had set up for me but I never used. I slipped inside, shifted, and slipped on some clothes. I came out of the tent and stretched my back. I never fully felt comfortable in my skin, like my wolf was too large for my skin. We could burst at any moment. I rolled my shoulder and looked at the others who openly stared at me like I grew a second head. I didn’t blame them.
“Hunter?” Jude stood up, his eyes darting around the forest. They would have noticed something. I knew they would, but he still looked around.
“It’s nothing.” My voice still felt gruff from my shift. I moved forward and sat down with the others around the fire. I could still smell it, the lingering scent of sunflowers. They clogged my nose and smothered all my other senses.
I shifted incessantly. Billy stopped speaking so much, while Jameson shifted in his seat more than once. Jude was the only one that kept giving me his hard stare. I knew I was making them uncomfortable with my abnormal twitching, but I couldn’t seem to sit still. The scent was still there, but now there was something else. The overwhelming need to move was tugging at me. My muscles burned with the need to stand.
I jerked forward with an unusual movement and stood. I started to pace. I had to keep moving. I had to do something. I didn’t know what it was, and it was driving me to insanity. I didn’t realize I was growling until Jude cleared his throat. My eyes shifted to him and narrowed. I knew my lips parted across my clenched teeth.
“What’s wrong?” Jude stood. He might be the Alpha’s brother, but he didn’t really show any signs of being higher than a Beta. Still, to me, Jude was always too calm. Maybe that was why we mixed so well together on the team. I was volatile; my thoughts were more instincts. He was more human; he thought things through; he planned and watched. Now I saw as he came to a conclusion about me.
“Nothing.” Something. I just didn’t know what. I felt my wolf pulsing and shaking with the need to move. He had a direction he needed to go, something calling him, but I remained steady. I couldn’t move from the spot where I stood. My wolf wanted something--no, needed it--and I was suddenly terrified of what it could possibly be.
I knew its demands usually better than anything else. It would want food, to run, to hunt. The thought had my wolf perking up its ears. I could feel the strain again in my muscles. Hunt. But not for the need to hunt that I always had. No, this was something different. Something entirely new and terrifying.
“Hunter,” Jude’s voice took on that calming tone he used with me. I knew without a doubt my eyes were glowing with my wolf pushing further and further to the surface. He would take over soon. He would make me shift and move out. There was only one way to pacify him for now.
Tomorrow, we would hunt.
Chapter 2 – Hunting
The morning didn’t come soon enough. I didn’t sleep. Like my body would allow me to; like my wolf would allow me to. I had promised him a hunt, but it didn’t satisfy him for long. Only about two hours later was I back to pacing and a constant growl rumbled from my chest. Billy and Jameson took off to hunt on their own while Jude stayed with me. He tried to calm me the best he could, but nothing would calm the beast. As soon as the sun started to split the sky, I was packed, agitated and ready to hunt.
The others didn’t take their time tearing down once they saw I was already awake and leaning against my bike. I thought for sure that once we got on the move my wolf would settle. I had time to think about it through the night, and I was sure that it had to have been just that we were closing in on the warlock. I never got this riled up unless I was close to my prey. We had been hunting this bastard for far too long, and while I didn’t normally long for home, I was starting to long for something.
Only if I thought too hard about it and let my wolf guide me as it had been trying to all night, I knew it would be taking