Feral Bonds

Chapter 2

Travelling was not as easy as it should have been. She'd followed the highway for a few hours, avoiding any claimed land, but after stopping at a local gas station to ask for a map, or directions, they'd told her the shortest route on foot was to cut through the woods. It would shave hours off the journey since the highway went too far to the north and she'd need to take another road south.

Her paws halted as the scent of wildcat filled her nose. A scent marker. Natania growled under her breath and paced along the line. If she turned around, who knew how long it would take to reach her destination? But she really didn't want to fight.

She'd always found the centuries long feud between her kind and the pridelanders, called as such because there were many different kinds of wildcat shifters, though they all came from the same witch and thus had the same abilities, to be ridiculous. The wolf ancestor had only made wolves.

Why did they continue to fight when the witch that had made and enslaved them was long dead? The reason for the feud had been lost with the original witches, but the wolves and wildcats continued to kill each other on principle.

Natania would have the advantage. While the wildcats were lean, stealthy, and fast, the wolves had superior strength, especially in one on one combat. But, at the end of the day, the feud wasn't hers. She didn't kill for the sake of killing. Her ears drooped, except on that one occasion, but that had been under orders from her father. She still regretted it.

Her ears twitched at the sound of pawsteps and Natania sat back on her haunches, just outside the scent line, and waited. There were three of them, two lions and a jaguar. The cats bared their teeth when they saw her, spreading out to face her on three sides. They crouched low, defensively and Natania forced her fur to stay flat, and her face to stay neutral.

"What are you doing on our territory?" the jaguar snarled. Natania flinched a little at the voice in her mind. It felt wrong to her, the mental communication was something reserved for her pack, or other wolves. They could communicate in other ways, but from her experience, the cats preferred that mental link.

"I haven't crossed your border," Natania said calmly.

"You might as well have," one of the lions, a male given his mane, snapped.

Natania looked them over, wondering if she could persuade them to let her pass without violence. It was worth a shot. "Look," she said, "I'm not here to fight you, or steal your prey or threaten your people. I just want to cross."

"Go around then," the jaguar spoke again.

Natania let her ears droop. "I've been travelling for a long time, I'm tired, and going around is going to add hours to my journey, on land where there is nothing to hunt. May I please cross?"

The cats all growled in unison. "You said you weren't looking for prey."

Natania sighed heavily and flicked her tail with irritation. "I won't need to hunt if I can shave that much time off the journey." She would be hungry, but she could survive without hunting their land.

"Where are you going?" the jaguar asked.

"To meet Nerezza," she answered, holding his gaze.

The fur along their spines prickled uneasily and Natania cocked her head.

They sounded suddenly nervous. "You work for the vampire?"

"Er, yes," she lied, then added, "he's pretty cranky if we're late." She dipped her head low. "Please?"

The cats glanced at each other and she got the distinct impression they were having a private conversation.

Natania kneaded the ground impatiently while they talked, glancing over her shoulder like she expected her pack to be on her tail any minute. She couldn't sense them, but the open space made her nervous anyway.