All your thoughts were focused on hunting. Concepts like how you'd gotten here or living as a human were not only foreign at the moment, they were impossible to recall. All you knew was that you were one of two big cats in a forest closing in on something tantalizing.

The scent became stronger as you went and while the cat following you had you beat when it came to experience, you had it in literally every other way. If you walked, it could keep up fine but the second you took off running, it struggled to keep up, even with it's longer legs. When you had to cross a river, you were the stronger swimmer and not only that, the male cat seemed appalled at having to cross the water at all. It took some chuffing back and forth to convince him it wasn't that big of a deal.

He wasn't happy when he finally crossed but you ignored his hissed complaints and pushed forward. Whatever you were hunting was close by and you wanted to sink your teeth into it. Badly.

You lowered yourself to a belly crawl as you snuck through a patch of taller grass, the hunting instincts coming to you naturally. The grass did little to hide you, being an unnatural size, not much actually could, but the dark helped. And then you spotted it, a doe laid out by a tree, dozing on and off by itself.

Every once in a while, it would lift it's head and peer about. When it felt it was safe, it would relax again. Without a herd, it was vulnerable and you fully planned on taking advantage of that. You took your time getting closer, your heart beating faster with each step and your muscles only growing more taut with tension. As soon as it's head drooped down to its chest yet again and you were in just the right spot, you leapt forward.

It was a frenzy of action.

The cat with you had lost his patience and worked his way around, moving in at the same time you did. The deer caught sight of you at the last moment and jumped to its feet. You went in for the closest part of it you could reach, the face and neck. The male slammed into it's hip right as your claws scraped along it's throat.

The cuts were shallow and as both of you hit the deer simultaneously from opposite directions, all three of you went tumbling. What little grip you had was immediately lost as you twisted midair to land on your feet, snarling at the male in frustration. If he hadn't jumped in, you would've had it.

He let out a warning growl in return from his landing spot not far from you and sped after the deer as it took off. He was overly confident and you didn't like it, you weren't about to let him take down what you'd tracked. You ran after them, tearing through the woods now that stealth was no long an option.

Despite your frustration with him possibly costing you a kill, the chase was exhilarating. The sounds of rushed, frantic footfalls made your heart race more than ever. Both the other cat and deer came back into view quickly as you caught up to them. They were too focused on themselves to really notice you, that was until you were right on the deer's heels.

It's breathing was as erratic as it's rushed movements and when you came up almost along side it, you caught flashes of white in it's eyes. It was terrified and that was only more exciting. You jumped, sinking your claws into it's haunches and weighing it down until it fell, unable to hold both of you up. A few desperate cries left it while it tried to stumble back to its feet. With you on top of it, you were able to pin it and go in for the throat, clamping your teeth around it in time to make eye contact with the male cat.

He'd stopped and swung around to face you, watching with unconcealed bloodlust as you crushed the deer's throat like a dry twig. It's cries became gurgled as blood filled it's mouth and your own. You stayed put, waiting for it's fidgeting to die down before releasing it and licking your stained muzzle.

The hunger gnawed away at you and you took one look at the deers face, seeing the life had drained from it before moving in to rip away at the body. Except the male did the same thing and you weren't keen on sharing with him. The second his teeth touched it's belly, you swiped at him and let out a roar. He stiffened and bared his fangs, doing the same but you weren't going to sit back and let him help himself to a kill he'd done nothing to earn.

Fur stood on end and teeth flashed in the moonlight as both of you refused to stand down, the dead deer being the only thing to separate you two.

"Lucci!" A voice barked. "Let her have it."

And just like that, he slowly backed off, eyes bouncing between you and the two men now standing a safe distance from you. With a final hiss, you snatched up the fresh corpse by the neck and dragged it with you up the closest tree, settling in the branches. You watched the men and the cat carefully as you began picking at the deer. It seemed they all understood you weren't about to share.

----

You woke up very confused. Your head felt fuzzy, muscles were sore, and there was an overpowering smell of blood. The smell should have made you feel sick to your stomach and yet, you couldn't help but notice it almost made you feel hungry.

You opened your eyes and let out a groan. Little light made its way into the room thanks to the thick curtains shielding the windows, compliments of Mihawk. He wasn't going to step foot in your current room but he had the curtains literally everywhere. But the lack of light didn't bother you any, you could still see everything just fine. That included the dark streaks covering your pillows and sheets.

You let out a gasp and sat up, moving the blankets away to see the bedding was completely ruined, covered in the coppery scented marks. Blood, the bed was covered in blood. And when you looked over your naked body, you could tell you were too. Dried, flakey splotches of it went up your arms, almost to the elbows, small splatters covered your torso and legs, and you could make out even more along your chest and a little higher.

