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The next morning, I woke when Thann moved me to lie against the fallen log instead.

When he noticed my wakening eyes, he whispered. "Stay Night. Thann go." Then his warm hand caressed down my cheek.

"Okay," I murmured and then folded myself against the tree and closed my eyes again.



When the sun was higher in the morning sky I woke again. The sleeping bag was over me and Thann was whittling a branch to a sharp point, scanning the tree line.

"Morning," I yawned and sat up.

He looked over and smiled, putting his tools down. "Night good?"

"Sleep Thann. Yes. I slept good."

He dug through the packs and brought out a carrot and water. "Eat."

"Thanks." As I munched my breakfast I looked over as Thann resumed his carving. "Molly walk today?"

He surveyed the area rather absentmindedly and then nodded. "Molly. Walk."

Smiling, I stretched, trying to wake up ready to go. I wasn't a coffee drinker, but man, I felt like a cup to push me going now. Even after the whole day of rest I still felt like I could sleep another eight hours. I stood and started gathering supplies and tetrising them back into the wheelbarrow so we could walk more.

Thann had seemed a little preoccupied the morning so when he told me to stay and darted off into the woods, I thought nothing of it, but when it turned into two hours, I started to get worried.

Okay, and I was getting annoyed. Why did he have to keep leaving me?

I got my phone and solar charger back out and started to look through my old pictures again, smiling at the memories. I was stuck on a picture of my family, my heart filling with love and longing for them, when I heard Thann's two note exclamation from the trees.

I looked up about to go off on Thann for leaving me so long, but it was not him walking through to the camp. I jolted in surprise.

Three men, all breathtakingly handsome, similar to Thann's height and build strode together confidently. Practically naked. Barely Tarzan scraps at their manhood. Even the several open wounds each had couldn't mar their beauty. Smiles each as attractive as the sun. All dark hair and strong jaws, and as I had been looking through pictures of my family the word family was already on my tongue.

Oh my word! These were Thann's brothers!

"Hi!" I stood excited, a large smile building. "I can't believe we made it finally. Is Molly with you? Where's Thann? Did he find you?"

Their smiles mimicked mine, and the center tallest man with the finest dimples I'd ever seen, spoke with warm rich tones. It was most definitely a sexy purr. "Bhekani lokho, bafana. Simtholile umkami."

The two that flanked him gave throaty laughs.

All at once they froze midstep and the man to the left spoke pointing at my hip. "Sukumah." All gave wide spooked eyes.

Center stared for a moment and then lightened. He shook his head with a chuckle, and then restarted his striding. "Ungesabi. Akusaphili. Yisikhwama nje."

I looked down and saw nothing. Sukumah? My pouch?

I quickly placed my cell in and smiled back to them.

The other two flanked his steps.

"So, which is Mathe? And Cane? And... erm... Kayo? I think, was that Lissette's boyfriend's name? Is that right?"

The center man came right up to me and looked down with his gorgeous piercing eyes and white toothy grin. "Sawubona omuhle."

I didn't know what he said, but the way he looked at me made me blush. It was like how you feel when some hot guy starts speaking in Italian or French to you. It almost brought me to my knees. "Hi," I said bashfully.

And then he was kissing me.

Strong and deep.

And holy cow.

I mean, I've had my fair share of kisses in my lifetime, but whoa! This was frickin hot!

He wrapped his arms around my back, lifting me to my toes, and pressed tight against his muscled chest. My arms were rigid out to my side, fingers splayed in surprise and excitement. And, uh heck yeah, I was kissing him back.

He was some super sorcerer with mouth work. He was working the tongue dance with a passion some Earth man could only dream of. He knew what he wanted, and he was leaving me aching to get it. I may have even moaned into his mouth, my hands now wrapping his massive arms.

It set his hands to fire, caressing over my body, rounding my bottom and my leg lifted immediately to his thigh. He made some guttural passionate noise and hands slid around to my front, cupping my chest.

It finally brought my head back to me and I stepped out of his reach.

Breathing heavy and giggling, I could barely speak to the smiling idol. "Well there now babe. That was totally sexy, but just FYI most Earth girls require dinner before second base. ...At least I usually did."

His handsome eyes turned to his right and he gave a single nod to the flanking brother with an open cut at his chin.

Cut chin guy dug in a hip pouch like Thann's and brought out a single stiff leaf. It was a bright yellow and shaped like a bay leaf. He held it up with some devilish smirk on his face.

I turned back to my sexy new kissing friend and asked, "What's with the leafffff....uck!!"

Sexy new kissing man leaned forward and in half a second sprouted hair from his whole body and cracked bones out into a massive wolf!

A wolf as tall as a horse and weighty as a truck stood glaring down at me, teeth clicking.

Werewolf.

Were-fricken-wolf.

My mind tried to wrap about this freak just changing into some absolute monster right before my eyes.

I opened my mouth to scream, but cut chin guy was instantly holding me close and sticking the leaf in my mouth. When he slammed my jaw shut, the leaf now on my tongue, it was like my lips were glued. A tingling sensation liquified onto my tongue like the feel of eating a mouthful of whole clove seeds. The drug then slid down my throat cutting off any way of speech.

The third man with the longest hair and wide parallel scratches over his chest looked at the wolf and gave grave sounding words. "Ngokucophelela. Khumbula ukuthi ukuluma kokugcina kubulale owesifazane wakho."

The wolf nodded and scratched man stepped away. Before I could even think about running, wolf twisted his head, opened his jaws, and bit around my center. Razor teeth sunk in a crescent pattern around my upper chest and stomach. Tears of pain immediately flooded my eyes but my vocal cords held in the agonizing scream I was begging to make.

