anyway, back to the main topic." He lowered another finger. "The second possible outcome is..."

"I die," Leo interrupted him, his voice as straight and painful as a bullet. "That's the only other thing that would make sense. Am I right?"

"Y-yeah..." Drake lowered his gaze. "The percentage of people who develop a fatal allergic reaction to the bite is very low, luckily... but it's still a possibility."

"Okay. I see," Leo replied in a detached tone. Looking in his pale grey eyes, Drake could see the news didn't perturb him as much as it should have had. [i]He's not afraid to die. Not anymore, at least. [/i] "And what is the third outcome, then?" Leo then asked.

"Well..." Drake hesitated for just a moment. "Um... the fastest way to describe the outcome of a bite is: one of us, one of them or nothing at all, so..."

Leo jumped back on his feet as the sofa had just electrocuted him, and scrambled back into the corner of the room, tears filling his eyes. "No," he murmured, his tone livid and outrageous. "That would be worse than death. That would be worse than [i]anything. [/i]"

Drake got up too, and walked right in front of Leo: the young hunter had never looked smaller or more fragile. "Leo, listen..." but the boy shook his head.

"Just... lemme go, okay? I promise you won't see me ever again. Just, please..."

"Dude, you got it all wrong, I..." Drake tried again, but now there was a invisible and yet unbreakable wall of glass between his mouth and Leo's ears. There was only one thing Drake could do: with a fast movement, catching Leo by surprise, he grabbed the boy's right arm and pressed his hand against his own chest. Leo let out a shocked sound and frantically tried to pull his scrawny arm out of Drake's grasp, but the werewolf's fingers were too strong for him.

"If you don't want to listen to my words, then listen to my heartbeat, at least!" Drake roared, barely keeping the desire of sprouting his fangs and claws in check. "Even if you do become a direwolf, we will save you. I know for sure that a direwolf can be turned into a werewolf if that's their first time changing. His mind went back to December, to what Yom, the Russian wolf who joined them in their trip to Montana, had told them about his very own experience with becoming a direwolf after a tragic accident and being saved by his alpha Marco. "In case something like that happens, I won't leave you alone. Trust me," Drake added in a calm and soothing voice. "Focus on my heartbeat. Am I lying?"

Leo's shoulders trembled as he let out a long, liquid sigh. "No, you're not lying," he whispered. "But... how can you do that?"

Drake scratched the back of his head. "Well, you see... direwolves are extremely fierce and egotistical creatures: the cannot stand submitting to someone else. So, if you show a newborn direwolf enough dominance..." Drake, of course, tactfully omitted that said dominance was usually achieved through sex. "And, well... most of all, direwolves are the loneliest and most tragic creatures in existence; so lonely that even their two halves never meet. Showing them a genuine bond is another bane, for them." Drake chuckled nervously, but for some weird reason Leo looked impressed.

"A genuine... bond?" the boy repeated in a slow and deliberate manner.

"Something wrong with that?" Drake asked, suddenly confused.

"Nothing. You just... still weren't lying."

"Well, of course I wasn't," Drake grinned. Then, with a slightly heavier heart, he gestured towards Inori, who produced an immaculate folded napkin without uttering a single word. Drake stepped backwards towards the opposite side of the room, feeling like a challenger in a one-on-one duel to the death... which wasn't that far from truth. "Guess it's time, Leo... we should end this. No point in dragging the thing too much, huh?" The young hunter, a bit paler, nodded and grabbed the small white bundle from Inori's hands with trembling fingers. The silver knife slipped out effortlessly, like an unsheathed sword, its sharp blade giving off sinister glints under the cold artificial lights of Moira's living room. "As you already know, silver is incredibly dangerous for us wolves, especially if it's treated like those bullets of yours. Remember the bruise I showed you before? That probably won't heal anymore. And even if that knife is simple silver, I'm pretty sure it can cut through my stomach as if it was butter." [i]Why the hell did I have to say that?! [/i] "I promise I won't do anything, should you try to finish the job... and neither won't Inori."

The girl looked back at Drake, dead serious, her eyes saying: [i]consider yourself lucky because you saved my life and I love you, because otherwise I'd totally punch your stupidity out of your brain. [/i] "I promise," she nevertheless murmured.

Leo was playing with the knife, switching it from hand to hand as if to make sure it actually existed. "Why?" he asked after a while.

"Well, it wouldn't be fair otherwise," Drake replied, candid. "I'm much stronger than you, so..."

