Fated to the Huntress

Chapter 2 : Rogues

The night air had felt good when Vera had been running to her lookout point, but after being there for a couple hours she couldn't ignore her own shivering.

Xander wasn't helping.

"You know, I could be keeping you warm right now." Xander moved closer, but Vera moved further just as he did in an obvious rejection. He pouted his lips, but Vera ignored him, wanting to keep her senses sharp for the passing rogues.

The night was silent, and wolves steps were loud when they were running. Most rogues that passed through this area had no idea that there was a Hunters Lodge nearby, so they didn’t bother trying to hide themselves.

“There haven’t been many rogues coming through lately…” Vera muttered. A few years ago, there would be multiple sightings a week, and sometimes she had been sent to chase them off if it seemed they would be staying for a while.

“Probably word got out that this area is dangerous for them. I wouldn’t be surprised, I jumped from the lower ranks to the top quickly back then. It’s a shame Markus made us stop actively hunting them.” Xander sneered.

Vera only frowned. It was true back then, Markus had allowed them to attack rogues on sight. As some towns found themselves plagued by vampires, werewolves, and witches, hunters' demand grew to go wipe out the threats. The points system was created to determine who could go on what jobs, some being considered too dangerous for just anyone to take.

Eventually, new information came out that some supernaturals had no interest in hurting the general human population. Vampires had their familiars to feed from, witches mostly kept to themselves, and the only werewolves that were causing problems turned out to be rogues.

That’s when everything had changed and lodges became more selective about the jobs they would take, essentially only going after ferals and rogues that were causing issues, or if any packs, harems, or covens were being suspicious. There were still plenty of jobs to go around though.

Markus had been one of the first Lodge Masters to set restrictions on his members, and one of the harshest if the rules were not obeyed. For a while, Vera had thought Xander would be kicked out due to his obvious disregard for those rules. He belonged to the small group of Hunters that wanted to wipe out all the supernaturals, whether they were currently causing problems or not.

“Hear that?” Suddenly, Xander pulled her from her thoughts as sounds of yelling could barely be heard over the wind. Once she concentrated on the direction, she could faintly hear the easily distinguished barks of large wolves. “Looks like we’re on, let’s make a bet on who gets the most trophies tonight.” Xander grinned.

Vera didn’t say anything as she swiftly stood and they took off running. She could tell that Xander was trying to outrun her, but she easily kept pace with him while also keeping her heartbeat under control. She might have been called out to a thousand of these, but supernaturals would always be naturally stronger than her, and these encounters were beyond dangerous.

It must have taken close to ten minutes of the sounds growing steadily louder before the two reached the edge of a small village. Vera spotted three large wolves immediately. They all had dirty brown coats and glowing yellow eyes that shone brilliantly in the darkness.

Vera was glad to see a handful of men were able to keep the wolves in a circle using torches and farming tools. Most of the huts seemed to have been pre-boarded as well, suggesting the women and children had already taken shelter. The one good thing about almost everyone knowing about supernaturals was they knew how to be prepared.

Xander and Vera quickly went to one of the men to ask if there were any injured and if they needed help with the wolves. The creatures were growling and swiping at anyone who came too close, but none of the men seemed to know what to do beyond that.

Xander and Vera quickly pulled out their silver swords and gave strict instructions to the men not to let the wolves out of the circle, which the men readily agreed to. They may have been prepared to protect their homes, but these wolves towered above them, and their teeth were longer and sharper than some of the primitive tools the men were using as weapons.

“I’ll leave the small one to you first and help you once I’m done with the big trophies.” Xander smirked, making Vera roll her eyes. She’d taken down three by herself before without a problem, but she didn’t feel like arguing. She immediately locked eyes with the smallest wolf and stalked forward into the circle. At first, the wolf beside hers tried to take her on, but Xander quickly pulled its attention to him with a fierce war-cry and almost suicidal lunge at it.

Vera ducked past him as the two forms collided, and the sound of biting teeth and Xanders’ furious grunts filled the air. The little brown wolf locked eyes with her furiously as it backed away, before jumping back towards her when a villager stabbed at its hindquarters when it got too close. Realizing it had no where to run, it lowered itself almost to the ground and started moving sideways while keeping Vera in it’s sights.

