Jane

"Come on, Rach," Jane glanced at her sister who had stopped again to snap a picture of the view from the trail. "You were the one who wanted to do this. Don't make me regret it."

"The whole point of this was to get some good pictures. I can't very well do that with you bossing me around, can I?" Rachel, her step-sister replied, lowering the camera from her eye and turning to shoot Jane a glare.

"Fine." Sighing, Jane turned back around and oriented herself with the hiking trail up ahead. She didn't mind hiking, in fact one of the few reasons she had moved to Acre Hills had been for the hiking trails. She loved nature and had spent a great deal of time in it, but her sister's pace of hiking wasn't exactly a pace she was accustomed to.

"All right, I'm good to go," Her sister arose and looked down at the screen of her Nikon camera. Going through the candids, she gave Jane gave a nod and started walking again.

"At this pace, we might actually get home before sundown if we're lucky."

"Wait, wait!"

Halting again, Jane tiredly turned towards her sister. "What now? You can't possibly have missed a leaf. I think you've photographed them all at this point."

"No!" Her sister looked alarmed and then pointed up ahead towards the hiking trail. "Look!"

Pivoting around, Jane tried to find what had her sister's eyes widening. At first she didn't see what she was pointing at – but then, as her eyes pinned on it, she couldn't understand how she had missed it.

A man the size of a tree came out from behind a thick green shrubbery. Muscles and veins protruded from his body like he had come out of the womb like that and threatened to pop through his skin. For a person that tall and wearing leather from boot to shoulders, he walked with a surprising grace.

Staring at him with a slightly gaping mouth, Jane tried to think of what she was supposed to do as the man appeared to be coming their way. He had cropped black silky hair that shone in the opaque light through the treetops and eyes the color of tar.

And they were staring directly at her as he came towards her with a determined pace.

"Uh... hi?" Jane hesitantly spoke. He didn't reply. When he merely kept walking towards them, she felt her nerves begin to tickle.

Where the hell had he come from? He didn't look like he was here for a hike.

Clad in army boots, a pair of rough-cut, tight-fitted black leather pants that clutched his muscular thighs like sweat after sex and a standard issue black T that wrapped around his torso like a second skin, he definitely didn't strike Jane as someone here to catch a breath of fresh air. Now here to catch a prey on the other hand...

"You need to leave."

The man finally used his voice. It was deep, enthralling and left zero room for argument in his statement.

A chill like none other before went through Jane at the sound of his deep syllables grating past his curled lips. Oh, sweet mother, that voice was a thing of tremendous danger.

"Why?" Jane raised a brow when the man stopped in front of her at last, forcing her to crane her neck back to meet his eyes. They were like vast seas of ink; Endless. "There's no sign that says this hiking trail is closed?"

"It is," He growled and took a step forward, suddenly towering above her with a hostile snarl on his lips. "Leave."

Even when he was threatening her, his voice sent shivers down her body. Jane felt an odd warmth in her stomach that felt completely wrong in this situation. Every fiber of this man in front of her was telling her to piss off, yet all she felt was her insides melting and her urge to follow his command compelling. It made no sense and it oddly startled her.

Snap out of it, Jane.

"Unless you give me a good reason to vacate this public area, I don't believe I'll be going anywhere," She snapped back, equally as hostile as he had been to her. She had always hated feeling inferior to a man, and the giant specimen in front of her seemed to think his word was law.

A shadow slid over his face at her defiance, and she felt a chill run down her back again. He stared at her with a deep look, cocking his head slightly to the side. Jane crossed her arms, challengingly.

"Jane..." Her sister whispered behind her. "It's okay, let's just go. I've gotten the pictures I wanted anyway."

"Listen to your kin," The man said, but kept his pitch black eyes rooted on Jane. He appeared to be studying her, his black orbs slanting over her every little feature with a small frown. Did he even have pupils?

"No," Jane firmly repeated. "If I want to hike this trail, I'm going to goddamn hike it," She provocatively took a step forward and shoved her face right up into his. "You don't own it, asshole."

Rachel gasped behind her, but the man in front of her only seemed to grow tenser. He didn't move as she stared him off with her narrowed eyes and firmly locked teeth. If he even tried one move on her, she was going to show him what six years of teaching self defense had taught her...

"How can you defy me?" He suddenly said. Jane momentarily lost focus and stared confused at the deep frown that formed on his face. Why did he seem so shocked that she wasn't gushing to do his every bidding?

"It's called free will, ever heard of it?" Jane bit back.

In one breath, he leaned down to her. Jane's eyes widened in shock and her heart sped up as he cupped her face, causing her to automatically take a step back to free herself. Her fist clenched, ready to punch, but when he did nothing but look down at her with a strange puzzlement, she stayed frozen and felt his calloused fingertips sear into her skin. There was that heat again, boiling inside her body...

