And they were off.

With a little ‘eep’, Marissa started to run towards the opposite corner of the large field and John raised his voice so she could still hear him counting.

Emily chuckled next to him. “Kinda like playing a kid’s game again.”

Not wanting to interrupt the count, he just winked and nodded in response, watching his target as she ran, very slowly, across the clover field. The longer he watched her trying to run in her tall boots and sweater, the more he focused on how she ran. She was slow, there was no doubt about that, but the gamer couldn’t be sure if all Bolkin were this slow or if she just wasn’t an athlete. Her stride was smooth, there was no limp like Emily’s, but each step was short, stilted as she constantly turned to look over her shoulder, perhaps afraid of what might be chasing her. The sharp heels of her boots never seemed to touch the field as she jogged, but her ass had a mesmerizing wobble to it. That was when John saw a detail he hadn’t noticed before.

Marissa had a tail.

He stuttered on a number, watching the small tail, wondering how he could see it showing over her sweater. It moved with every bounce of her ass and the lycan’s breath caught in his throat, his body reacting to watching her jog as he breathed in. Her scent was on the light breeze that filtered through the field and there was a slight hint of strawberries left in her wake, but something he couldn’t recognize was under it.

As his count reached the single digits, he rose on the balls of his feet, ready to spring forward as a slow smile twisted his face into a wicked grin. “...and one.”

John, not exactly an athlete himself, took off after her. He ran significantly faster than she could, much faster than he did even last week, actually; it was much easier to run here on open ground than it had been in the forest just a few days ago. ’I really doubt this is going to do anything other than wear me out and spook Marissa.’ Once he was within a few yards of her, he slowed down, keeping back. His breath was nice and even.

Mary glanced over her shoulder again and, seeing how close he’d gotten, yelped and weaved around the training dummies. The gamer smirked, forgoing the straight line to weave between them as well. Following in her steps made her scent grow stronger and that subtle undertone from before began to cloud his mind. He got closer, memories of his dream rising up from his subconscious, of hunting the women that he wanted, and his breath quickened.

Emily’s voice, calling something from the circle, registered in his mind, but he couldn’t quite hear her. John was too focused on the frightened little sheep in front of him. He sped up, easily covering the ground that separated them, and tackled her.

A cry of surprise escaped Marissa and she started screaming a count of her own, the numbers running over one another. The last thing the lycan heard was growling over the number ten and then everything went dark.

’Shit, shit shit shit.’ Emily ran up to the pair, still holding Marissa’s bag. “Are you guys okay?”

She watched her friend heave the massive wolf off her legs. “I’m fine. He’s just out cold.” Standing, she rolled her joints to be sure she wasn’t injured while the herbalist watched the wolf twitch in his sleep.

“I really didn’t think he’d fully shift like that,” Emily admitted, nudging John with her foot until he huffed and flopped lazily to one side.

Mary levelled her a cold look. “Yeah, your idea of offering prey to a wolf seemed to work.”

The witch smirked, pointing out the lycan’s bright red exposed cock to her friend. “I don’t think it was the kind of prey you’re thinking of that he was after.”

“Oh!” Marissa gasped, her face going pink as Emily started to giggle. “How old is he?”

“Young, but adult.” Emily thought back to the spell she’d cast to see more about him. “18 or 19, I’d wager.”

Her friend sighed and rolled her eyes. “Teenager. Of course that’s what he’s more interested in.”

Barely holding in a snort of laughter, the witch held up the sheep’s black veterinarian bag. “Let’s get your samples before he gets up.”

“Oh, don’t worry, he’ll be out for a couple hours,” the vet chuckled, pulling out some sample tubes, a pair of syringes and some gauze. “Surprisingly enough, he’s not the first lycan I’ve dealt with. Though he is the first I’ve seen that wasn’t in a cage.”

“Marissa, that’s fucked up,” Emily stated matter-of-factly.

“I know, but I don’t tend to question the people that I work for. I doubt it’d turn out well for me.” The Bolkin confidently drew blood as she spoke.

“Yeah,” the witch agreed, frequently worried for her friend’s safety at work, “that’s fair.”

“But enough about him, how have you been adjusting?” Mary shook a couple of the blood vials and watched them settle.

The question caught Emily off guard and she stammered, “N-not too bad, I guess?” Felix appeared from her shadow and meowed. “Though he’d say otherwise.”

“Am I still your only contact in the Abyss?” Pausing in her work, the sheep looked up at the young witch, making Emily stammer.

“N-no, not really…” she started, only to have Marissa cut her off.

“He doesn’t count,” her friend said flatly.

The herbalist hung her head, watching her cat sniff at the **** wolf. “Officially, yeah. Though I’m sure that you would know if any of the people that come by my shop are, in fact, other lycans or not.”

“I can’t always tell by sight, Em,” Mary sighed. “I wasn’t even sure about you at first, but you had your grandmother’s card.”

“And Felix.”

They both chuckled as the cat melted into the shadows surrounding the wolf to appear on the other side to sniff the rest of him.

Marissa smiled. “Yeah, and Felix.” She put her supplies back in her bag and looked the lycan over. “You know, he’s pretty massive as a wolf. I’ve only seen them in human form before so I always expected them to be smaller than this. Their owners tend to keep them in dog crates made of silver.”

“Still fucked up.” Emily’s nose wrinkled but a thought occurred to her. “Does the silver actually keep them from transforming? I thought that was a myth.”

“Yeah, they’re kinda stuck as humans when surrounded by that much silver. It actually hurts them, I think,” Mary mused.

’In small doses, maybe that’ll be enough to keep him in more control.’ The witch mulled the idea over in her head as they stared at the creature on the ground. “Anyway, thanks for coming, Marissa.”

“No problem,” her friend answered. “I’m glad I may be able to help with these tests.”

“Me too, now, uhm...” Emily smiled sheepishly.