The Hunter

The Mountain Terrors

Mira cautiously pushed herself to her feet and stepped in the line of sight. Tawny fur covering a muscular frame shone in the moonlight. She lowered her head and bared her teeth, while her ears instinctively flattened against her head. The large head cocked to one side as though inspecting her before flicking behind her towards Collin.

Without even looking at her again, the figure moved to walk around her. A flare of indignation went up inside of her—just because she was smaller than he was didn’t make her less of a threat. She quickly stepped into his path again, but this time she accompanied the movement with a low warning growl. His eyes landed back on her, and if he were in human form, he’d be smirking at her in amusement.

She widened her stance and snarled at him. His muscles bunched before attempting to leap over her. Rearing back on her hind legs, she clamped her jaws around his back leg and used his momentum to send him into the wall of the cave.

To his credit, he didn’t make any sound of pain as his body collided with the wall, but she hardly expected anything else. This time when he sprung to his feet and she stepped in front of him, he snarled. She couldn’t allow herself time to gloat, but the urge almost overwhelmed her better judgment. His body crouched low to the ground and the moon illuminated his white fangs.

When he tried to circle her, she simply moved into his path. He paced in front of her hissing and with each step, his tail twitched more and more.  At the sound of his growl and accompanying hiss, rustling came from behind her. She’d need to get this moving quickly or Collin would wake and interfere. Collin stood no chance against a mountain lion shifter in his prime. Maybe she could hurt him enough so Collin could finish him, but where would that leave Collin?

As the lion lunged forward, she barely backed up in time to avoid his claws. Her lips pulled back in a snarl—her main focus had to be this fight. She hated killing other shifters, but he really wasn’t giving her any other options.

With a lightning fast movement, his nails grazed her shoulder as she dodged to the side. When he moved forward to follow through, she used her smaller size to slide under him and bite his front leg. The tangy taste of blood filled her mouth. She jerked her head backwards and would have tripped him if he weren’t so freakishly fast.

His jaws latched onto the scruff of her neck and her grip lessened for a fraction of a second. That was all the time he needed to yank his paw out of her mouth, despite her teeth scraping down his leg, and throw her towards the front of the cave.

When her body landed on the ground, one or two of her ribs cracked. The adrenaline in her body allowed her to ignore the pain as she jumped to her feet, and it helped that she’d been in worse condition in the past. The lion’s eyes widened in surprise. She took full advantage of his shock and rushed towards him. Her teeth buried into the crook of his neck at the same time both his paws dug into her shoulders

The warmth of her blood soaking her fur should have worried her more, but as it was, she had only one objective: get rid of the lion at any cost. Her teeth dug deeper into his flesh and once again his blood filled her mouth.

One of his powerful paws smacked into her side and more ribs either cracked or broke. As she went flying to the side with a chunk of his shoulder in her mouth, he hissed in a mixture of pain and fury. He stalked towards her bloody and broken figure, and she once again shocked him by getting to her feet.

A feral growl came from deep within her chest when she realized he was closer to Collin than she was. He didn’t seem to notice, but that didn’t stop the red-hot rage coursing through her veins. Collin’s breathing changed and the lion’s ears flickered backward. She shot forward and clamped her teeth around his front leg. Almost immediately the bone snapped in her mouth. She leapt backwards just as his jaws snapped towards her. His fangs grazed her side followed by a faint stinging in her lower back.