His footsteps shuffled away at a hurried pace in the direction of the old school bus. Only to be replaced by the multiple pairs coming quickly out of the store and into the parking lot. Not wanting to move my eyes from the treeline I took a whiff of the air, confirming that the footsteps were coming from my fellow pack members. All of them heading straight for the bus except for the pair beelining for me. Keeping my stance rigid, I waited for him to stop next to me.

“You think they’re behind the notes?” Ryan asked, leaning forward to whisper in my ear.

His hoodie brushed my bare shoulder making me consciously aware of his closeness, “Most likely but it could always be another group.”

Ryan’s cheek nudged mine as he motioned with his head,“Did he challenge you?”

The male in question gave another growl before stepping back to disappear into the woods. The renegade was impatient to fight and to be honest, so was I.

Moving my head to break the skin on skin contact, I told him bluntly, “No, he accepted mine. Take the teens to the territory. I’ll be back to brief Otis when I’ve finished.”

He didn’t move, “How many?”

“Three. One man and two women.”

“Slaughter them. I’ll take the teens back to the pack.”

His aggressive words took me by surprise but I wasn’t going to sit here and ask about them, “I always do.”

“I’ll see you in an hour then and don’t forget we still have to talk. Have fun!” Ryan shouted after me.

As soon as I knew he would be taking the teens back to the pack, I was sprinting across the parking lot and through the trees. Picking up on their scent, I ran deeper into the woods until I reached the small group. The male I challenged was just turning to face me, words pouring from his mouth when I jumped on his back. It didn’t matter what he was going to say, I had no time for words. He promised bloodshed when he accepted and I was going to make sure he delivered.

Knees clutching his hips, I reached a hand up an over to grab underneath his chin and slam his head back. Bracing my other hand on his shoulder, I threw my head forward and buried my fangs deep into his throat. His claws sliced into my forearms as he tried to rip me off of him while releasing strangled screams. And the fact that I knew exactly what type of pain the male was going through made his screams even sweeter.

Shaking my head, I yanked and pulled at the muscles between my jaws like a true wolf. Only when I started to feel them give way between my teeth did I rip my head back still clutching at his throat with my fangs. Blood sprayed and tiny chunks of skin flew through the air in an arc following the movement of my head. As his body began to fall, I dropped my feet to the ground and pushed him forward to land at the feet of his friends.

Two pairs of astonished eyes looked at their fallen comrade before looking back up at me. Blood dripping from the chunk of throat I still held between my teeth started to soak the front of my black tank top during our standoff. Meeting their eyes, I spit the flesh from my mouth and stood perfectly straight. Waiting.

The dark haired woman shouted, “You didn’t even let him talk!”

I raised a brow, “Why would I waste time talking to you?”

“He was the messenger! Tau had information!”

I didn’t need to talk to these renegades, I already had five of them coming to the pack that I needed to speak with. Ones with more information than these grunts carried. These ones I was free to kill, and kill them I would. What I wouldn’t do is talk to them.

Didn’t people just fight to the death in silence anymore? How hard was that?

As I pondered that, I lunged forwards making it look like I was going for the black haired woman and then spun left to claw at the blonde. But even though I caught her by surprise she was quick enough to raise her arms and effectively block the swipe of my claws. Deep gashes appeared on her arms instead of her chest making me growl in annoyance.

Feeling the air shift behind me, I ducked in time to miss a fist to the back of the head. Moving to the side to keep them in my eyeline, I took a moment to figure out my next move. What felt like a light bulb went off in my head causing me to smile. A bloody fanged one that made the women in front of me cringe.

Racing forward, I sucker punched the blonde in the throat before shoving a clawed hand deeply into the other’s gut. The burnette blinked at me in surprise and then slowly looked down at my hand up the wrist inside of her. She gurgled as blood slowly began to pour from her mouth and down her chin. It was a deep red color that mesmerized me for a moment until the loud choking from behind brought me back to the moment at hand.

Yanking my hand from her stomach, I brought her liver along with me. Turning to kill the last woman, I wasn’t surprised to see her sprinting deeper into the forest. My veins sang with adrenaline as I watched her go. It was always much more fun when they thought they had a chance of escape. Silly shifters, didn’t they know a Feral Born never lost their prey?

Liver still in hand, I cocked my arm back, took aim, and threw. The organ soared through the air in a spinning arc before hitting her square between the shoulder blades with a wet smack. I had just reached her when she started stumbling from the hit. As she fell forward, I curved my left hand and placed it where I thought her head would fall.

When she went down, her head hit my hand causing my claws to sink deeply into the soft flesh underneath her chin. Tugging my hand up just a bit, I let gravity do the rest. My grip combined with her weight and momentum of the fall tore her head clean off before she even knew what was happening.

Blood sprayed the area around us coating everything in a fine mist of red. The renegade’s head swung in my hand dripping blood steadily onto the ground. Eyes closed, I dropped the head and tried to wipe my face clean. Once I knew I wouldn’t get blood in my eyes, I opened them to survey the damage I had done. The snow covered ground was now splattered with red drops and pools of blood from my prey. Their cooling bodies laid still in the snow while snowflakes slowly dusted over their limbs.

Glancing down at myself, I found that my cargo pants went from tan to practically red while my top became a darker shade of black. The blood covering my hands and arms were beginning to dry from the cold. Making my skin feel uncomfortably stiff, a feeling that I found I didn’t like from being covered in blood so often. It was easy to push that feeling aside though, when I had other things to attend to.

The blood soaked clearing would be covered over in a fresh layer of snow in an hour or so, but the bodies need to be buried. However, since the ground was frozen solid and I was without a shovel. I’d have to get creative on how I was going to hide this mess from the human’s badged Omicrons. Reaching a hand up, I scratched at my hairline as I thought of how to cover this up.

The prick of claws against my forehead had me looking up at my hand and retracting them instantly. It felt so natural having them out that sometimes I forgot to retract them. I actually preferred to have them out but Otis ordered me to retract them a while ago because it made the other pack members nervous. The order didn’t make sense to me since I was their Omicron but then again the orders that weren’t about safety rarely did.

Crouching down, I used my hands to dig into the soft snow on top of the frozen layer. Hitting the ice a foot down, I moved over and dug another hole for the other head. Finishing with that, I stood up to retrieve the heads that were discarded around the clearing. Grabbing them by the hair, they swung in my hands before I dropped them into the small pits. Bending down again, I filled in the holes until it looked like the snow hadn’t been disturbed.

Now for the bodies...I wouldn’t be able to bury them properly but I could cover them. Standing up, I walked over to the closest headless body and dragged it over to throw it on top of the other one before repeating that with the body that still had a head. Putting my hands on my hips, I looked around to see how I was going to do this...

Moon, I couldn’t believe I missed it earlier. Going over to the tree across from the bodies, I braced my right shoulder before ramming it straight into the trunk. The great pine tree shook as the snow layering in its branches fell onto the bodies. It wasn’t quite enough to cover them yet so I rammed my shoulder against the trunk again. This time a huge amount of snow fell from above and successfully covered up my prey.

The scene was still showered in blood but the snow fall would cover it up soon. Rubbing bits of bark off my scraped shoulder, I took one last look around before sprinting off into the direction the pack was in. The gouges in my arms from the man’s claws burned as the wind whipped through them. Keeping my knees high and steps light, I quickly made my way to the side of the road where I began to run alongside it.