The scary thing was, you knew night had passed but you didn't remember getting back to the mansion or who the blood belonged to. You couldn't recall a single thing that had happened after the urge to shift had hit you but you knew you'd changed. Finally, the blood became too much for you when you realized you could taste it. Whatever you'd gotten a hold of, you'd gotten a mouthful of it. You fell out of bed, gagging as you made your way to the bathroom.

You didn't bother hitting the lights as you got to the sink and turned on the water. You took in mouthfuls, spitting them out almost as fast as you took them in to rinse out the taste. The liquid ran a light, pinkish color each time, both from your hands and your mouth. When you finally risked looking in the mirror, you were appalled.

The once dried blood was wet again, dripping around your lips and down your chin. Some flecks had mixed in to your hair, a few even dotting around your eyes and up to your forehead. It looked almost like you'd bathed in the stuff. You turned off the sink and went to the shower instead. There was no way you'd go without cleaning yourself off, not in your state.

As soon as the water was almost scalding, you stepped in and scrubbed yourself head to toe. Not a single spot was missed and you scraped and rubbed yourself down until your skin felt raw. And when that was done, you silently thanked Mihawk for having enough sense to keep new, spare toothbrushes around and brushed your teeth until all you could taste was an overpowering amount of mint.

When you stepped out and wrapped yourself up in a towel, you allowed yourself to relax. Shanks promised he and Mihawk would be there during the whole night. You had to trust that was exactly what happened and hope that was just some poor animal's blood. It still wasn't a thought you liked but it beat the alternative.

You let out a shaky sigh as you walked back into the room. You felt tired now that the initial shock had worn off, exhausted actually. But you weren't about to get back into a blood stained bed, human blood or not.

"Crazy night, right?"

You yelped and clutched at the towel, the one thing shielding you from being seen entirely by Shanks. He sat at the edge of the bed, poking at the sheets to check out the stains.

"What the fuck are you doing in here?" You snapped as you walked around him to the dresser, poking through the quickly dwindling clothes he'd found for you before.

"I thought I'd check on you since it's almost midday and I have yet to see you up and moving."

"I was asleep, happy? You can leave now."

"I thought the grouchiness was supposed to leave after the first shift." He huffed.

"Yeah, well I woke up covered in a lot of blood and completely naked. So it's safe to assume I killed something and you guys got a free show."

"You'll get used to it." He stood and shrugged. "It was a deer and a pretty good sized one at that so it makes sense that there'd be so much blood. Shape shifting is unfortunately not the most clean of habits but what can you do? Honestly, anything that hunts in a group comes out much messier than you did. Something about having numbers sends shifters into a frenzy at times."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"It didn't work?" He walked up behind you, placing his hand on your bare shoulder to keep you from turning to face him. "Benn is better at consoling than I am, you'll have to talk to him if you're feeling down about all this still."

His fingers ran along your shoulder blade gently, leaving a warm, tingly trail in their wake.

"What're you–"

"Be careful about letting others see the scar." Shanks tapped a single finger against the top of your shoulder and stepped away. "It won't pass for a house cat attack and I can't think of any good excuse for something like that. If folks get too curious, they might start digging and report you as an unidentified supernatural if they figure you out."

He'd been inspecting your wound. And now that you thought about it, it no longer hurt. In fact, as you reached back to feel it, it had completely healed up, leaving nothing but small divots behind.

"I'll keep that in mind." You said that but when you tried to find something good to wear, all you came up with was the pair of shorts and outdated tube top Shanks had brought. There was nothing else clean left.

"And you seem a little worried about having woken naked?" He posed it as a question as he approached a window and opened the curtains, letting light stream into the room.

"It was literally me and three men, so yeah, I wasn't keen on that."

"It's something you'll have to get used to. Each species has their own reason for it, but us supernatural aren't all that modest. Nudity isn't inherently sexual, that is as long as you aren't human."

"Excuse me for being new to the whole exhibitionist thing then."

He laughed lightly and you finally noticed he seemed much more full of energy than last night. Whatever he did for "hunting," he'd done last night, or maybe this morning. Either way, he was back to being rather jovial.

"We're not exhibitionists, at least most of us aren't."

"Most?"

"Some of us get a kick out of human reactions to our ways."

"How come I get a feeling that applies to you?" You held the clothes in your arms as you went back into the bathroom, leaving the door cracked so you could continue the conversation.

For the most part, your moodiness had disappeared and as for what remained, it was going away fast. Being clean and getting into fresh clothes could be a complete attitude fixer, even if you didn't like said clothes.

"I feel like that is supposed to be offensive."

Through the mirror's reflection, you could see he had his back to the bathroom. It was nice to see he was at least willing to humor your modesty.

"Only if you want it to be. Now," You had changed in record time and stepped back out. "two important questions, is that Lucci guy still around, and is there a jacket I can snag to hide the scar?"

You were ready to go home, to your own bed and now that this was done, you could do just that.