➶aʟʟ ɨ աaռtɛɖ➷[ON HOLD]

| ɖօ օʀ ɖɨɛ|

A/N: SONG TO THE SIDE IS 'NEVER LET ME GO' BY FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE. IT'S A BEAUTIFUL SONG AND BREAKS MY HEART A LITTLE EVERY TIME I LISTEN TO IT. I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOY THIS CHAPTER.
WARNING: STRONG VIOLENCE!
¡UNEDITED!

"Fight for what you fucking love." Unknown

➶ҡɛɨʀa➷

He called out to me, but I didn't stop...couldn't stop. I was driven by something I couldn't control. At least that was the excuse I gave myself for why I ran after Anthony. He was always a cocky asshole and I kept wishing that one day Jericho would snap and hunt him down. Instead, it was I who was hunting Anthony.
When I heard the fighting I knew I had no choice. My heart had already made the choice for me and I flew at Anthony. Anthony was older and stronger than I, but he still didn't have a thing on Jericho. I knew the odds were stacked against me. I had lost enough blood to weaken me and needed time to heal my deep wounds. But, I couldn't give even a few minutes for healing because that would allow Anthony to get away.
I pushed myself forward and slowed when I reached a place where the trees grew sparse. The dark rain clouds blocked out the morning sun and pushed away the fog.
There were not too many places for Anthony to hide, but I had a feeling that he wasn't exactly hiding. He was waiting for me somewhere. That's how Anthony was; a sly, tricky, cocky, ass-wipe. He was a coward nonetheless. He did something to Jericho, if not then Anthony would be dead by now.
I cautiously walked around and took in every inch of the woods I could see for any sign that Anthony was lurking in the shadows somewhere. The rain had washed away his scent, but some of it still lingered and it smelled strongly here.
A cry escaped my mouth when a great weight jumped onto my back and knocked me to the ground while biting onto the scruff of my neck. My cry of pain was quickly replaced with angry snarls and I scratched at his chest and legs, but he maintained his hold on the scruff of my neck.
I managed to gain some more access by wriggling underneath him and layed a successful bite on his snout. His acrid blood filled my mouth and he jumped back with a yelp of pain shaking his head and rubbing his bleeding nose on his shoulder.
I sent my body hurling into his and relentlessly tore into his neck and chest despite the excruciating pain coming from my shoulder where he drove his canines into. We then both started trying to rip each other's faces off and had our paws digging painfully into each other's shoulder blades.
His head suddenly dipped and he lunged for my hind leg latching onto it as strong as he could. I lifted my leg to shake off his hold and that only caused his canines to slip and tear open the soft flesh of my thigh all the way down most of my hip and leg.
I screamed out in howling pain and did the easiest and quickest thing I could to get him off of me and to keep him from ripping my damn leg off. I bit his ear off.
I latched onto his ear as close as I could to his head and tugged with all my might successfully severing it from his head. He cried out in pain and stumbled backwards while I dropped his ear from my mouth and limped in a circle around him.
My body screamed for me to stop, but I couldn't. Stopping meant me dying and if I died then this asshole would live. My leg quivered from the tremendous amount of pain it was giving off and it dragged behind me more than it actually supported my weight.
We circled each other in the mush of mud and blood we had created and dared each other with our eyes to be the first to strike. He was the first to make a move and quickly advanced on me. I did my best to meet his pace and our bodies, teeth, and claws once again clashed in one last effort to kill one another. One, if not both of us, were not going to make it out of these woods alive.
One of his hind paws clawed into my already gashed leg and I let the anger from the pain fuel me to rip at the side of his face and neck. His body kept pushing me back and I feared that he would corner me somewhere. If I was cornered and fell, it would be my last.
He was much stronger than I, that and his size were the problem. My hind paws dug into the earth as deep as they could and I found to keep myself upright. That was hard to do with a bad leg and I fell on my side with him quickly on top of me.
He now had the upper hand and dug the claws of one of his hind paws into my gashed leg to hold me in place while he tore away at my shoulder. I thrashed around violently and whimpered in pain. It was do or die now. I was practically bathing in my own blood and if I didn't try to take the kill strike now I wouldn't make it.
I turned my body painfully into his claws that were sunk into my leg and stretched my neck as far as I could causing his canines to cause ever more damage to my shoulder. Right when his canines grazed my neck, I drove mine into his and buried them as deep as I could.
My mouth filled with his blood and began to quiver when I forced my teeth deeper successfully removing a large part of his throat. I pulled back and dropped a large portion of his throat onto the ground. His body loomed over me for the longest seconds of my life while his blood poured from his throat and painted me red.
His eyes glazed over and he stared blankly into mine as his final heartbeats pushed what was left of his blood out of his body. He collapsed onto my side and I shakily crawled out from under him as his body shifted back to its human form for the last time.