"Say no to me again," He grated, steeling her with his stygian eyes. Jane's breath faltered as his earthy scent seeped into her nostrils and filled them with a dizzying cologne. "Say it."

"No," She whispered. Her heart pounded in her chest, so loudly she was sure he could hear it.

His attention was on her face, his own set in a frown as the mono syllable left her mouth. It deepened when she stuttered out a breath and tried to shift in his arms.

"Let me go," She demanded and looked up at him, seeing his eyes blink, twice. A nuance suddenly shifted inside them – something slightly aqua and—

Something snapped behind them, and out of nowhere, a large blond man fell from the sky and landed on his hands and feet. Jane let out a yelp and jerked away from the man in front of her, who seemed to reluctantly let her go and turn around.

Rising slowly like the fall had been nothing, the blond man stretched out to an equally impressive height as the man in front of her. Behind him, Jane saw as two more men appeared out of nowhere and approached the trail as well. All of them were large, broad and clad in black leather, carrying their heavy bodies with a lethal grace.

Jane couldn't believe what was happening. She heard her sister gasp behind her when all the men seemed to gravitate towards them. One had long silver hair, while the other had black hair like the man in front of her. Jane also noticed that amongst the men, he was the only one that had glowing red eyes. The rest of them had black eyes like the man in front of her, inky dark and endless.

"They're here," The blond man spoke, marching up to gather around Jane and Rachel like the other men. The man in front of Jane shifted his attention and nodded, rolling his shoulders to release several tense cracks. "I sense five or six coming."

"Protect the females," The tall man growled. He was watching the hiking trail in front of them like a battlefield, just as the men around him prepared for whatever was coming. "Kevlar?"

The black-haired man with the red eyes fell to his knees on his right and thrust his fist into the ground without a word. Jane quickly backed away and grabbed her sister when the man then all but started growling, not unlike that of a beast.

"What is happening?!" Rachel hysterically said, clutching on to Jane. Jane couldn't find a word to say as she witnessed what happened too.

The man with the red eyes slowly seemed to break out of his own skin. Bones popping and body contorting in unnatural ways, the man transformed on the ground and grew a coat of fur and sickly sharp teeth in no time at all. His body expanded and extended, his clothes tearing open. From the back of his spine, a large, swinging tail sprouted.

"What the fuck!" Jane cupped her mouth and her sister screamed beside her. When the two other men, the silver-haired and the blond one, started marching forward, they revealed what their bulking frames so far had kept out of sight from the two sisters.

Indescribable monsters; Ghastly, sickly monsters slithered out from behind the trees and bushes – deep, rasping noises coming from them. Their skin was a ghastly pale gray and their eyes were glowing red, their mouths frothing and sharp with yellow fangs.

They resembled humans, but they... weren't. They looked like they had been dead for centuries or had been reborn for the sole purpose of living a half life.

"Do your thing," The tall man ordered to the growling beast on all fours called Kevlar, and out of nowhere, the creature that used to be the black-haired man growled and leapt forward.

Screaming, the two sisters fell back as the sickly monsters charged forward and went for the furry beast as well that ran towards them with a roar. It ran straight through the first monster, thrashing it to the side with an immense strength, and let it smash into a tree where it collapsed, seeming more broken and disfigured than before.

Not moments later, the monster seemed to regenerate and picked itself back up.

"Crev, you're up," The tall man said, and before she knew it, Jane watched as the blond man sunk to the ground on the man's left and laxed his mouth. Sharp corner teeth elongated from his mouth and then a piercing sound erupted from his lungs.

The two sisters screamed and let go of each other as the sound cut through the air and forced them to cover their ears. It was a deep, but nail-curling sound, like a frequency of some sort that cut through eardrums and skull.

Both sisters fell to the ground, but all the males stayed on their feet and glared at the creatures up ahead that did like the sisters and curled in agony on the ground.

"Hack, now!" Yelled the tall man, and without a second's hesitation, the silver-haired man arched forward and leaped.

Through the bristling air, the man transformed like the black-haired man and turned into an animal. It landed on heavy paws and wasted not a moment to charge forward and lunge for the creatures as well, joining his friend that was tearing through the creatures like falling dominos.

"What's going on?!" Rachel cried, holding so tightly on to Jane that she felt her nails pierce through the skin on her wrist. Jane didn't know what was happening either, but a part of her brain was trying to accept the fact that it was.

– They were at the edge of the woods, miles away from home, and inhumane creatures and monsters were fighting a bloody war in front of their eyes. It just wasn't possible.