"No, you idiot... why are you doing all this? You are risking your life because you want me to become a mon... I mean, a werewolf like you, and that's what I don't get."

Drake pulled an unruly strand of hair behind his ear, his dark eyes full of quiet determination. "Well... I told you that you could also die from the bite, didn't I? If I didn't put my life at the stake I would just be a hypocrite, don't you think? And as for why I want you to join our pack, well... it's difficult to explain. See, I won't lie to you and tell you I know how you feel, because I don't. Losing my family would be one of the most horrible things ever, and if I could give you your mother and father and sister back, I would, but... what if I can give you something else? I can give you a place to belong, perhaps even happiness. I can't give you your old life back, but maybe I can give you a new one? You'll have me, and Inori, and our alpha and all the other pack members... 'cause, well, that's something I can promise you: when you are in a pack, you'll never be alone again. Ever."

Leo stood straight, the knife held in his right hand with a grip so firm his knuckles were pearly white, his eyes staring at the floor in front of him; his body was shaking from time to time, his mouth moving in silence as if he was praying. [i]Nothing much left to say... [/i], Drake thought, feeling a cold shiver down his spine. He was already feeling the poisonous blade eating away the vulnerable flesh of his intestines like acid. A heavy feeling of dread had turned his legs into stone pillars. [i]Well, it's a bit too late to feel afraid, don't you think?[/i], he told himself, trying to lighten his own mood up. His eyes and his ears were completely focused on what Leo was doing, every tiny gesture, every microscopic variation of his heartbeat... so he immediately noticed when the hunter's breathing started becoming heavier and heavier. [i]Goodbye, Inori. Goodbye, Angela. Goodbye, Patrick. Goodbye, Chance. Goodbye, Kaylee. I hope I was a good pack member to you. [/i] Leo's fingers closed on the knife's handle one last time as he took a small step forward. [i]Goodbye, mom. Goodbye, dad. I hope I wasn't a disappointment. [/i] Another step forward. Drake closed his eyes. [i]Goodbye, Wyatt. I'm sorry.

I love you. [/i]

The knife hit the floor with a sharp and clear sound, like a church bell at dawn, as a pair of scrawny arms tackled Drake. The werewolf, for one split second, actually believed he had felt a pang of blinding pain piercing through him, before he opened his eyes: Leo was hugging him tight, his face buried in Drake's chest; he was sobbing quietly, his lithe body trembling like a reed in the breeze. The knife was lying forgotten just in front of Moira's TV screen; Inori stood right next to it, and she was so relieved she even managed to conjure up a tiny smile.

[i]Wow[/i], Drake thought while petting Leo's mud-encrusted hair. [i] That's the second time in a month I managed to pull off a stunt like this... guess I'm pretty good, huh? [/i] After a brief smile of relief and just one second of hesitation, he lowered his head and sank his fangs delicately in the flesh of Leo's shoulder, just enough to puncture through his skin and taste the metallic flavor of blood on his tongue. The young wanderer winced and wheezed at that, so Drake licked the microscopic wound until it stopped bleeding. [i]No turning back now[/i], he said to himself as he pulled Leo a bit closer in a firm but tender hug. [i]We'll just have to wait. [/i]

[b] [center]***[/b] [/center]

It was nearing dawn when Drake and Inori went back to Underhill house. The young man grimaced when he realized a good half of the lights behind the windows were still on. "We didn't exactly think this through, huh?" Inori observed as the front door opened.

Wyatt, despite the cold February night, was only wearing a simple grey t-shirt and a pair of black short pants that showed his toned legs. His hair was all messy, as if he had just stopped pulling and tormenting them, and his hazelnut eyes behind the glasses were watery and reddened. "You two!" he exclaimed, stepping outside barefoot. "What the hell were you thinking?! We were worried sick! Luckily Moira called us hours ago to tell us you were at her house, but you better have a really good explanation for... " Only in that moment Wyatt noticed the bundle of clothes that Drake was carrying in his arms. "...huh?"

Drake looked past Wyatt; right on the threshold, Cordelia was looking at him like a queen staring at one of her subjects from her throne... even though there was a shadow of satisfaction and curiosity on her face. "Um... hey?" Drake chuckled nervously. In his arms, Leo was a bit feverish, his forehead covered in sweat... but he was sleeping, exhausted and with a serene look on his face, something that - Drake was sure of it - he hadn't experienced in a long, long time. "We... happened to find a stray pup. Do you think we can keep him?"

[i] (next chapter: Somewhere in the rain) [/i]