Moonlit Hunt

Alpha Female

By Whitney Carter

March, 2006

The moon had almost reached it’s zenith in the sky. The night was alive with animals, large and small. The human world was still, in the village at the base of the mountain, and in the cottages and cabins that stretched into the woodland, up that mighty mountain. There was a slight chill to the air, a herald of winter. Frost covered most things that did not move and had not been disturbed.

In a clearing hidden well from the human world, an elk cried out at fate as he was circled by a pack of wolves. He stood his ground firmly, valiantly, but the alpha wolf was too cunning, and led her pack too efficiently for one mere elk to deny her. Before the prey breathed its last breath and as its blood stained the ground and the mouths of the hungry, fierce wolves sank large canines into its flesh, a single howl pierced the air, unsettling every animal for miles, declaring to the world at large, to those who would listen, that her pack had hunted successfully that night.

For a long moment, the alpha female stood back and watched her pack eat, watched the elk die, the blood flow and scent the air. She watched, but did not join in for an almost human inhibition that left the alpha female with an empty stomach.

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The sun was sliding over the horizon, painting the sky bright shades of pink, orange, purple and red. The wind blew gently through the trees, rustling the leaves. They were still green, but Deianirra could tell by the sound that they were brittle and about to turn in color to welcome autumn. She sat on the back porch of her home, listening to the animals in the woods all around her. It was peaceful now, quiet as some of the animals set in for the night and others were just waking. It was the in-between moment when there was so little to hear, to smell, to feel. Soon, the forest would be alive again, though.

Gently she pushed the swing so that the breeze brushed across her face. The slight tinge of cold was enough to keep her face numb, to prevent the tears she felt behind her eyelids. All day she had been trapped in last night’s dream. It seemed inevitable that she dreamed about him, but she raged at her mind and the innate refusal to let go…

The trap’s teeth were fierce, both sawing through her flesh as she struggled against it and binding in that she could hardly move it. The pain that flowed through her brought tears to her eyes and clouded her mind. The stench of blood, her blood, was beginning to nauseate her.

She was trapped, trapped in every sense of the word. Bound in pain by the hunter’s trap, bound in the unfamiliar wolf’s body. It was torture to feel the pain of unfamiliar limbs, to be both weak and ensnared. Shocked stiff from the realization that she had changed from a young girl into a wolf still chocked her. She was helpless and alone and no one would come for her. No one would care if she died of blood loss or madness here. No one… She howled again.

Then there was the noise of an approach from just out of her view. She stiffened, braced to face the hunter. She’d tear him limb from limb before letting him shoot or skin her, or whatever it was hunters did with their prey.

“You poor creature,” a man breathed. She made herself still; maybe if he thought she was dead she could lash out when he drew closer. Her breathing couldn’t be calmed though, no matter how she tried.

Tense and ready to launch into an attack with unwieldy and unfamiliar teeth and claws, she jerked when he touched the thick fur on her head. He moved into her line of sight and all the fight drained from her. This man could not be the hunter. The anguish revealed in his eyes and the lines drawn in his face were too stark. He spoke soothing words in a quiet voice for long moments while he stroked her head and some down the wolf’s body. She relaxed—a combination of exhaustion and a deep want for him to care. Briefly the thought that he might lure her into a pit of ease and then attack her flitted through her mind, but it was soon gone.

Her eyes jerked open as a sting came from her side. “It’s all right, beauty,” he said, saying beauty in that deep, reassuring voice. “It’s all right,” But as she saw the needle he had just pushed through her skin, it was not all right. She jerked, jumping at him, but the claw at her leg kept her from making contact. He kept on talking to her as she struggled.

Everything began to spin. She didn’t understand. But as her vision went and she lost all sense of the alien body, she hoped that whatever end awaited her, she would not realize it.

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Jerking awake, she felt both pain and relief. The pain radiated from the gash along her leg, and something constricting over it. The relief was that she was again in her own human body.

She was in a room, with wood walls around her, in a large and soft bed. She was also naked. Her mind, young though it was, panicked with that bit of knowledge—what had that man done to her? Frantically she struggled to get out of the bed as her mind worked on how to escape. She was tangled in the sheets, though, and fell head first from the high-up bed to the hard wooden floor in a thump and flying sheets.

“My God,” a voice had whispered.

Her heart pounding, she looked up from the floor, clutching at the tangled mass to cover herself as her gaze met the man’s. Instant anger flooded her, but confusion dawned as he said in an awed voice,

“You’re a shape-shifter.”

That was where the dream ended and she came awake in a cold sweat, her body seized in some harsh grip. That one moment had changed everything for her. “You’re a shape-shifter,” he had said.

A single tear rolled down her cheek as the dream went to memory and she recalled the first few days with Grant Blake. He talked a lot, an attempt to sooth her—he told her he was thirty-three, that he lived in this cabin alone and that she would be safe, he told her about himself and about his family and his job and multitudes of other things. He was always there when she shifted, an uncontrollable and unpredictable thing. He talked to her while her body contorted out of her power and all she felt was pain and confusion. His voice steadied her, gave her something to hold on to.

Trust had been slow on her part, but he understood. He understood with compassion that she still did not understand. One day while he had tended the still-grievous wound on her leg, as he had done since she’d been there, she had started talking, and once she’d started she’d been unable to stop. She was eleven, at least she thought she was, her name was Deianirra, she’d run away from her father when he’d beat her again, she didn’t know her mother, her friend had made her steal from the teacher, she had been in the woods, alone when she’d shifted and then stumbled into the hunter’s trap. Anything and everything, she told him. Grant had sat there with a calm expression and then when her tears had flowed he’d rocked her until she’d fallen asleep.

He had been what she had needed, more than anything. Grant Blake had taken her under his wing, legally adopted her, and most importantly, loved and cherished her.

Now he was gone, though, and nothing in her life could replace him. The pain of being alone, the realization of it, struck her again. Then she wept.

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