I obscured my eyes from his naked, mangled body and began slowly limping back to where I had left Jericho. I didn't even bother to clean my wounds, all I could think about was making it back to him. He was a good number of miles away, but I prayed I had enough left in me to make it back to him. I needed to make sure he was okay, if I didn't make it I at least wanted to know he would be alright.
I half-limped-half dragged myself away from the large pond of water, mud, flesh, and blood we had created. My body was in the worst pain it had been in and I forced myself to keep going. My movements were slow and shaky and I seemed to grow weaker with every labored step I took. Yet, I still managed to keep going, keep moving forward.
My body began to tremble and I felt my legs begin to buckle and collapse underneath me. My head and front paws sunk into the mud and I shakily lifted my upper half out of the mud and began to limp along again.
Not too much longer now. Just a little further. I'll be there soon. That is what I told myself to keep moving and I knew that I had barely made it two miles, if that. My head lowered weakly to keep the rain from my eyes and I found myself stumbling more and more over my front paws.
My paws could go no further and gave in causing me to collapse onto my belly. I was breathing heavily and could feel my heart beating rapidly against my chest. I struggled to raise my upper half and made it half way before my legs began to shake and I crumbled onto the soaked earth once again.
Not wanting to give up, I began crawling across the slick mud with what strength I had left in my front legs. That proved successful for a good fifteen minutes or so. Time seemed to be dragging by so slowly though, so I wouldn't be surprised if it had just been five minutes instead of the fifteen I thought it to be.
Whether I had managed to shorten the distance by fifteen or five minutes, it had all stopped when I found I could not make my muscles work anymore. I tried to claw the mud and propel myself forward with my one good leg, but I was dead weight now. My body was shutting down. I was dying.
I gently rested on my side and blinked away the rain that fell onto my eyelashes. At least he was safe now and I didn't have to worry about Anthony doubling back to finish him off. Maybe, just maybe he had someone up there looking out for him and he was fine. Yes, he will be fine. I assured myself and watched the rain fall to the ground and send up small sprays of water.
I felt my body begin to shift by itself and I swallowed weakly. In wolf form, our bodies would force themselves to shift back into human form if our wolf form was too weak to heal itself. That was never a good thing. It meant that our bodies had basically given up on themselves and turned to their human forms to do the healing. I didn't have too much longer now.
I wrapped my arms around myself and curled up as good as I could into a ball until my leg screamed that it couldn't move any further. Each breath I took became increasingly harder to take and I wondered if it would just be easier to let go.
It will be you and I Keira, until death takes me away, I will always be there for you. Jericho's words from all those centuries ago are still fresh in my mind. As much as I hate to admit it, I was terrified to die. I didn't know what lay beyond the living whether it be my family and pack member's smiling faces or a never ending void of black nothingness, I was afraid. I was even more afraid now that I felt death's cold clutches slithering through my body shutting everything down.
I wanted to be near him when I left, but my body was too weak to make it back to him. Now I would die alone. I suppose since we were born naked and alone that it was made to be that we were to die naked and alone.
Papa's face flashed randomly into my mind and I saw us the day when he took me rabbit hunting for the first time. "Papa, isn't it wrong to kill this rabbit?" I had asked and he replied with "Well, we hunt rabbits. There is a difference between hunting and killing. Hunting is for eating and we need to eat to live. Killing is killing, there isn't a point to it but to make a point."
A chill swept across my naked skin and I let out a ragged breath. Faces of my past flew through my mind as well as the faces of the present. Bits and pieces of my life came to my mind and I saw my five year old self chasing after the chickens, then when I first saw Jericho from across the water, when we ran and hunted together, Tzipora and I joking around, Papa's twinkling brown eyes as he smiled down adoringly at me, and then back to Jericho and I that night he decided on starting up a pack.
My heavy eyes slowly closed shutting out the unceasing rain and the pain all over my body. The memory of Jericho and I that night faded away to blackness and I felt my body begin to relax. It was a frightening, yet wonderful feeling that took away the pain and the cold. It eased my fear knowing that he was alive, that I saved him. He had saved me and given me a chance to live and love. And, I now gave him a chance to do the same, just not with me. I was already gone and he would live because he was all I ever wanted. He was all I ever needed and I loved him. Even though I'm already gone, he will still be in my dreams. I didn't want to let go, but sometimes people had to so that others could live. Somewhere, somehow I will see him again. It may not be for a long time, but maybe, just maybe...........