The wind carried a new scent, waking Darian from a deep sleep. It was a delicious, sweet smell. It was strange because it didn’t just appeal to his wolf, he found the scent alluring in his human form as well.

Darian walked to the open window and looked out, trying to locate the source of the scent that called to him.

It’s coming from Aldrich Town? Nothing good ever comes out of that place. Hunters looking to kill my pack. The stench of desperation all over them.

I won’t stand by and let another one of them try and weed out my pack. Aldrich’s men won’t take another.

Darian, the alpha of his pack usually kept good control of his temper and the wolf spirit that shared his shifter body. This time he didn’t want to stay in control, he wanted to teach the hunters a lesson. He let the wolf spirit surge forward feeding on Darian’s anger.

His body began to shift from Darian’s human form to that of his wolf. His muscles stretched and grew. The pants stretched and ripped around his legs as they too grew and shifted. Bones cracking and extending his human body changed into that of an oversized white wolf.

The wolf spirit, his wolf, was ready for the kill. He was ready to defend the pack and their home. Darian leapt out the second story window, landing in a run.

Limbs stretching, he charged down the mountainside and into the forest below. Animals raced to get clear of his path. He was all predator. Darian pulled his humanity back allowing his wolf, the alpha of the Rizer pack, to take the lead.

He knew he could trust his wolf’s instincts. If it was another hunter, he would die like all the others. No one would hurt his pack, not without going through him first.

The sun wasn’t up yet, but that didn’t matter. Darian could see well in the dark. He knew these woods so well he could traverse them with his eyes shut.

At full speed, he crossed the sixty acres of overgrown forest in just under ten minutes. Darian slowed as he reached the edge of the forest that opened into the clearing that led to the filthy water surrounding Aldrich’s Town.

His wolf found the movement right away.

The hair on the back of his neck and all down his spine raised up as a feral growl vibrated through his entire frame and into the earth under his feet. Darian left the shelter of the trees. He moved along the boulders and rocks staying low to the ground. The hunter was breathing hard, coughing.

Disgust turned his stomach. The hunter bathed in the infested sewage.

Is everyone who comes out of Aldrich Town so detestable?

He knew that he’d taste what the hunter had been swimming in when he killed him. It made Darian hate the hunter all the more.

The path he was taking put him on higher ground than the hunter. Every step he took was silent. Darian was intent on getting right over head of the hunter.

The murderer won’t even see me coming.

There was blood in the air. He’d already made a kill and from the smell of the blood, it was one of his own kind. A human. Darian wasn’t surprised. He was one of Aldrich’s people, why wouldn’t they be every bit as blood thirsty as their leader?

He leapt onto the white rock that leaned in toward the water. The hunter had his back to Darian. He was small. In fact, he was very small. A teen boy, most likely. At first Darian thought the boy was drowning the man in his arms the way he kept dropping him in the water. As the boy struggled, grunting, and praying, Darian realized the boy was trying to pull the dead man from the water.

He must have to show Aldrich proof of his kill.

Darian wasn’t going to like having to kill a human boy who was still so young. Even his wolf pulled back to watch the boy instead of striking while he was otherwise distracted. Taking a life was no small matter.

Why does it have to be a young boy?

“Thank you,” the boy said to the dead man as he finally managed to get his top half out of the water. He was younger than Darian first believed. His voice had not even begun to develop into manhood. His clothes and most of his face was caked in mud and filth from the mote.

Darian grabbed onto the new wave of derision the boy provided.

Is thanking your victim for giving his life supposed to make it okay that you took it in the first place?

Aldrich’s signature bite mark on his victim was present on the corpse. This boy was clearly Aldrich’s protégé.

Crouching, Darian readied himself to launch. Killing the protégé of Aldrich would hit closer to the heart of Aldrich than Darian and his pack had ever had the chance to strike before.

The boy bent down closing the dead man’s eyes. Darian could smell the salty tears leaking from the boy’s eyes, and mixing in the grime smeared over his heart-shaped face. Darian continued to watch the boy, too confused as to what to make of the young killer.

His hair is misshapen.

The blond strands were hanging in a diagonal slant from the back of his right ear to the top of his left shoulder. His heart beat frantically in his chest, as though he was afraid the dead man might wake and take revenge. The boy returned to the thin ledge and dragged the legs of the dead man out of the water. He kept looking back up toward the wall. No one was watching the boy who was clearly guilty.

This boy deserves to die. Darian repeated to himself trying to get his wolf to sit right with it, to get himself to accept what must be done.

His wolf pushed, ready to leap. Darian exhaled, beginning to draw back. He didn’t want to remember killing a boy this young, even if he was a murderer.

The boy wept heavily as he removed the shoes from the dead man and put them on his own tiny feet. Darian cursed himself an idiot for waiting when he saw the boy pull a silver blade from the belt of the man who was dead.

Shit. I should have taken him before he robbed his victim of his blade. Now I will have to be more careful.

The people inside were rustling about. It was early for them to be up and running around. Something was stirring inside the walled off town. Darian could see from the way the boy tensed that he heard it too.

The wet and shivering bag of bones ducked his head and began to climb the rocky incline. He never once checked his surroundings.

He doesn’t even walk right. What is he wearing?

The boy’s hurried steps made him clumsy. His clothes clung to him strangely, was he wearing a cape or night shirt? He ran away from Aldrich’s Town. Darian could smell the boy’s fresh blood as he crashed into a jagged edge on a rock.

He’s pathetic. The boy won’t last in the forest for more than a few hours. If the forest doesn’t take him, then I will