Amaryllis

28

Greg laughs fakely, digging his claws in. The half-healed would on the back of Harry's neck rips open again, spilling warm blood down his nape as the pain flares back to life.

"Sorry, love. He's my property now."

That tears a growl from Harry himself, and from Zayn and Liam. Niall breathes heavily, and somewhere behind their backs, Harry feels him clench his hands into fists. Before they can try to do anything about the rage that swells between them, Greg stands up and jogs back to the enemy's side, shifting as he goes.

Then, easy as breathing, the ropes binding them together fall off. They exchange confused glances, all of them frozen.

"You wanted a fair fight," yells the old woman. "Let's go, then."

And finally, after long minutes of standing statue-still, all the hunters blend away from their background, long and lean and dark like shadows. The gentle shivering sound of bowstrings fills Harry's ears as a shower of arrows rains down on them.

Willing his wolf to cooperate, Harry slows everything around him, just long enough to throw himself on the ground, drag Louis and Liam with him. The metal flies clean through the air, piercing nothing right where Harry's neck would have been, and all the arrowheads bury themselves deep in the dirt.

They pick themselves up immediately, standing shoulder to shoulder. Their breathing is ragged, an adrenaline-ridden echo. Another batch of arrows arches in the air, and with one last glance at each other, they bolt.

Stick to the plan, Harry thinks as he fights the instinct to look back, make sure everybody's doing okay. The ground is all muted greens and greys underneath his paws as he concentrates on where he's stepping, relying on his ears to tell him what's happening. He trudges on, slipping downhill along the tree line, and tries not to make noise.

Up on the clearing, the hunters are shouting orders at each other, curt and precise like military speak. He hears their machetes being unsheathed as the wolves come closer. By the opposite tree line, too silent for human ears to catch, Niall is trotting, holding on to his weapons. Harry can just see the top of his conspicuously blond head.

A whine punches through the air, breathless, and Harry immediately recognises Liam's wolf. His own is screaming at him again, this time to turn around and help his friends, his pack, his family. He grits his teeth.

Finally, he meets Niall at the back of the clearing, littered with empty sheaths and broken arrowheads and hats and gloves, the hunters now far in front of them, fighting. Harry can't see Greg; knows that they're running on borrowed time, that he's probably watching them from the shadows and waiting to pounce. There is no way nobody had noticed the human and Greg's Beta missing, but Harry will take the sense of security, even if fake.

"Ready?" Niall asks as he kicks the hunters' possessions away casually, his movements just this side of frantic. Harry can tell how high-strung he is, how nervous.

He yips in response, trying to communicate that he's ready as he'll ever be.

"Let's do this, then," Niall nods, coming to stand next to him. He's somehow holding a bow with an arrow notched in it in one hand, gripping the handle of his knife with the other. Harry feels out of place, like he has no business trying to fight with him or any of the others.

Niall counts them off quietly, and on three, they're off. Harry, running on four legs, leaves him behind almost immediately. He knows that Niall is a hunter, knows that if he gets into trouble, he's more capable of defending himself than all of them combined, but sprinting forward and leaving him in the dust still makes Harry feel uneasy.