Chapter Two: Hunter

Sylvia POV

I'm thinking of the moon and how it will feel to run through the moonlight, keeping pace with the others like me--the ones they call Rogue. We never speak. We don't have to. They suffer as I do when it's full moon.

The park is silent as I cross it, every leaf and blade of grass coated with the goddess's golden paint. A solitary owl hoots and I sense the tremors within brush and hedge as small creatures seek shelter.

The boy takes me by surprise and he shouldn't. IHe jumps out in front of me with a yell. It's the lanky boy with the floppy black hair and pimply face from the diner. The one who acts like the others' Alpha. I sense his humans step out of the shadows. It's like the saddest pack in the world. I decide to name him Alpha-boy.

I berate myself for not paying attention. Because now Fer is on high alert and ready for a full transformation. Chill, I mindlink her, This doesn't need to be a big thing. Transforming in a public place in Loop City will get me thrown into an institution of some kind. I don't need that. I feel the iron pushing from under my cuticles already and my mouth waters as it extrudes from my gum line. My nerve endings tingle. It's like pain, but damn it also feels good.

"Did you forget something?" I ask him, "Like maybe, paying."

This throws Alpha-boy off. He looks around us. The rest of his man-pack shuffle their feet and look nervous though a few try for the tight mouths and furrowed brows that they think makes them look threatening.

"You owe me an apology, bitch," he says.

"I'm not a bitch," I say. And I'm not. Right now. Right now I'm an amused werewolf in human form and that's good for him.

Alpha-boy frowns then seems to decide that action is best. He lunges toward me, the small knife in his hand gleaming.

He doesn't stand a chance. When I let her take over, Fer's lightning-fast movements become my own. All Alpha-boy and his man-pack will see is that I was in front of him and now I am behind him. He will feel my nails though. Those are lodged in the soft flesh above his shoulder socket. A wrong move by him and I'll sever the tendon. He doesn't look like he knows biology but I think he understands that more or less. My other arm is gripped around his neck. He gurgles in alarm.

"I'm not a bitch," I say again, slowly so he can understand. "I'm a Luna." In a way it's true. Here in Loop City, I am my own Alpha and Luna.

Then I look around and I see the wide staring eyes of the boy who reminded me of Didi is staring at me. His face is like a pale moon in the darkness. His expression is full of confusion and sorrow. I look at the panting, snivelling, crying, pants-wetting man-pup I hold pinned to me. His shoulder bleeds where my iron nails have pierced his skin.

The smell of blood makes Fer a little dizzy with want. I have to call her a few times before she listens. Finally she answers and we pull our claws from Alpha-boy's shoulder. He stumbles forward.

"Run," I hiss.

He turns as if to say something and I see the warring emotions cross his face. He is afraid-- I see the dilated pupills, smell the sour stink of his sweat--but he is also humiliated and looking for another shot.

So I whip out my ace card. I smile at him and know that it is a smile that glints like danger in the moonlight. I feel the iron pulling away from my gums, covering my teeth, lengthening and sharpening them. The metal tastes like blood and I almost lose control of Fer then.

Luckily for him, Alpha-boy turns and flees. The youngest hesitates.

"Th- th- thank you," he says.

I'm not sure what he's thanking me for. For sparing his older brother, or whatever he is? For stopping them from worse deeds that night? I will never understand humans.

"You need to find better friends," I tell him.

After the boys have left, the silence of the park closes in around me again. Loop City. From here I can see the highway that runs around the city in the long Loop that gives it its name. Orange sodium-vapor lights dot the dark road in sporadic intervals. Cars whoosh past. On the other side of the Loop is the Barren and beyond that, the parts unknown.

I sigh. Everywhere is home to someone. And mine is somewhere out in the darkness past the Barren in those parts unknown.

I trudge across the park, trying not to think of the things I have spent four years forcing myself to not think about. It's a constant battle.

The scent is so much part of my memories that at first I don't recognize it as not a memory. It's here. A scent that doesn't belong in Loop City. It's a Wildlands-scent. Sap dripping from cut pine trees. Fresh, damp earth oozing with blindly squirming earthworms. Warrens filled with the musty odor of a litter. The thousands of scent markers left by deer, wild boar, bear that fill up the forests of the Wildlands.

That sort of scent. It's a confusing, over-full scent. Which is why it is used by the pack's hunters to mask their scent.

A hunter is here.