When the bearin reared up on his hind legs and snarled, I lowered into an attack stance and let out a deep growl. I could see blood stains on his mouth where he’d already dug into our earlier kills but clearly he wasn’t satiated. I needed to let him know that if he messed with me, it meant he would be injured. Then maybe I could get him to run off.
He charged then, and instead of thinking up some cool plan, I was thrown into the fight of my life running on instinct.
He was larger and slower. When he lunged for me, I leapt up into the air, planning to come down on top of him.
He was smarter than that unfortunately. Reaching up with his giant paw, he batted me out of the sky like a ball.
My ribs snapped on impact with his paw and then I went flying. I braced myself for the hit and when my body crashed into the hard ground I wailed in pain. My already broken ribs flared to life with agony upon impact. A fresh wave of anguish took my breath away but I got up quickly. I expected the beast to come for me again but to my horror, he was going for bloody and unconscious Eliza.
I might be able to use this to my benefit. Sprinting from where I had fallen, I took off after the animal before he could get to Eliza, who was just lying there, limp and helpless. I leapt on the bearin’s back, tearing into the side of his neck. The second I got a good bite in, he stood erect, shaking me off. I fell, landing on those cracked ribs again and nearly passed out from the searing hot wave of agony. I had to remind myself that pain was temporary and to just push past it. Nothing mattered more than staying alive right now. The bearin had realized that I was the biggest threat in the area and officially charged me head-on. This little bastard had pissed me off and I went absolutely berserk on him. I always knew I would die in battle. Or hoped I would. It was the ultimate honor. And dying while tearing into this pain in my ass, protecting a new friend and packmate, was a fine way to go for me.
I snapped at him like a rabid animal, tearing into flesh and ripping away hunks of his fur as his jaws came around my leg and chomped.
A howl of misery ripped from my throat but I didn’t let up, making sure that this coward would be scarred for life before I died. When I clamped down on his back leg and heard the rewarding crunch of bone, he released me all at once and stumbled backwards with a limp.
I held my injured back leg up in the air so as not to put any pressure on it and stared him down. He was doing the same, favoring his other paws while curling the one I’d maimed up to his belly.
We were in an epic stare-down.
I can do this all day. I will fight you to the death, you piece of crap, and take your eyeball on my way to Hades.
On instinct I snarled and lunged for him, hopping on my good back leg and he turned and ran off.
Relief rushed through me as I watched him go, but I held firm, staying standing as I watched him become a small dot on the horizon. The sun was up now and we needed to get out of here before more predators came.
A moan came from behind me and I hopped over to Eliza. She was conscious but when I placed my muzzle against hers, I felt the fever through her fur.
Infection.
The bleeding had stopped thanks to her healing abilities but she needed food and rest to fight the infection.
I knew what I had to do.
Forcing a shift with broken bones was liable to give you a permanent injury. You should always wait until the bones had set but I didn’t have time for that. Eliza would die without getting back to Death Mountain and so would I. It was the worst pain in my life.
I wished I’d had the energy to kill the bearin because it would have given us sustenance but I was grateful to have scared it off. Whimpering and howling through the searing pain of my shift, I finally stood on one leg, naked as the day I was born. I was too terrified to put pressure on my other foot just yet. I’d long forgotten about our clothing back at the site of the fight and was going to have to get over the fact that I was gonna walk over twelve hours back into Death Mountain nude. Nudity wasn’t a big deal among our people, a breast here, a flash of backside there. We all shifted back and forth between our forms regularly but to walk into a crowd of clothed humans while fully naked …
I shook my head, not caring about something so trivial. Reaching down to hook the water bulb vines around my neck, I hopped over to Eliza and hefted her over my shoulders like I would a kill, still not putting pressure on my broken foot.
‘No,’ she said weakly into my mind. ‘Leave me and save yourself.’
‘Not a chance in Hades,’ I told her and winced at the discomfort her weight put on my healing broken ribs.
She didn’t argue, I believed she was too weak and now that she was draped over my shoulders like a furry scarf, I could feel that she was burning up. Way too hot.
I had yet to take the first step. I was scared of what it would feel like to carry my own weight, plus Eliza’s, on a broken ankle that wasn’t fully set but I knew I had to move or die.
I took one step and then stumbled forward with a cry. It was so much worse than I thought; hot pain like fire licked up my ankle and caused sweat to bead my brow.
‘Pain is temporary. Work around it.’ Cyrus’ voice came to me then. It was as if he could feel my distress all the way from his place on Death Mountain and was trying to counsel me.
I looked around frantically and nearly wept with relief when I saw a long sturdy branch that I could use as a walking stick. Hoping over to it, while keeping Eliza on my shoulders, took talent but when I got there, I bent down to pick it up. It was thick, not completely straight but straight enough. Ripping the extra branches from it, I fisted the tip of it and stuck the blunt end into the ground, walking forward cautiously.
It still hurt, but it took enough weight off my ankle that the pain was bearable. Though I had to keep Eliza balanced on my shoulders with just one hand, I was managing. The flat landscape was forgiving. I was thankful I didn’t have to jump over any fallen logs or giant rocks but after the second hour I started to go slightly insane.
Eliza was hot and heavy, my ribs seemed to be healing but now my stomach was eating itself inside out, begging for food. As a shifter I burned more calories than a human on a normal day, but an injured shifter could eat enough food for twenty humans.
My foot was a constant throb and sometimes a sharp stab if I moved too quickly.
By the fourth hour I wanted to die. Eliza had passed out again, her head flopping against my neck. I reached a few dark minutes where I considered leaving her. It would be much easier to walk without the giant wolf around my shoulders.
Pain is temporary, I told myself.
Except when it’s not. When it’s going on for several hours of pain and hunger, it felt very permanent.
I started to sing then. Lightly, so I wouldn’t waste energy but I had to do something or I would go completely mad.
“When the little baby wolf went over the ridge, over the ridge …” I smiled as I was reminded of my baby brother Oslo and the songs I would sing him to sleep with, “… he found his mama wolf in the meadow.” I finished and was shocked when a tear slipped down my cheek and into Eliza’s fur.
I had officially cracked.
I never cried. Tears were for weak submissives who needed protection. Not me. Not Zara Swiftwater, daughter of an alpha.
Reaching up, I smacked myself across the cheek and shook my head.