***Anna***

Screams sounded throughout the night and I hurriedly put on a cloak before I ran outside.

Suddenly a huge familiar roar echoed stopping my blood cold and making my hair stand on end. "No. No. No!" I screamed, falling on my knees. Was it enough that I killed one? Couldn't I get a break or did nature really hate me that much. Why did it have to be that it went after. Why couldn't it just be a normal animal? Why?

A hand fell on my shoulder and I looked up to see Esben. His gaze was looking out at the trees.

"What do I do? There after me again aren't they?"

"What do you mean?" Clyde's voice made me sigh.

Esben ignored him and turned to face Mesi. They both nodded in understanding.

"I am sorry, Anna. We...you can't...run away from it."

"What can't she run from? Tell me." Clyde commanded.

Mesi just gave him a sad look before saying two words. "The hunters. "

He gave him a confused look.

"Come inside, boy. We must leave her to do this by herself. She killed one of them so the other is here to challenge her. This is her fight and her fight alone." 

Their voices faded and she looked at Esben for help. "Remember you will change when your body knows it has to in order to survive but to make things easier imagine that you are the thing that killed it last time." Was his only advice before he disappeared into the hut and the animal once again called throughout the night this time closer.

I shivered as i was left alone in the night air with a cold breeze blowing. I hugged my cloak tighter against myself trying to comfort myself a little and keep myself warm. I heard forage rustling and something moving closer. I could feel the animal, through the ground drawing nearer and looked up to see its red eyes.

"Anna!" Clyde yelled and I was sure that he was at the door-way. "Let me go, we have to help her."

I knew that both Esben and Mesi were holding him back.

So with that reassurance, I blocked out everything and cleared my mind than looked at the beast. It stood there waiting for me to challenge it, to do something to attack it. My eyes once again locked eyes with the beast and I heard a...girl's scream than I felt something run past me.

Fabian.

"Fabian, no!" I yelled but it was too late.

The farmer had raised a pitch fork against the beast and as a result the beast swatted him away. His head hit a tree and she heard a snap. His form laid slump against a tree, he was dead and the girls were fatherless.

I stood up from my knees and ran. I knew that I needed to lead it away from my friends and the girls so that no one else would get killed in defense of me. I didn't need to look back to know that it was following me. The huge sound it made as it shoved foliage aside was enough to tell me that it was following me. Running even faster, I closed my eyes for a second missing the dark shape before me. Suddenly, I fell to the ground and on top of something or someone. I hurriedly got up and yelled for the figure to "run" when he had finally got up before I took off running but the figure just ran with me.

"Anna, what is happening?"

"Torin? That animal is a hunter...it only hunts....what its been told too....and I just happen...to be its target. Run, Torin."

"I don't leave...friends...behind."

I gave him a cursory glance, hoping that he didn't see me smile before I ran faster. "Just don't get scared...when unsuspected...things happen?" I told him, stopping. "I think here's good."

He stopped, frowning and staring in the direction of the animal.

I closed my eyes and took deep breaths imagining the sensation of changing. My mouth growing longer, my head growing larger and rounder then the weird sensation of ears coming out and my body with its bones changing becoming longer than shrinking before finally the weird sensation of a tail as growing. I opened my eyes, seeing, hearing and feeling everything with much more clarity.

"What are we supposed to do now? Anna?" He turned to me and jumped back.

At that moment, I knew that I had changed and purred. Power seemed to be trapped inside me begging to come out, making me ach to run and use that power. I felt something come up my throat and let it out. The sound shook and echoed throughout the environment. I purred as the animal stopped in its tracks, bristling. It hated the loud roar just like the other one.

Using the distraction, I bunched up my muscles and ran. My feet felt so light and even light as I pounced on the beast, twisting so that I was on its back, my head was at the soft spot of its throat just above its chest. I bit down and the beast roared.  

Suddenly, the wind was knocked out of me as the beast fell backwards on the ground trying to knock me off. Holding in a painful breath, I held on taking hit after hit. Each hit, I felt from the bear even from solid objects like trees made me bite even harder until finally the beast begin to slow down and after a long moment, fell.