"Crev, take them out," The large man, who remained in front of the two of them, turned his head and barked to the blond man who was still kneeling on the ground. He nodded and stopped howling.

With a timid stare, Jane looked up at the black-haired man in front of her. He seemed to be the one giving the orders here, his soldiers following them without question – with loyalty.

She trailed her eyes over him, his body a mass of strength and dominance, and exuding something that Jane felt stirring inside her like a call.

As she watched him turn his head to the side and clench his jaw, it was undeniable. Jane gasped as something drew her eyes to him instead of the surreal fight in front of them.

All of a sudden, the earth crumbled around them. Rachel screeched and hid her face in the crook of Jane's neck, but Jane stretched her head and looked around to see what was happening.

The blond man, Crev, had dug both his hands into the ground and was curling his lip back. Veins in his arms were popping out against his skin and a light sheen of sweat coated his body. The vibrations from the ground seemed to stem from his fists and Jane watched in horror as it crackled through the ground in powerful surges.

Large cracks opened in the ground, and the monsters who were slithering around, clinging to the animalistic creatures who were still fighting them, were thrown off and fell into the cracks. The furry creatures growled and seemed to retaliate, jumping the monsters. Within seconds they were tearing the monstrous demon-like shapes apart and hurling their remains into the ground. They were drowned in the soil and disappeared into the earth. 

Jane couldn't believe what she was seeing. Rachel was sobbing against her and she wanted to console her, but what the heck was she supposed to say? Nothing that was happening was making sense and she couldn't see how it ever would.

As the last monsters were buried, the animals with the bloodied teeth slowly shook and shifted shape again. Jane watched as they shrunk and turned back to the humans they were before, unharmed, but filthy—their naked bodies soiled by the fight.

"Everyone all right?" The tall man who was in charge asked his friends as they walked up, unashamed of their naked forms. Each of them gave a nod, the blond man rising and brushing off his hands.

"The humans?" It was the black-haired man with the red eyes.

"They never got close. Hack, do your thing."

The silver-haired man suddenly charged towards them and Jane immediately backed away. She didn't know what was about to happen, but by the dark look in the silver-haired man's eyes, it wasn't good. "Stop! Don't you come anywhere near us!"

The tall black-haired man looked unaffectedly at her. "Hack."

The silver-haired man whose name had to be Hack continued approaching them, but Jane refused to let him come close. She kept backing away, dragging her sister with her who was barely staying on her feet in fear. "I said, stay away from us!"

"Tavi..." The man Hack suddenly halted up.

"Do it, Hack. It's protocol."

With a clenched jaw, the man Hack started moving forward again. He stalked forward faster than Jane could move, and with a movements so fast her eyes hardly caught it, the black-haired man with the red eyes suddenly reached out and wrenched Rachel from her arms, shoving her towards Hack. "No!!!"

The silver-haired man ignored Jane's cry and Rachel's terrified scream. Jane tried to move towards her, but the red-eyed man locked his hands around her arms like solid cuffs and prevented her from moving anywhere. She screamed and writhed as she watched with horror as the man named Hack cupped her sister's face and moved inches close to her face, staring her deeply in the eyes.

And just like that, her sister stopped screaming.

Jane watched as Rachel without explanation grew still in his grip and seemed to lax a doll. Her mouth fell open and her eyes stared up at him, drooping. What was happening? Before she knew it, she was closing her eyes.

"Rachel! What have you done to her?!" Jane shouted when she saw her sister finally lose consciousness and drop to the ground. Hack caught her just before she hit the dirt and laid her down gently before rising up. His eyes turned to Jane.

"No... no, stay away from me!" She seethed when he started moving towards her. "Stay away from me, you goddamned psycho! What did you do to my sister?! Let go of me!!!"

He ignored her as he stepped up to her, but in that second, something suddenly happened.

The red-eyed man behind her hissed and abruptly let go of her arms. He backed away, and Jane saw her chance; she stared up at the silver-haired man who was looking at her with an open mouth, and before he could make his move, Jane lurched.

She dodged him when he reached for her, and with an agile move, she somehow managed to dodge the blond-haired man's attempt to reach for her too. She couldn't believe her luck. She was seconds away from her freedom and could almost taste the air in her lungs when a strong hand suddenly clasped around her arm.

Something went through the air. Like the earthquake before, the ground seemed to shift and the dense air around them exploded in a hard blast that seemed to go through the marrow and bone of all the men.

Jane felt a surge of energy course through her like a lightening zap, and with a gasp, she was whirled around and met by a pair of vibrant aquamarine eyes.

"Lyca."

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Yass bitch, get ready for some dominant Lycan behavior 😂👍

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