(MxM) Tales Of A Shifter (P1) - The Meeting

Chapter 70 - Prey

They were hungry...but they had already ate a feast of flesh.

The beasts sat in the shadows....their thoughts not far from the darkness that surrounded them. The sharp cutting smell of pine and rotted mulch offended and agitated them as much as the healthy, willowy canopy all around them seemed to irritate them. Branches and thin sticks that trembled in the soft cool wind.

The slight almost musical twinkle of the pine needles tumbling to the forest floor, seemed to disturb the hidden hunters making them even more jumpy and angry then they were normally.

As though they were unfamiliar with such a thing as falling leaves or healthy air, their bodies twitched and saliva gathered at the edges of their mouths as they became more hot and bothered by the passing hour.

But though clearly angered by their surroundings the beasts sat as still as sentinels in the night. Poised on the balls of their clawed feet.

And although the pungent scent of horse intestines and blood wafted up from the shapeless pile of shattered bones and horsey hamburger sitting before them, nothing seemed to please the beasts and they only grew more and more agitated as the moments passed by.

The gummy, watery, smacks of teeth and flesh meeting and grinding filled the night air....but this was not what they needed to do and the beasts knew it.

Even though the equine blood and feces were good as they ran down their gullets....the beasts needed to find their target.

The hunters had searched for their prey for many many moons now. They had smelled its blood in the air, followed it to this forest, but now the beasts were uncertain what to do to capture their target.

Their prey slept in the north, far from the cover of the trees. Hidden in a large cave....A cave filed with many of the Shape Changers that their kind despised. Shape Changers that their kind would normally devour if given the chance.

But there were too many Shape Changers for them to fight all alone... and that was the only thing that had kept the target out of their grasp for so long.

One of the beasts had already tasted one of the Shape Changers blood only a few nights ago. It had been angry blood. Delicious blood. Strong blood.

And all around the beasts the smell of prey lurked....the smell of Shape Changers lingered. A mountain of scents that made the deadly hunters crave to shred and rend and tear everything in their paths until they had gorged themselves on the carnage.....but the beasts knew in a primitive part of their minds that this would bring them trouble.

The beasts now understood that it was too dangerous to attack the Shape Changers....unless they wanted to fail their Master...and to fail the Master was not something that they were prepared to do. Failure was not something they had been trained to do.

Their Master told them to seek. Their Master had bade them to hunt....and kill. To capture!

And there! Suddenly standing in the window was their target!

With eyes blind, because all of their kind stalked with senses other than sight, they simply sensed him moving in the cave. Sensed their targets energy...like a roaring flame...or sunlight. Their target glowed to them, his power called to them. There he was.

With a chittering, chocked bark, the beasts lost what little train of thought they had managed to sustain. They raced each other towards the figure standing in the glass.

Their Master had sent them to find.....and now they would capture.

***

A sharp pinch of apprehension shot down Brandon's spine. He felt dread rising, as he placed a gloved hand to the window pane and peered into the unfamiliar darkness outside of the Shifters home. Something shot across the shadowed fields beyond the window. Brandon swallowed in shock, but he didn't move.