2 Chapter 2: Into the Den

Bam! When Runa opened her eyes next, it was from the shock of having been thrown heavily onto a hard stone floor. Spitting blood from a bitten tongue, she rolled onto her side. With difficulty, she tried to catch the wind that had been knocked out of her lungs from the impact. She coughed and sucked in a deep breath of perfumed, but fresh air.

It was dark and she could sense that there were others in the room than herself and her captures. Her eyes caught the flicker of flames from somewhere nearby, and she noticed a cloying, almost familiar scent in the air, but couldn't quite remember what it was, or determine its source. Runa tried to look around her, but she was kicked roughly from behind.

She heard a sharp unfamiliar voice command, "Speak quickly." It came from somewhere behind her.

"My Lord, This bitch of a woman killed my brother," said the known, gruff voice of Hedin. "I want to see her die in the arena, at the next Reckoning, as a sacrifice."

Runa smirked, so the cowards had brought her to her doom, had they? 'We shall see about that.' She thought to herself, she only needed to be freed for one moment. The second the risk of dislocating all her joints with the change was gone, she would have them. They were already marked as her prey. The idiots had removed the arrows from her shoulder and leg and had stopped the bleeding with rough bandages. How kind of them, to preserve her for the sacrifice. She would make them rue their decision.

It was then that she sensed, a more ominous presence in the room, and her malicious smirk faded. She could smell that hauntingly familiar scent, it was coming from somewhere behind her, near the source of flickering light. She could practically feel a fierce gaze, sweeping along her back.

"Release her," rumbled an impossibly deep, and deathly low voice. Runa felt it deep in her bones and felt goosebumps across her flesh. This voice was different from the other new voice from before. That told her there were at least two others in the room.

"But she, my lord, she ripped out my brother's throat, she's...," Hedin stammered beside her.

She could see the other, the quiet one, Bolli, before her, and she caught the tangy scent of fear as he began to shake and quiver.

'Yes, you should fear my release. I'll avenge those fox kits, those poor, likely orphaned babies.' She thought to herself.

Without further protest, the ties binding her wrists and ankles were hurriedly cut. Almost instantly she felt blood returning to her numb limbs. She balled up and breathed a short sigh of relief that turned into a clipped laugh.

With the speed of thought, she let her inner beast free and changed. One moment she was a woman, and the next, she was a thick furred, tufted eared, lynx. Nearly twice the size of a normal lynx, she was closer in size to a full-grown wolf. Her luxurious coat was grey and resembled that of a wolf with shifting bands of tawny red and charcoal black, while her lighter white underside was lightly spotted. Long, lean, muscular legs ended in large thickly furred, dangerously clawed paws. Her pale-gold eyes dilated, and she screamed her hatred, a loud grating hiss, as she launched into action.

She crashed into Bolli, the one who was quiet and frightened. The coward who would have killed her while she was tied, bleeding and helpless. His frightened screams, and frantic attempt to save his worthless life were soon ended, as she sank her gleaming fangs into his yielding throat. As she sprang from his chest, she ripped his throat out and, twisting in the air nimbly leap to the stone floor.

Runa was deep in the clutches of rage and bloodlust. Her gleaming eyes quickly focused on the stunned and terrified remaining victim of her wrath, Hedin. She wished she could drag his death out. Make it worthy of his horrendous crimes against the innocent, young fox kits.

Within seconds she was upon him, slamming into his chest, taking him to the hard floor. She slashed and struck at his face, ignoring his flailing arms. She reveled in his agonized screams of pain and fear, relishing her revenge. After turning him into a bloody mass of screaming, writhing flesh, she decided to finish him off. Wrapping her sharp fangs around his throat, she slowly crushed his windpipe as he weakly beat upon her sides. She didn't release him until she heard his heart stop.

Dropping his limp form with a splash into a pool of his blood, she leapt from atop his chest. Sailing easily above the red slick puddle, and padded away from the carnage she had wrought. Runa then turned her gleaming, golden eyes upon the one who was supposed to ensure her death, according to the now dead man at her feet.