She knew it was looking for any weakness in her, but it didn’t look particularly strong at all, so she decided she didn’t feel like playing. With a quick lunge and a dicey dodge past a swinging paw, she had wrapped her arm around its neck and landed squarely on its back. The wolf hadn’t been expecting that and tried to twist its head around to snap at her legs.

Before it could reach her left side, Vera had already brought her sword around it’s right and sliced along the neck in a single motion. For a moment the wolf didn’t respond and kept trying to reach her, but, in the next, it seemed to feel the blood loss and collapsed in a loud puff. Vera jumped off it’s back and circled back to its front to make sure it was already dead. It may be a rogue, but she wouldn’t let its death be drawn out.

Once she was satisfied that the last light had left the yellow eyes, she turned to Xander and his wolves, finding him still locked in battle. The one on the right was limping and had blood coming out of it’s side, but still looked very strong.

For a moment, Vera wanted to help, but after remembering Xander's cocky attitude, decided it would be better just to watch the show. It would be all the sweeter if he ended up actually needing her help, and she hoped it would get to that point.

She decided to use this time to scan the outside of the circle. The man they had talked to said there were only the three wolves, but sometimes there would be others that would hang back and attack at the last minute and she worried that this might be the case.

Her fears seemed to be realized when she looked toward a gap between two of the huts and saw large, glowing eyes. They seemed the right size for a wolf, maybe a bit larger, but she noted that they were a dazzling silver, instead of rogue yellow. When she first looked that way there were two pairs of eyes, but she locked onto the larger set, and something in them wouldn’t let her go.

Suddenly, her legs felt wobbly, and she couldn’t seem to get enough air. She wanted desperately to move towards the eyes, but at the same time she was afraid of them. She had never felt so captivated by anything as her brain lost all sense of where she was, or what she was supposed to be doing; everything around her faded away as the more she looked, the more the shape of a large wolf materialized out of the shadows, connected to the eyes.

This wolf was much larger than any she had ever seen, almost reaching the top of the hut it stood next to. It took a step toward her without blinking, and she answered with a step of her own, her sword forgotten as it aimed uselessly at the dirt. Some part of her knew this wolf was dangerous. She doubted even Markus would stand a chance against it, but she wanted to get closer. She wanted to run her fingers through it’s long, black fur.

Just as she thought this and was about to breach the circle of men (the ones in front of her not sure what to do when she had been walking towards her) she was almost knocked off her feet by a body slamming into her. As she recovered she thought she heard a growl coming from outside the circle, but now her trance had been broken she realized that the body that had been launched into her was a brown wolf that was already trying to get its maw around her throat.

Her right arm quickly came up with her blade and she was able to get it arms length away. She grunted in frustration, not only that she had let her guard down for even a moment, but that she had been interrupted, which confused her. The next lunge from the wolf brought its chest directly onto her blade with a sickening squelch and Vera twisted the silver further into the body to quicken the passing.

The whole thing had taken less than twenty seconds, but when Vera looked back at the shadows Silver Eyes was nowhere to be seen. Letting out a groan of frustration, she turned again, only to be met by a furious Xander.

“I told you I had it. Why did you take my kill? That one still counts as mine, I had already almost finished it off if you hadn’t interfered.” Xander growled before he tried to touch the wolf at Vera’s feet, but she was quick to slap his hand away.

“Then you shouldn’t have thrown it at me. Next time if you need help, just ask, but don’t try to steal my trophy because you took on more than you could handle.” She sneered as she bent and yanked out a fang from her wolf and stomped over the small brown one from before.

Xander kept fuming behind her as he collected his one fang, and refused to speak as she let the villagers know how to dispose of the bodies. She could tell he would continue this once they were back at the lodge, but she just wanted to get away from him and all the villagers. Her head felt fuzzy, and every time she blinked a pair of silver eyes flashed across her vision.

As they left the village Vera kept looking around, hoping to catch another glimpse, but saw nothing. She couldn’t understand why that made her chest tighten and heart hurt.