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In the movies, the change is traumatic and terrifying. It’s a devastating ordeal that rips the body apart as the beast breaks free of its bonds to unleash its terrible, unquenchable hunger upon the world. Then again, everyone knows the movies are full of shit.
In truth, for those that ran with the moon, the change was as natural as a bird taking to the wing. It had been many centuries since the goddess of the hunt had held her sway, but the turn came as easily as if she had been watching over them from up on high in those days of old.
The beast exploded out of him, tearing through skin and cloth alike in a rush of coarse black fur. His bones twisted and lengthened, muscles swelling with a storm of ageless bestial power. Then the wolf stood tall, its huge lupin head thrown back with the last haunting notes of homage, announcing its return to the heavens and all the inhabitants of Lupus Latr.
He didn’t care. He wanted them to know. He wanted all of them to know, even her.
To the flanks, Bill and Jake straightened up, their bodies tense and cautious. They had the advantage of numbers, but Danny was older and had the blood of the once unbroken line of Alpha running through his veins. Their Alpha’s. Only the worst kind of mongrel mutt would ever consider such a foe easy prey.
Danny sensed their agitation, and his wolf gloried in it. Let them fear him for they should all fear him. His time had come, it was time to reclaim his birthright and to take what had been stolen from him and his family. His home. His pack.
With a low groan, he bared his knife-like canines and slowly swept his gaze from one to the other, their eyes locking in challenge.
Who dies first?
They answered together, dropping down onto all fours and exploding into a run charging directly for him. Danny glanced from one to the other. Paul was the closer, but even by werewolf standards, he was huge. A great golden monster, all raw power and muscle. Yet he was not built for speed as he was already starting to lag behind while the smaller Jake was closing the gap.
Two foes. One chance.
Letting his instincts guide him, Danny pivoted to confront the smaller werewolf first, bracing himself to take the hit head-on. It would take all his bestial strength for a werewolf mid-charge could strike with enough force to floor an African bull elephant.
Yet just as the beast was bearing down on him, close enough to smell its rancid breath in the air, it veered away. Danny knew, even before he’d pivoted to glimpse the incoming blur of golden fur, that he’d been humbugged.
How could he have forgotten? Wolves were team hunters, after all, trained from pups to hunt and work together. One would lure the prey out, distract them with a faint, while the other would move into position and then pounce. It was the oldest trick in the book.
And the most predictable.
He twisted away from the oncoming rush of tawny gold fur and then spun to wrap his forepaws around its ribs and midriff. With one hard kick off from the ground, he tackled the other beast and sent them both tumbling down in a furious storm of snapping jaws and disembowelling claws.
As the larger, Bill hit the ground first. Landing with him, Danny didn’t waste a moment. He used all his bestial weight to pin the bigger beast on his back and laid into him with a fierce barrage of punches, holding nothing back. He needed to even the odds quickly. Alpha blood or no, Wolves were pack animals. A lone wolf couldn’t hope to stand against the pack, even if it was only a duo.
However, Bill was no pushover. He twisted wildly, desperately trying to buck his opponent off while his hind paws racked his thighs, tearing the already tattered remnants of his jeans to bloodied confetti strips. It was all Danny could do not to get thrown. Needing to steady himself, he dodged the snapping Wolfen jaws and grabbed the other werewolf’s head just beneath its pointed ears. With a sharp tug, he dragged it up then smashed it back down onto the hard earth, and repeated it again, like a monkey opening a nut, until-
Agony seared up Danny’s leg as powerful jaws chomped down on his ankle with bone crushing force, dragged him back and with a single twist, hurled him around into the solid trunk of a tree. He hit the bark with a loud crack, the force of it knocking the wind right out of him, and it was only through sheer willpower and adrenaline that he was able to get back up again.
Bill was back on his feet too. Stood up straight, he appeared to be shaky and wobbling a little on his hind legs, but his eyes had lost none of their fire. He wasn’t down and out just yet.
Jake, meanwhile, was only just getting started.
This time his attack was no feint. He came in an explosion of hatred, barrelling into Danny like a bull at the charge and tackling him back into the tree trunk. It drove all the air from his lungs, but his beast was beyond such things and countered by driving his knee up into the other werewolf’s balls. Jake expected it though and twisted to take it on the thigh, but the pivot opened up some much-needed space between them. Danny went straight for his opponent's head, using first a right then a left to drive him back before bringing them both together and down in a hammer blow across the beast’s shoulder blades.
A human would have been laid out cold by that, but the other werewolf only grunted and quick as a viper, clamped its jaws down on his wrist. Rows of teeth sharper than steak knives sliced through muscle and flesh. In all the Animal Kingdom, there was no bite that could compare to a werewolf. Capable of biting through bone, timber, and even steel like butter, it made the great white shark look like a suckling lamb and even in his beast form, the pain was excruciating.
Danny howled a furious roar and twisted right and left, trying to pull away, the bite searing up his forearm like silver nitrate in his blood. Jake moved with him however, refusing to let go even as they both smashed into the tree, shaking his head and turning the meat of his arm to mangled mince. Then something enormous slammed into them from behind and arms coiled around him, half restraining, half tearing at him with murderous razors, drawing lines of fire across his torso and flanks.
Bill!
He twisted and struggled, trying to escape, to buck one werewolf off or throw the other against the tree, but every time one of them started to give, the other would press him back. So they surged back and forth, locked in a tight knot, until even his beast started to succumb. His limbs felt heavy, like lead weights trapped at his sides, and his head felt suddenly light, his vision swimming in and out of focus.
Then a stray gust of cool air blew across his face, and he smelt it. That scent. The scent that had haunted his dreams. Her scent!
Erza.
She was out there, watching them, watching him fight for his life. Watching him, his family, the last remaining wolf of the unbroken line of alphas in Europe die.
No! Just the idea of it set a new fire raging in his heart, flooding him with bestial rage. He was the son of an alpha, the last of an unbroken line of alphas, not some cow to be led to the slaughter. How dare she! He’d show her.
No, he’d show all of them.
