The bear reared up, its roar thundering through my head. It raised a paw to hit me again and I tried to scramble out of the way, but there was no place to go, and it hit me in the side, claws raking through my shirt.
As I fell, arms jerking over my head again, my scalp started to prickle. A patch of skin between my shoulders itched. I looked up at my bound hands to see hair sprouting.
Oh, no. Oh, God, no. Not now.
But there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was in mortal danger and my body was determined to meet the threat with its best defense.
The bear kept batting me, testing my reaction, realizing I was weak, and it was very, very hungry.
My blood spattered the tree and speckled the snow and all I could do was whimper and twist, trying to get out of its way, to get myself into a better position for the transformation, every twitch of the Change agonizing. I was on my knees, hands bound with their backs together, and if that was uncomfortable as a human, it was impossible as a wolf, but that didn't stop the Change. It kept ripping through me, clothing twisting, binding me.
My whimpers turned to screams, then unearthly yelping howls that only infuriated the bear. The second the Change was far enough along, I had to pull out of the ropes and run. But the thought of making that happen--of having that degree of control over my body, as the Change and the bear buffeted it--was laughable. I might as well be in a straitjacket, dangling from a crane.
Then, as my Change came close to a finish, the bear pulled back and delivered a blow that sent me flying up... and knocked one of my hind legs free from the rope. That was all the incentive I needed. I landed on my back, forelegs in the air, and started twisting, wrenching and writhing. My shoulders screamed with the agony of having my paws bound back to back, but I kept struggling until one came out. I pulled the other, but the rope snagged above my dewclaw and wouldn't budge.
I found a precarious foothold, two paws firmly on the ground, the third skimming it, the fourth dangling in the air. I lunged, snapping at the bear, teeth sinking into its flank. It hit me and I flew backward with a chunk of bear meat in my jaws.
The bear roared and dropped to all fours. It charged. Being still half tied to a tree didn't leave much room for getting out of its way, but I did the best I could and it struck me only a glancing blow before careening off balance and sliding through the snow.
The bear recovered and turned on me. I snarled and leapt at it, dancing in an awkward sideways hop that probably wasn't nearly as menacing as I hoped. It did give the bear pause, though. Too much pause. Its head went up, body tensing. As it rose on its rear legs, I wasn't surprised to see it peering to see something in the distance--something more dangerous than me.
The bear snuffled, dropped and grunted. It shifted uneasily as it looked from me to the seemingly empty forest.
Was it Tesler? Hoping to find me sobbing and begging for my freedom? If so, he would run away the moment he saw the bear, coward that he was. With any luck, the bear would give chase... a vision so delicious I had to revel in it for a moment.
But the bear was looking away from the cabin, meaning whatever it smelled almost certainly wasn't Tesler. Noah? God, I hoped not. I tensed, straining to catch a glimpse or scent of the approaching figure, ready to distract the bear and growl for Noah to get up a tree.
The ground vibrated under my paws. My muzzle shot up, sniffing madly. I knew then what I'd smell, and it took only a moment more to catch a confirming whiff. The beast.
Bear forgotten, I yanked at the rope. My foreleg stayed caught at the dewclaw. The rear one was twisted awkwardly, making it impossible to yank hard enough. I fell on the rope, biting and pulling at it.
When the bear swatted my flank--a light, almost tentative tap--I wheeled, snapping as I hit the end of the rope. The bear stumbled back. It looked from me--a dervish of flying fur and flashing fangs--to the forest beyond, the vibrating steps now accompanied by the crackle of undergrowth. With a snort and a grumble, the bear ambled away, as if it wasn't fleeing, but had simply decided I wasn't worth its time.
I kept working at the rope, gnawing frantically. When I heard a snort right behind me, I turned, snarling. Then I stopped dead and stared.
IJIRAAT
WHAT STOOD BEFORE me was neither wolf nor bear, but a freakish mixture of the two. A foot shorter than the bear, it had the same wide skull, brown fur and massive body. But its pointed ears
and long snout were all wolf, and its fur--though longer and shaggier than mine--was wolf fur with a thick coarse overcoat.
It looked like Hollywood's version of werewolves, post-Wolf Man era--a massive beastlike thing. But that wasn't what had stopped my attack dead. It was the eyes. Blue eyes as human as ours when we Changed. When I looked into them, I knew Lynn Nygard's tales of Ijiraat were right. Only this wasn't a man that shifted into either wolf or bear--it was a blend of all three at once.
The beast stopped a few steps short of me and curled his lip back in an experimental growl. Like the bear, he was curious yet wary. I met his gaze, neither backing down nor returning the growl, but doing the same as I had with Tesler--standing my ground and keeping eye contact.
The beast paced one way, then the other, his gaze still locked with mine. He lumbered like a bear, but his movements were quicker. His shaggy fur made him look heavier than he was. He still had a good hundred pounds on me, though, and little of it was winter-stored fat. Though I could tell by scent it was the beast Clay attacked, the only signs of injury were a few patches of missing fur and already-healing wounds.
He stopped to get a better look at me. Our paths had crossed often enough that he wasn't confused by the sight of an oversized wolf draped with shredded clothing and reeking of human scents.
He leaned forward and sniffed me. When I didn't attack, he leaned forward some more. I moved and he fell back, but I only turned sideways and let him sniff me, the same way I would with a fellow werewolf. Because that's how I had to treat this. No matter how hard my heart pounded, I couldn't let the fear show.
As he sniffed, I gnawed--as casually as possible--on the rope holding my foreleg aloft.
He sniffed my flank. Then he sniffed my hindquarters. When he spent a little too long back there--and when his nose brushed where I didn't want to be brushed--I was so intent on the rope that I reacted the same way I did when a werewolf got a little too interested in that end of me. I spun, snarling and snapping.
The beast jerked back, grunting as if to say, What'd I do? I grunted back... then sat. He prodded my hindquarters. I stayed sitting. When he prodded harder, I growled.
He chuffed, his eyes narrowing, head tilting one way, then the other, considering. Another chuff and he turned his back on me and started walking away, grumbling as if thoroughly offended by my lack of interest.