The Bite (Book 1)

Original Edition - Chapter 22: The Bear Hunt Part III

I was fury.

I was rage.

I was fire.

I was venom.

I was every tear that I ever spilled. I was every broken heart, broken nose, broken bone, and the fragments of my broken soul.

I was wrath.

I was ignited.

I was vengeance.

I was the power coursing through my veins. I was the potential that my future held. I was the hope that filled my heart every time a new sun arose in the sky, I was the roar pouring out of my wolf's mouth, and I was the love my new family constantly surrounded me in.

My paws felt like they had wings as we tore at the grassy floor, flying towards the prey that my wolf was damn well set on finishing. Ending. Her life and blood were mine to have today.

I had never felt more alive, more electric, more savage, and more desire than I did in that moment. It courses through my veins like tendrils of lightning and powered my paws as I ran.

The smell of the bear's fur teased, tantalized, taunted, and tore at my senses like nothing I had ever felt before. It was like the blood pumping through its veins was humming its own tune, calling me, just me.

I answered the call.

I darted and drove my paws into the soft ground as I dared to challenge the female to a fight to the death. Nothing had ever felt so natural. Nothing had ever felt so right. All this time I had just wanted to be free. Free to make my own choices, to be myself, to walk without shame, and to live my damn life how I pleased. I wanted to be released from the chains of my past to start a new life. To start fresh. To be my own woman who was in control of her future.

This was my liberation.

I knew it wouldn't be easy, though. This female did not last this long in the wilderness because she was weak. You had to be savage to last so long out here where mankind's hands could never reach. She was no weakling, and my beast and I knew that she would not go down easily. Not at all.

But we didn't want her too.

We wanted the thrill of a fight, the feeling of adrenaline sizzling through our veins, the taste of blood and flesh in our mouth, and the satisfaction of a job done well. We didn't want this to be easy, and lucky for us it didn't look like it would be.

The water was bitter as my paws glided over it. My beast cared not for the cold, she cared not for any pain to come, she only cared about one thing–the bear that she charged towards after our paws hit the other side of the bank.

Before the female, drowsy as the sunshine called her to a nap, could realize what had happened my beast had pummeled into her and bit down hard on the back of her rear leg, on her Tibia bone which crunched a bit as her teeth clamped down hard on it. We quickly released and darted away, out of range for her to swipe at us.

She was pissed.

She quickly got to her feet, shifting her weight away from the one I injured and roared at me. She sounded like a damn lion. My beast cared not though, the sound of her war cry only fed the fire burning in us. It fueled my fire, it certainly did not kill it.

My beast let out a bloodthirsty growl of her own that so loud, so filled with a cold storm of vehemence as it rumbled off my chest, that it vibrated the ground beneath us and caused some of the wolves watching closely from the safety of the tree line to whimper.

The bear eyed me coldly before hissing out at us. A last warning.

We didn't give a rat's ass. We charged at her again, ducking her swipe and nipping at a tendon on her unharmed back leg. She stumbled a bit as she turned to snap her large teeth at us.