The lean anthro wolf stalked his way through the forest with practiced ease. Despite all his change, he was still at his core a skilled hunter.
How he hated to leave the others vulnerable. That look in Laura's sweet green eyes, the pleading. He felt a pang of guilt for doing this, but pushed on. He had to know.
The late evening grew darker and in the wolf's finely tuned night sight he was in his element. The moon came up, bathing the sleeping forest in an eerie glow, and besides the chirp of crickets and insects, an equally eerie silence.
Finally, after nearly two hours of careful movement, the wolf hunched down and stared through the underbrush into a small clearing.
It was a log cabin... man made. Artificial. They had slaughtered part of his home to make it. The stench of burning smoke wafted to his nose as he saw the flickering orange glow of fire through a glass window.
He paused, checked his surroundings, checked the clearing, and found no movement. With careful steps, he crouched and moved in closer. At the perimeter of the clearing, the wolf heard a sudden rush of movement to his side. His head snapped towards the noise.
"Wolf!" A female voice called quietly. "You must turn back!"
"And you are?" Casey replied, moving in closer still.
"A friend." The voice said simply.
"Are these people allies?" He asked, trying to locate the voice, which seemed to be moving closer and farther in an extremely unsettling way.
"No." The voice trilled. "Been here a while. They have guns. They skin us."
A growl emitted from Casey's throat. "Poachers. Or worse."
There was a soft trilling from above the wolf, followed by a chirping reply back in the distance. Casey paused, confused. "Your friends, wolf!" The voice chimed in again. "Your friends are in danger!"
"Yes..." The wolf whispered. "So I have to do something about it..."
"No!" The voice said with sudden urgency. "No, you misunderstand! Go back to them! Now!"
Realization hit, and Casey bolted upright. There was no need to explain, no need to question. In a flash, he had turned around and sprinted through the trees. Laura had been right. He had left them open to attack. He had left them! How foolish. How stupid.
His legs pumped as hard as they could and the predator raced back to the others. Halfway... he kept running, panting furiously. The image of Laura's frightened eyes in the back of his mind. Her haunting, piercing, fearful eyes.
As he neared the last stretch of trees by the river, a dark shape jumped out from the trees and knocked him off kilter.
He whirled around, planted his face into the dirt, and yelped as he felt something pull sharply in his leg as it bent back at an odd angle.
Lying on his back, he was staring at a female wolf standing over top of him with a snarling grin. "Well, well." She said slowly. "Look what we have here. No doubt the fearsome wolf the deer had warned us about."
"The deer?" Casey yelled. "No! No! I can explain, friend!"
"No!" The wolf stomped Casey's chest with a powerful foot. "No talk. You're weak, runt. You have no place in my pack. And you walk with our enemies."
"Please!" Casey cried out. "Let me go! Leave my friends alone! I have to..."
Now other shapes emerged from the darkness, more wolves. All of them large, muscular... sinister. The female, he realized, was larger and stronger than all of them. Eight in all.
"As you can see, I have no need of the likes of you." The female growled. "But I will spare your life. In exchange for what we have taken. You hardly deserve the mercy... pup." The other wolves circling the female laughed.
Breathing hard, his ears flat against his head, Casey watched in frozen horror as the other animals departed in the bush, gone in a heartbeat.
"Casey!" A voice screamed. "Casey, come quickly!" It was John.
Rising, the wolf yelped again as he stood on a sprained ankle, his sudden stop having hurt him badly at such a run. He couldn't follow them even if he wanted to.
Out of the trees ran the male fox, a large cut on his muzzle, bleeding.
"They've taken... taken the girls!" He panted, in tears. "They've taken my Sandy! They're gone!" John burst into a painful wail of dismay.
At such a display, Casey could only offer small comfort. "Here, now. Here. We'll get them back." The wolf staggered and braced himself on the fox. "We'll get them back, I promise."
In a moment of horror, both animals simply collapsed to the ground, the wolf nursing his sprained ankle, the fox sitting horrified staring into nothing. "They just took her." John repeated, sobbing. "My one, my only. My mate."
There was a strange gust of wind and Casey turned around just in time to see something small and feathered landing nearby. A bird!
"You!" Casey pointed, growling. "You could have helped them!"
"Me?" The bird woman drew nearer, barely two feet tall. "What could I do?"
John snarled, turning to look at the tiny bird woman. "Peck out their eyes or something!"
"Did you *see* them?" The bird squawked, waving her arm wings emphatically. "They would have killed me!" Her voice seemed offended. "I... I warned you! Other of my kind told me, I told you. You don't talk bird speak, can't understand. Do not be mad at me!"
Casey sighed, put his hand over his eyes. He let his anger simmer out. "I'm sorry. Here, now, here. We could use your help."
"I will help as I can." The bird woman drew closer, in the darkness it was plain to see she was a blue jay. Beautiful, lean, so very delicate and tiny, walking on slim avian legs terminating in clawed talons.
"Who were they? Where did they come from?" Casey looked down on the tiny creature.
"They came yesterday." The jay trilled. "Big wolves, another part of the forest. All drank the water. Changed like we did." She paused and gulped. "The alpha female, she killed the leader. Took the pack. I've been following them, they have made no good of themselves." She paused. "My friend said he heard from another that the wolves came and attacked your friends shelter. So I tell you, I help, yes?"
John gulped. "They were on us like that." He snapped his fingers. "I tried to fight, but I'm just a little fox."
Casey gulped too, staring at the big gash on John's muzzle. He was lucky to be breathing, then.
"Where did they take the girls?" John demanded.
"Didn't see!" The jay shrugged sadly. "Was following this wolf!"
"Listen, thank you. And thank you to your people." Casey whimpered, lifting his leg in his hand and finding his ankle swollen and useless. John saw it now and cringed.
"Oh... Casey." John sniffed on some new tears. "I'm so sorry."
"I can bring something to help you!" The bird nodded. "Stay here! I'll return. Have my kind try and find bad wolves for wolf and fox, yes?"
"Well, I'm not going anywhere for a while." Casey offered a weak smile. "Hurry back, okay?"
"Of course!" The jay bowed. "I will help the nice wolf and fox, for certain. My kind watch you for a long time, we help!"
With that, the tiny bird woman flapped her wings, ran off, and raised into the air with no effort, quickly soaring above the treeline.
"You do realize you just put our lives into the hands of some birdbrain?" John sighed.
"She's a friend." Casey turned with a sharp glare to the fox. Nothing more was said for a moment.
"Will they kill the girls?" John fought back new tears, his voice wavering.
"Not if I get to them first." Casey growled.
They sat in silence, taking stock of themselves, and waited for the bird's return.