Inherent Instinct (In Another Life Part Five)

Chapter Two

Serana woke gently to the feeling of Elayn's arms wrapped around her, surrounding her in warmth and a wonderfully familiar scent in her nose. Hers wasn't as keen as a werewolf's, but it was enough that she used it. She shifted closer into Elayn's embrace, quite content to enjoy herself for the time being.

But it wasn't long before her werewolf stirred, a few limbs twitching to warn Serana so she could turn around and watch as Elayn's eyes, a soft, almost grey silver, fluttered open.

“Good morning my love,” Serana murmured, and leaned forward for a sleepy kiss.

The two of them parted without any haste, and when they did, Salem had made himself comfortable in the corner of the room, a well of shadow without light bright enough to cast it.

“I spoke with someone last night,” Elayn said as she tugged on her trousers. She repeated the story the innkeep's daughter had told her, and said when she finished, “I think there's something strange going on around here.”

So it seems , Salem said. What are we to do about it?

“Well,” Elayn said, looking at Serana, who was brushing her hair with a boar bristle brush. “I'd like to stay and see if we can't sort all this out. I'd hate to see a pack wiped out, and that's what will happen if this goes on. We keep our own in line.”

Serana gave her a look that had nothing to do with what she said next. “I told you before, we'll stay if that's what you want. Honestly, at this point I'm curious to see what happens.”

Curiosity, that was it. And maybe she'd learn a little more about her werewolf's past. Elayn didn't talk much about where she had come from, beyond stories from her travels, but she never said anything about the pack Serana assumed she had been born in. There were her parents, and the horrible way they treated her, but shouldn't the pack have protected her from that?

“Then that's that,” Elayn said, looking determined. “Tonight we'll see if we can find the pack, and see if they can answer our questions.”

The inn wasn't quite full of people when the two snuck out, but there were enough that no one paid much attention to the quiet pair whose footsteps were followed by a shadow. Any inn at dinner time was usually energetic, but there was a pall over this crowd. Elayn knew it likely had to do with the danger lurking around the rather nice town. She would do what she could to see these people's lives go back to relative calm and quiet.

Once they were well away from any onlookers, Elayn shifted to her four legged shape. The other one, the twisted one, had just as good of a nose, but it had one unfortunate downside; that form was entirely too distracted by the thought of bloodlust. Elayn didn't use it much.

Her nose picked up… well, quite a lot of scents, but it wasn't hard at all to scent out multiple wolves around the outskirts of the town, scents that were sometimes fresh and sometimes old. She would follow one, and it would become another, and she had to start all over again. Finally, when the moon was high in the sky, she picked up a trail that seemed to lead somewhere.

That somewhere was a clearing a couple miles from the town, but before Elayn broke through the trees, she skidded to a halt as her ears caught the sounds of someone talking while someone-- or something-- else growled. The talker sounded calm, collected, while the growling grew in strength.

Elayn turned to Serana at her side and lifted a paw, then deliberately set it back down again. It was a signal for her to wait, one she received with a nod, while Elayn crept closer to the edge of the clearing. From the safety of a thicket, she watched as a broad man with a full, red beard faced against two wolves. As the man took a step back, the wolves stepped forward, and all the while he spoke to them.

“Alain, Henri,” he cajoled, hands held in front of him palms-forward. “You know me.”

The growling did not subside from one wolf, while the other broke his just long enough to snap teeth at the outstretched hands.

“Do not make me fight you, my brothers.”

It seemed as though a confrontation was inevitable, and that the man knew these wolves-- knew them well, if the commanding tone he used was any indicator. Perhaps he would be able to answer some questions about what had been happening in the region.

“Rush them,” Serana said in an almost sub-audible whisper, suddenly crouched beside Elayn. “They won't expect my magic.”

It was a plan they'd used before, with success, though not against werewolves skilled at pack tactics. Of course, there only seemed to be two there, they could take them. Without any further hesitation, Elayn rushed soundlessly from the thicket, and charged the werewolf closest to her.

Before she hit the wolf, she saw the red-bearded man's silver eyes go wide.

Of course, after she hit, she was too busy to notice much but the wolf in her jaws. Since neither of them were paying attention to anything but the red-bearded man, they didn't notice her entrance until her teeth met fur and flesh. She was that fast. She shook her head sharply once before the other wolf was upon her, knocking her away.

Elayn had meant to break the first one's neck, but when she regained her feet, she was still facing two wolves snarling aggressively. She returned in kind, and they started circling, one going clockwise while the other went counter. They meant to attack her from both sides. She tracked one, ignoring the other.

Lucky neither wolf knew about her mistress hiding in the bushes. They were too focused upon their prey to listen to their senses. While Elayn's skin crawled to let her enemy at her back, the ill feeling subsided quickly when the wolf behind her let out a yelp, and she smelled the strange sickly sweet smell that was Serana's necromantic magic.

When his ally fell, the wolf in front of Elayn broke his circling and ran at her, rather than doing the wise thing of retreating. What was wrong with these wolves? She had no time to consider it deeply as she slid to one side and sunk her fangs into the hind leg of her attacker as he went by, severing the tendon there. The wolf yelped and spun in an ungainly fashion, now supported by only three legs. It was an easy matter of finishing him off from there, but before Elayn could move to, the wolf was engulfed in unearthly fire, and fell to the ground without a sound.

Serana and Elayn had little time to recover before the werewolf they had saved-- and he was a werewolf, she could smell the fact as he got close-- approached. “I wish you had not killed them,” he said, accent not thick enough to hide the sorrow in his voice. “But I do not think there was another choice.”