Imprisoned By Love

Chapter 14

Katniss

I walk with Peeta through the woods, my black paws dropping softly on the freshly fallen leaves. I love this time of year, the colors and the smells. The still warm wind in the fur on my back. I jump up onto a log and glance back at my husband as he watches me.

"Would you be careful," Peeta says in my mind and I roll my eyes at him. "You are four months pregnant."

"And?" I ask and he sits down in front of me, his sandy colored tail laying still by his side, making me know he isn't joking.

"Katniss, that is my son growing inside you," he says. "I don't want anything happening to you or him. You shouldn't be over exerting yourself." I tilt my head and step down from the log and shake out my dusty coat.

"Do you think I would dare let anything happen to this baby?" I ask and he shakes his head.

"No, but you do need to slow down, a little," Peeta says carefully.

"I have," I snap, surprising him. "You already took away my hunting party from me. All I want is to use this form to the best of my ability in my condition and you won't even let me do that." I turn my back to him, a pure sense of disrespect that doesn't go unnoticed as he instantly knocks me off my feet and onto my back.

"Don't you dare do that!" Peeta growls and I roll back onto my feet and face him.

"Fine, then don't show a lack of respect for me," I say. "I'm still capable of walking across the damn forest floor. I can jump over things just fine because I am long enough off of having this baby that I can move without my belly scraping across anything. You trained me in all this and you act as though I'm incompetent to do anything I used to do just because I'm carrying a child. Peeta, I'm capable of deciding what I can and cannot do."

He looks down and nods slowly before standing up and continuing with me through the woods heavy with the scents of the patrol that had formally traveled through here at daybreak. Including Peeta's pregnant sister who has no more right than I do to be out her considering Johanna's nearly as pregnant as I am and has a good chance of confrontation with something threatening our borders.

We stop at the river and I sit a moment, watching the fish swimming along and the ocasional leaf falling and disturbing the surface. Peeta sits beside me, his warm pelt pressing into my shoulder.

"I'm sorry I keep pushing you to slow down," he whispers and I look at him as he continues. "Its just, I really don't want anything to happen to either of you."

"I know," I reply, "but you need to trust me to keep us safe same as I trust you to keep all of us safe. I know I'm practically an infant to this world, but I do understand my instincts. I know how to sight and scent danger." I stop suddenly, hearing something in the brush and my ears pick, pointing to the side of us. I catch the whiff of the scent hidding spray hunters use.

"What is it?" Peeta asks as I stand and start to shuffle back the way we came.

"Human hunters," I reply and Peeta stands up immediately and starts ushering me back.

"They most likely have guns," Peeta mumbles as we start to move away. "We need to change back to confront them."

"There are no hunting signs all along our border," I growl. "They have no right to steal our food, especially for sport. We don't steal their cattle." I push through the dog door on the side of the small clothing cabin made for the specific purpose of confronting humans on our land. Peeta folloelws and we imediately shift into human forms and Peeta makes a call to John and Gale, the two so called bruisers who were on patrol this morning. They are there immediately and change into clothing, getting ready to confront the hunters.

"You stay here," Peeta says and I shake my head.

"No, I'm coming to make sure you boys don't do anything foolish," I say and a brief flash of blue fire rages in his eyes a moment before dying as I pull past him with the three boys following me. I use their drifting scent hitting my nose and lead us back to where the hunters hide in the brush, poory disguised may I add. I step out in front of them and they suddenly stand.

"Girl, you ought to get out of here," The one says. "Walking around here in front of guns during hunting season." I fold my hands and stare at them a moment, seeing them go uneasy until I speak.

"It is you who should be cautious," I say pointedly. "You are trespassing and hunting illegally on my husband's land. Leave now, or face consequences." Peeta and the other's come out from the brush and stand beside me. The two hunters stare at one another a moment and then the taller, more comanding man speaks.

"We are here as a public service," he says. "There have been wolves sighted in this woods."

"There are many deer and wildlife on my land," Peeta says. "Of couse with all this prey there would be predators. But they are welcome here. You are not."

"Sir, your young wife is clearly pregnant," he says. "Those things could easily carry away that child when he is born. Would you really endanger your child's life for those vermin?" I step forward and walk straight up to the man and look in his eyes.

"This child is safer here than any baby in a hospital," I say, a slight growl rusing in my throat. "What we do on the land that we legally own and occupy is our business and you will leave now. You have no right to be here and we will have the game warden arrest you for hunting without permission on our land. If you do not leave now, we can easily make you leave." Both men look past me at the intimidating men behind me but the commanding man doesnt seem even stirred as he looks back at me.

"Fine," he says picking up his rifle and his counterpart quickly does the same. "No need for that. We'll leave. I'm sorry to have offended like this." He winks at me and the men begin to move away. Gale and John step forward to escort the men away and Peeta stands next to me as they begin to leave.

"Do not return if you know whats good for you," he says and the man turns back, a smirk that rattles me laying across his face.

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," he says and I don't believe him, fear radiating off me as I watch him go. Peeta squeezes my hand and I look at him.

"Katniss, he won't be back" he says and I shake my head.

"If there's one thing I learned about someone who tresspassers as one myself at a time, they always come back once they know they can get in," I say and I turn and walk past him, not wanting to think about the threat that what use to be my kind has on my new family.