He is Ghost

Gold

All of the tension in her body that had just screamed for her to run, now pulsed in the opposite direction. It pushed her forward, called for her to take a step towards him - that thing casting a dark shadow on the ground. Two. He was a beacon, the drum of the signal beating against her body. It rattled her fur, her bones. 

She almost didn't feel it, that step ahead she made - her body made. It was as if she were gliding, floating - as if she wasn't here at all. She was detached from her self, watching from somewhere else. She cowered in the back seat, his eyes on her now. Staring, as if he could actually see her. But there was the hollow edge, the part that was undeniably unfocused. That part looked like it couldn't belong in this world. But still, he knew what she was doing, could hear her take another step through the brush. Hear her racing heart. His nose twitched. He could smell her, her heat wracked body.

He would smell the claim on her skin too. Ripe as she was. 

Yet, he did not move — not even an inch. It was as if he wasn't even breathing, a statue, not even drawing in a breath. He was a black shadow carved from ice. Hard and unforgiving in its motionless assault. 

She took another step ahead, head cocking to the side, examining him.

Somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, something thrummed run.

But Neira wasn't in control anymore; she was shoved into the back as something else made her body take one step after another towards a thing she could only describe as death. Her skin was crawling, and her blood was pounding, and yet she kept moving, unable to stop.

As the distance between her and the wolf grew smaller and smaller the sheer size of him was daunting. Horrifyingly clear, massive, larger then Judd and dwarfing her as if she were a measly pup. He was the biggest creature she had ever seen, tall, broad, lean - everything and nothing all at once. His black pelt was shinning, even in the dim light of the forest, gleaming black as his eyes glared white. They punctured her, anchoring her with a searing kind of emotion she couldn't place. 

It burned. 

His ears tracked her, his nose taking in her scent. His paws tensed and relaxed in the earth feeling for the smallest vibrations.

He may be blind, but he wasn't helpless. How long had he been like this? Blind?

Long enough to build up other skills, sharpen his other senses to compensate for the missing eyesight. How much had those other skills increased with that absence? Just how much of her could he take in without his vision? Could he smell just how deep her fear ran? What lay underneath? The other things that lurked in her scent?

She barely remembered the standoff from moments earlier between this male and Judd. Not the parts that truly mattered but she supposed she had gathered enough information. Most wolves were a duplication of their human forms. Neira was mountain blue eyes and auburn hair both as a wolf and as a human. The characteristics transferred from one body to another, scars or other marks coming through as well in many different ways. There was a patch of darker fur along Neira's wolf spine, showcasing the tattoo on her human skin. Even now, there was a piece of scabbed over skin along her throat from a copper wolf. 

A copper and grey wolf with copper eyes and a scar his leg. Much like the one she had just given to Jaro. It was there on his leg as a human, and it was visible through the fur on his wolf as well. Nothing grew there now; it was a blank spot amongst the shimmering copper and silver. 

But she knew, much like Aja, that this wolf was not a match to its human form. Neira could remember the haunting black eyes on the human and as dark as they were, he could see out of those bottomless orbs. Even the silky black fur was not a match to his human side. Neira vaguely remembered what he looked like and there was no comparison between the two. The human side had been tanned skin, much like Judd's. But his hair had been golden. Golden hair, golden skin and obsidian eyes. 

It wasn't uncommon exactly, but it wasn't common either. Judd even had members of his pack that had different characteristics as a wolf and as a human, like Aja. Sometimes it was even considered a blessing. 

She supposed this wolf had been blessed then. He could have easily been blind as a human too. 

She was maybe ten feet from him now and still; he was frozen. She couldn't smell him, not with the wind blowing into his face instead of hers. Would he smell as he appeared? Like shadows and darkness or would it be like something else?

One ear flicked to the left, just for a second, hearing something she couldn't pick up yet. His white eyes didn't leave her face, her body. Her general direction. 

And then a low noise came from his throat as she heard it too. Thundering paws headed right for them. She glanced through the trees, taking her attention off of the wolf before her.

She saw nothing, barely even heard the approaching wolf. But she knew he was coming, she could feel it. 

She looked back, but he was not where she had last seen him. Now he was right before her, nearly nose to nose with her, staring down. She froze, heart beating wildly out of control. He no doubt heard it, the thundering within her own body. Blood thrummed in her ears, a jagged breath rushing in through her nose.

But being this close to him she could see something she had missed before. His eyes were still empty, seeming to fall down and down into a white hole within his soul. But all around his eyes? Embedded in the black fur? A jaw sized scar covered his face, almost like a mask. Old puncture wounds that went right through his vacant eyes while the second line of teeth marks went over the top of his snout.  She expected them to be hairless patches, like the scar on Judd's leg or the healing mark on her neck. Instead, gold strands appeared like stars in an endless night. She could have just as easily have missed them but being this close, him standing right before her, she couldn't see anything else. 

Judd burst through the trees, and her attention darted to see the copper and grey wolf slip into view.

And when she looked back, the other wolf was gone, as if he had never been there at all.

Not even an indentation of his paw left in the dirt.

Nothing.

Like she had imagined it all.

"Neira," he said slipping into human form and running for her. He crashed to his knees at her side, fingers digging into her fur, holding her as if she might disappear. She smelt the blood that welled at his now open knees. "You are okay, aren't you? You're alright? He didn't hurt you did he?"

She barely heard him, even with his head so close to her own. Her mind wasn't in her own body anymore. It had disappeared to wherever that other wolf had gone. He had taken it. Shown up here and completely ruined her. Terror was stuffed deep down her throat. 

She chocked around it.

She began to shake.

Neira turned her head to Judd, his copper eyes wide with worry. It didn't help, seeing him scared, just like she was. It meant she hadn't been dreaming, that the wolf had been real. That thing had been real.

"Neira shift," he said running a hand along her neck. "Let me take you home."

Home.

She still didn't have one of those. But he was all she knew right now, all she had.

"Neira, please."

She fell out of her wolf's pelt and into her human skin, laying on the forest floor in a heap. Her skin hit the cold air, and numbness spread over her bones.

His arms went around her, lifting her into his grip. She laid her head against his chest as he began to carry her out. She never would have gotten out of here alone; she barely knew what side of his territory she had run into. So, she let her eyes close as his body heat filled her chilled skin.

She could have slept in his arms, but closing her eyes brought on dark figures that might swallow her whole from the inside out.