If this deer was large enough, he would make sausages, he decided. And he would make Marc stew meat and ground venison for the freezer. He tracked the deer– three of them, he thought, though he only intended to take one– and turned his plans over in his mind. He hoped that Faith would enjoy the sausages.
His wandering thoughts were one reason he was not prepared when the strange wolf landed on his back and took him to the ground, raking claws down his flesh and shredding his shirt. He landed with a grunt and rolled, forcing the wolf to jump clear. It darted in again to slash at his exposed stomach, but Aldric caught the wolf by his throat and heaved, flinging the creature away to crash into a tree trunk and slide to the ground.
Aldric was barely back on his feet when a second wolf came at him from his left. He dodged, then leaped over the third wolf who charged him to spin and keep all three beasts in his view. The one in the middle was dark grey, nearly black, and the other two were a bit lighter.
All three stood almost half again as large as a natural wolf, a clear indication of their paranormal status, but they were slightly shabby, like they hadn't seen a bath in too many days and had not bothered to groom themselves. Aldric thought they would be considered somewhat greasy and underfed in their human forms. Their eyes were varying degrees of that dull red that told Aldric that they, too, were halfway to feral. Rogues who had gone too long without the influence of an Alpha to ground them.
They crouched, their ears back and their sharp teeth exposed in snarls. Aldric hissed back, baring his own formidable teeth to their view.
"You are on Frostwalker Clan land, and I believe you have one of our people. You will return her immediately and leave the area.”
The middle wolf snarled louder and moved to leap again. Aldric could not simply kill the beasts. He needed them alive to tell him where Cristina Latham was being held. And he had no doubt now that she was, indeed, held captive somewhere nearby. Without the easy solution of simply killing his attackers available to him, he was somewhat hampered.
The wolf leapt, followed closely by his two companions, and Aldric had no more time to spare for thoughts of plans. He had only enough time for response and action. The three attackers may have been ill-kempt, but they were clearly practiced, and slowly drove Aldric back. His arms and legs bled freely, and the gashes on his back ached now where his skin felt slick and wet. There was a new set of claw marks on his side, raking down his ribs and bleeding into the waistband of his jeans.
"Enough!" he roared.
Aldric grabbed the next wolf that dodged in to take a swipe at him, and held him by the throat "I really only need one of you wolves alive."
With barely even a thought he dug his claws into the soft flesh of the wolf's throat. In the distance he heard one of his own enforcers howl an alert, having heard his shout. The two remaining wolves backed up, snarling, spittle dripping from their jaws as they, too, howled in thwarted rage before they turned and ran off into the dark. Aldric considered giving chase, but his injuries told him that would be foolish at best.
"Damn," Aldric growled under his breath. After a moment he leaned back his head and added his own howl of rage to the night's noise. It was a poor imitation of Mia's information-laden call to arms from a few moments earlier, but he knew it would reassure his clanmates that he was at least well enough to answer, which meant that his opponents were no longer an immediate concern.
Surprisingly, it was Marc that reached him first, not one of the enforcers.
"I told Mia and the others to stay near the house. What the hell happened to you?" Marc glanced down at the dead wolf and then back to Aldric, who was shrugging out of the tattered remains of his shirt. "Jesus."
“Two of them were the wolves I scented at the cabin." Aldric said, swiping at the blood he could reach. “The leader is a fierce opponent, and all three of the here were experienced fighters. The rogues I fought at the cabin were not so seasoned.”
"Hell," Marc said. He tipped his head back and howled a message, and a moment later Aldric heard an answering call. "The house is clear. Someone will come back here to follow the other two, but right now we're getting you to the house to get cleaned up. How the hell did they get your back? Nobody gets your back."
"I was distracted," Aldric muttered as he turned. He stepped over a rock and pushed through the brush, heading back to the game trail.
"I'm sorry, what now?" Marc's voice came to him through the shrubbery behind him.
His smaller injuries were beginning to itch, indicating that they were beginning to heal. Unfortunately, the larger wounds would take more time. Perhaps a full day, going by the way the felt. Aldric swore again under his breath. He didn’t even get to feed.
"I was distracted. I was planning what I wished to do with the deer after I fed," he hedged. It wasn't a lie, after all.
"Holy hell, Aldric," Marc's voice was full of glee. "You were planning on feeding Faith, weren't you? Like, providing for her."
Aldric ground his teeth together, then just as quickly as his irritation hit, it drained away. Marc was his friend, and had been for too long to be bothered by his needling. Also, too long to lie to
