Achelois nodded as she walked up to the two males. “We should hunt for as long as we can, even into nightfall if necessary.” She glanced over at Katherine. “I don’t know about you, but I know that Katherine and I are hungry.”
Charles nodded as his claw twitched a fraction of an inch toward his stomach as it growled at them. William knew that if his stomach wasn’t making noise yet it soon would be. “We should go find something to eat.”
“Are you planning on leaving without us?”
William whipped his head around at the new voice. He was a little surprised and relieved to see Nicolas and Aceso walking toward them. The blonde and black werewolves came up and stood with the group. Aceso admired the corral that they had built. “Too bad we will have to destroy it when we leave,” Aceso said.
William knew that that was what had to happen. They couldn’t afford to leave a glaring example of their being here left standing to point the way for over curious eyes to follow. Still hearing it with such a tone of finality, William felt just a little sad to know that all their work was just going to be erased.
“Did someone mention something about food? cuz I’m starving,” Nicolas said.
Of course Nicolas wouldn’t care about anything they had done here today he was too busy being detained by Aceso for some reason. William wondered if it had anything to do with what had happened yesterday between him and Katherine. William knew that Aceso wasn’t stupid. He wondered what they had talked about and if Nicolas had taken what was said seriously. Either way there was nothing he could do about it now. They had a meal to find.
He looked over at Charles. “Is there anything out there, Charles?”
The werewolf had his nose to the wind, testing their territory. His eyes were closed. Without opening them Charles said to the air, “I can’t smell anything larger than a squirrel.” He opened his eyes and looked around at the group. “All that noise we made building this thing,” he nodded toward the enclosure, “must have scared away anything that would have made a decent meal.”
Nicolas leaned over the corral walls. “Why don’t we just eat one of these, they’re asleep anyway, they won’t feel a thing.” Without waiting for an answer he placed both his hands on the log wall preparing to vault himself over.
Achelois grabbed him by his tail before he had a chance to scale the wall. Nicolas yelped and jumping back down he spun around, swiping his tail back from the female. Achelois leveled a cold stare at him. “Those two are for the City under the Mountain. If I catch you anywhere near these or any others we place inside those walls,” she jabbed a claw at the enclosure, “you will have to deal with me.” She took a step closer to be with inches of Nicolas. Achelois stood there for a long time. Nicolas didn’t shrink away from the female. The three weeks of training with Efraim, it seemed, had built up his confidence, if nothing else.
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“We don’t have time for this, Achelois, back off,” Aceso interjected. There was steel supporting her words. Achelois didn’t move. Aceso moved in a blur of black fur. In an instant Aceso was in between the two of them and forcing Achelois to retreat with a strong arm across the other female’s chest. Nicolas didn’t move to follow. For once he had the sense to stay where he was.
Achelois reached up and wrenched Aceso’s arm from her body. The two females stood glaring at each other. Aceso was pack alpha. Achelois knew this, but there was something in her mannerism that screamed out in challenge to the other’s authority.
Katherine spoke into the deadly silence, “Didn’t somebody mention something about getting something to eat?”
The childish innocence of the comment made William lower his head and laugh silently. Charles was looking around at the rest of them. His expression was serious, but he nodded at Katherine’s question.
For a moment, it looked as if neither female was going to back down. They stood fighting each other with shear will. In the end however Aceso won out and Achelois, without lowering her head or taking her eyes off Aceso, stepped back a half step. Even this small acquiescence seemed to scream out in challenge, but Aceso let it go. “We hunt,” she said to the rest of the group, her eyes still locked on Achelois. “If we come across a dear Charles will capture it as he did those two,” she said as she hooked her head toward the corral. “Tonight, we eat smaller game.”
William wasn’t sure he was in the mood for going after a lot of smaller animals, but they had a mission to complete and that mission was the most important thing. It was certainly more important than his stomach.
They moved out away from the den as a pack. Charles was in the lead and the rest fanned out behind him in a V formation. William was last in line. Charles kept his nose to the wind tasting it for their prey. William kept his head moving back and forth scanning the surrounding forest. Katherine bolted off to his left. William whipped his head in that direction to see a cream blur shoot off into the forest. He was about to follow her when he heard a swipe of claws cut through the air and a soft whine. The rest of the pack had stopped moving. They were all looking into the brush that Katherine had disappeared into. She came out of the dense underbrush holding a sizable raccoon by its tail. There were several small droplets of blood that beaded under the dead animal’s chin and plopped on the soft forest floor. The pack sat down as Katherine gutted the animal and portioned out the small amount of meat to the group. The handful of flesh that was given to William was gone in seconds. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. In a minute or two the snack was finished, and the pack was up and moving through the forest again.
They found no dear that evening and eventually they retired back to the old wolf den. They had managed to catch several smaller animals: two more raccoons, a few squirrels and a fox. William wasn’t satisfied with the meager amount of meat that he had eaten but he supposed that none of them were. He followed the pack back to the den and slept.
The next morning was overcast with the promise of a coming storm. The six headed out as they had done the night before. They didn’t break formation for smaller animals though. They were hunting for deer, and nothing could distract them from that purpose.
Charles was diligent, his nose to the wind, constantly sifting through the rich smells of the forest and that of their intended prey. Charles led them deep into the forest. They moved silently, crouched low to the ground.