Even through my blurry vision, I saw the other two men bend forward into equally horrifying wolves beside me. They howled their delight and suddenly we were off.

They moved like lightning, speeds like a roller coaster taking jumps and darts around obstacles, me still stuck in the animal's mouth. He wasn't clamping down hard enough to seriously injure me, but I could feel the harsh teeth stabbing into me and gathering wet warmth into my clothing. The animal's tongue licked against my wounds, an outlandishly disgusting move against my belly.

As the wolf thrashed around in its run, my neck whipped from side to side sending my eyes blurring and my head spinning. Its tongue movement pushed the rifle into my hand, but I was pressed so hard that no movement would allow me to use it.

The beast hadn't killed me yet, but I would kill it.

Oh yes. The moment it put me down, it would be the worst kind of road kill.

I started yelling so many profanities through my broken vocal cords, Molly would be proud. That was until my head could just no longer keep up with the jolting and I just had to hold rigid to not hurt myself worse.

A few times during the beast's race I went in and out of consciousness, so I was unsure the length of time we ran when we finally came upon his stop. He unceremoniously let me slide off his teeth and to sandy ground.

I wanted to reach for my gun and blast its brains out, but I just couldn't.

I immediately turned to all fours and vomited, my head dizzy and teeth cuts in fiery pain. Then I fell beside my mess when shaking arms gave out.

A man's arms then lifted me to a chest. It was such a tender movement that my brain couldn't understand and thought my gentle father was carrying child me to bed. I collapsed into his embrace. He lovingly let me down to my soft bed that smoothed out under me.

I realized it was not my father when lips were on mine. I tried to shake the lightheadedness away and lean left, pushing on the face.

"Cha, ungowami," he spoke huskily to my ear, hand rubbing a caress down my side.

Stop, I tried to say, but the leaf's prickling still dug into me. I felt the rifle's cold bite against my back and tugged on the barrel, but it was too stuck under me with his hefty weight pressing us into the blankets below.

I kicked my feet out, but a simple movement of his legs, stopped my thrashing.

I was only marginally worried. I knew I would get out of this.

As my thoughts started to clear with a new surge of adrenaline, the women's defense class I'd taken last year started bubbling in. I had to get to my rifle and that meant this rhino needed to get off me.

With all the power I could build in the close proximity I shot my hands to his face and punched my thumbs into his eyes.

But my double vision doomed me, and I only caught the side of his face. He wasn't even disturbed by the movement and grabbed my hands in one of his and held them over my head. He then leaned down to kiss against my neck, a hand trying to figure out my tight belt.

I thought it would give me more time as he fumbled, but instead something sharp cut down into my hip, pants ripping open over the pocket.

Eff You! I screamed in my head and desperately tried to kick out of his hold. I got one hand free and thrust it down to get his other hand off my bare hip, when my wrist hit over a rolled tube.

Mace.

It was free from my pouch.

My mind purred in pleasure.

You're done now freak.

I grabbed that cylinder, flipped the top, shut my eyes tight and twisted away spraying that effer right in the face.

A holler sounded above me, and he lifted off.

I stood and ran. The wolf man left crying in agony, holding his face.

I was far back in some cave and ran the steps to the lit opening when the two other humanish monsters were instantly guarding the way. I let them say hello to some pepper spray as well and they went down before either could lay their own hand on me.

Running through their campsite was difficult as it was almost all sand and I was still woozy from some kind of whiplash effects, but tall trees were just a hundred yards away. If these wolves were anything like the grey blurs I saw at the lake, I would never be able to outrun them. I just needed a vantage point.

The hollers of the men were getting less and less as I scaled the tree and set my rifle to the cave opening. My heavy breaths would be a problem for aiming but those suckers would die no matter how many bullets I had to put in them.

I got my chance.

A wolf emerged from the cave growling and teeth bared. Its nose went to the ground like a dog on the scent, but before he could get too far I held my breath, aimed, and a bullet went right between his eyes.

The wolf dropped.

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I waited for the beast to get up to put another bullet into his brain, silver or not, but the other two brothers then came running out of the cave.

Both their humanlike asses got bullets between the eyes too.

Both down.

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My scope was set on them, waiting for that wolf or those two fake wolves to get up for the next thirty minutes. I didn't know how long it would take for the werewolf body to reject a non-silver bullet. My eyes set on them, but every few minutes I tried to spit out the leaf or rip it from my mouth. It was clamped on with some planty super glue, but I could open my mouth now so the effects weren't permanent.

Then I almost gasped when another werewolf showed up in a blur to their camp. Maybe it was lucky those wolves stuck that leaf in my mouth.

My sight was trained on him, quiet and ready, trigger finger craving the next kill. The new wolf just needed to turn ever so slightly to the right, and it would be dead too. With how hard it was to take the dragon down, I wasn't wasting bullets on a neck kill while I still had the element of surprise.

Its snout was down to the ground and checking out its dead buddies.

Good. Know what's coming A-Hole.

Come on. Turn, turn, turn.

Then I was in for a different shock.

The grey beast transformed into Thann and he took off running into the cave.

Thann.

My Thann.

I was speechless and it wasn't even the paralysis leaf's doing.

Thann.

He couldn't be a werewolf too?

He was one of those monsters all along?

No.

I couldn't believe it.

I wouldn't believe it.

Those were monsters. He was so kind and sweet.

But what did I know about him? He'd only been on my tail for a week now.

He was one of them.

He was afraid of werewolves, but he was one.

All this time.

My eyes started tearing up.

The lies.

Thann then ran out of the cave, eyes darting around the surrounding area, nose lifted.

My breathing came out in painful angered huffs.

I pulled the trigger.

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