My teeth were still clamped around its throat and I was beginning to see colors in front of my eyes. Waiting until I was sure that the beating of its heart, which I could feel through its throat, was done. I finally released it and fell beside it. Every ounce of energy was gone and my ribs hurt, terribly but what I did notice was that my stomach did not hurt at all, in fact the wound there was completely gone. I had healed. I remembered Esben telling me that if I shifted then I would heal completely so imagining myself shifting back, I imagined what it felt like to once again be a human and breathed in sharply as weird feeling of bones moving washed over me before I opened my eyes to the familiar sight of hands and feet. Getting up from the crouching position, I barely had time to peek over the giant mound of black fur before throwing myself back to the ground. Thank goodness my energy had returned and the pain in my ribs was gone but now how I was going to cover myself so that Torin wouldn't see me. Wait when I first turned didn't I have clothes on? I frowned there was only one possibility that Esben had put clothes on me. I would have to remember to ask him when I went back in the mean time. "Torin?"

"Yes."

"Would you mind giving me your cloak?"

A thump and the feeling of something smooth landing on my back gave me my answer.

"Thank you." I yelled before I quickly put it on and hugged it close to my chest in an effort to cover everything. After defiantly making sure that I had everything covered, I stood and looked at Torin, smiling slightly at the sight.

His back was turned to me and his arms were crossed, revealing a plain white shirt, black trousers and boots. It was a purely strange sight, seeing him without his cloak.

"You can turn, I am decent." Not bothering to see if he had turned or not, I faced the direction that I had come from and headed to the hut where my friends waited.

The sound of booted feet hitting the dirt ground, warned me of his fast approach before he stopped beside me and matched my pace. "What about the animal?"

"It can stay. If you want, you can skin it but I was going to leave that to -." A sharp tinge in my heart made me stop walking, Fabian. Oh, what would the girls do now that he was dead and all because of me? Would they kick us out? Would they allow us to help bury his body?  Shaking my head of those kind of thoughts, I continued walking, glancing at Torin who thankfully did not ask me why I had stopped.

The trees soon cleared and I breathed in a sigh of relief before I entered the clearing, Torin beside me. Suddenly something small charged towards me and little hands, hands? Wrapped around my waist and I was aghast at how small the little girl, Ellyn really was.

"Princess, your back." She cried. "I thought you..sob...were dead. After that..that..sob."

"Its ok. Its ok." I reassured her, hugging her closer all the while rubbing her back. "Its ok. Its ok." I soothed her and after a pool of tears was shed, she finally stopped sobbing.

"Aly told me...what happened." She said and I looked past her to see Alice looking at me, her brown eyes sparkling in the light with unshed tears.

I beckoned for her to come and she was soon hugging me. I rubbed both of their backs and hugged them close trying to sooth them. After a few moments, when all the tears that could be shed had been shed, I gently pulled them away and squatted down to look in their eyes. "Now this is very important. You promise that you will do as I tell you."

They both nodded their heads, obediently after a moment.

"Good, now do you have any relatives nearby?"

"Aunty Rose but she lives in a boring house in the village." Ellyn told me after wiping her eyes on her sleeves.

"Village?"

"Yes," this time it was Alice, talking. "There's a village four miles away, west from here. That's where Aunt Rose lives."

"Good. I want you guys to go there. We will take you there."

"Why?" They both complained.

I smiled at the thirteen year old and nine year old. I opened my mouth to answer but was interrupted.

"Anna!"

I looked up at Esben running towards me. "Run!" He yelled and I frowned but only before spotting the guards running after him. Suddenly they disappeared by water, water? I frowned and looked closer, just in time to see Clyde appear in the door-way, water was seemingly flowing out of his hands. I'm not seeing this. I'm not seeing this. I told myself and rubbed my eyes trying to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me.

"Anna!" Clyde yelled and suddenly a water icicle flew straight at me.

I defiantly wasn't dreaming, I told myself as I tackled the kids to the ground, all the while nearly missing the threat. "What were you thinking!" I yelled at him while pushing myself off the ground after making sure that the threat was gone.

"Look behind you!" He yelled for an answer.

I was about to snap at him when...