The Little Red Hooded Hunter

Chapter 2

"Fine, just don't kill me. I'm coming out now."

"So you finally decided to show yourself..." Levi hid his surprise at seeing a brown-haired, green-eyed youth step out of the woods. The kid couldn't be more than fifteen. Eyeing his stalker, Levi wondered what kind of kid would wander the forest shoeless in only a shirt and pants. What the fuck was someone like that doing here? Didn't he know about the dangers lurking in the forest? "...kid."

Wide emerald orbs blew wide at his words. The brat was doing a poor job of concealing his emotions. The brunet's mouth opened and closed silently as if trying to figure out what to say.

Unwilling to let his stalker run away, Levi rounded on the strange youth in seconds quickly. There was a small groan as he pushed the brat onto the ground, straddling him to prevent him from escaping. Had he been taller, he would have opted to trap his enemy against a tree, but Levi had learned that incapacitating his target on the ground was just as effective.

"So fuckface, what were you doing, following me?" Pushing his blade flush against the brunet's neck, he stared hard at his stalker. Levi couldn't help but notice how large those green eyes were, the plumpness of those lips, or the rapid rise and fall of the lithe body underneath him. Had it been any other situation, he would have loved to press his lips against the brunet's, slip his tongue between those soft pink petals, and see whether they tasted as delicious as they looked.

"I-I..." A nervous tongue peeked out to wet those rosy lips, and Levi's eyes automatically tracked the movement. "What are you doing here?"

"I asked you a question first, brat." He had to give the kid credit for not being scared shitless and speaking up with a question of his own. The brunet had a strange accent, but Levi couldn't be bothered with trying to figure which parts the kid was from.

"I'm not a brat!" Eren bristled at being called such a demeaning name. While he was young by shifter standards, he was almost fifty in human years. The hunter was the 'kid' between them. There was certainly no way the dark-haired man was over thirty.

The only response was a darkly raised eyebrow. Eren felt a trickle of apprehension as the blade was pressed closer against his neck. "I asked you a question."

It was difficult to gather his wits around him with Levi straddling him. It was trivial to toss the hunter off him – a human would never win in strength or speed against him – but it was difficult to summon the will to do so. Instead, Eren couldn't help admire the sharp contours of his captor's face or the muscled thighs clamping around his torso. Even with his enhanced senses, while he could tell the hunter was toned, it didn't do justice to the man's beauty.

"Refusing to speak now?" There was a dangerous lilt to the man's tone.

Eren gulped, looking at those steely eyes which refused to budge an inch. Lying underneath the hunter was definitely a poor choice of location to be in at the moment. Their physical forms might have been blessed by Ymir, but their human weaknesses had remained.

If the man was as good a hunter as he seemed, and Eren would bet he was, there was no doubt he was in the woods to slay something. Eren wasn't aware of any other 'creatures' as the humans crudely put it, aside from him and the rest of the shifters. And there was no way he was going to reveal his true identity to his enemy.

"Uhhh... I..."

Levi barely had time to react to the faint whoosh of something soaring through air before a net descended right against where he had been.

"What the fuck?!"

He managed to jump out of the net's way, but the kid lying on the ground wasn't so fortunate and got tangled up in the mass of ropes and knots. Before the hunter could do anything, let alone figure out who had just attacked them, the underbrush rustled and parted to reveal a familiar face. One he had never expected to see here. If Traute Carven was here, that could only mean the rest of the fucking Brigade weren't far behind.