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he believed I’d become. I may not have retained my sanity but I was not this crazed killer. I was mildly insulted.
     
    A frown descended on his face, finally replacing that irritating grin. My arm curled of its own accord, bunching the muscle until my shoulder strained with the need to unleash. Wolf pressed firmly against my chest and this time, I allowed his forward momentum. My fist hit his face long before he’d even thought to put up a defense. First blood splattered instantly against my cheek and I grinned at the burn that ran over my knuckles with each hit I landed in a solid punch. Bone shattered against bone, fracturing the cartilage in my hands, knitting together only to be re-broken against his skull. He was no better off - his face was heavily covered in crimson before he got the chance to regain his guard. Within minutes we were both saturated in each other’s blood - It was quite the enjoyable fight.
     
    We stumbled back towards the forest, attempting to hide ourselves from curious onlookers. Struggling to maintain a human form when all the animal wanted to do was breach that surface and take a bite out of his throat. I stood and took a step to the side, changing the flow of direction, using his own lessons against him. He smiled as soon as he saw me re-position my feet.
     
    “Can’t beat the master, lad.”
     
    I shook my head. “Surpassed you a century...ago.”
     
    He scowled and swiped a claw at me, the wolf breaking his restraints for a moment. He’d answered my question at least - his wolf was just as manic as Duncan now was.
     
    “Can’t stick around to finish, have other things to do today.”
     
    He looked almost regretful - perhaps he missed our sparring sessions and was realising just what he’d lost.
     
    “Don’t run...finish this.”
     
    He shrugged and took another step back. “Wish I could.”
     
    He was gone before I even worked up to the words stuck in my throat. His figure a blur racing through the trees, back the way I’d already chased him. I growled at his fleeing figure, irritation rising to take over reason. Wanker. I had been nowhere near finished with him.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 6
     

     
     
     
     
     
     
    We followed Conall through the moonlit forest. That glow bathing the ancient trees and leaf buried floor in a silvery cast of shadowed light. His steps were perfectly placed between hidden dips in the covered soil and he whistled quietly as he walked, an old tune that seemed very much a drinking song. Oddly, at times, he would take a detour around a mound of soil encased by trees or shrubs, a circle of dirt that banked a large but shallow crater. I watched him for some time, attempting to figure out his rather confusing pattern of movement. When the front door of the pack house loomed ominously ahead I decided to give in and satisfy my curiosity. "Conall?"
     
    His whistling ceased and he glanced around in question.
     
    "What's with the little sidesteps around the dirt?"
     
    A scowl dropped over his face and my eyebrows shot up in surprise. The complete change from calm to almost rabidity in nature was blindingly ferocious and unnerving.
     
    "Faeries." He spat.
     
    I stopped walking and tried very hard to keep a straight face. Ty wasn't so worried about upsetting the wolf and his snort was loud in the otherwise silent forest. He slyly turned his back on Conall to glance around the wood at our back and turned wide eyes to me. I looked at his face, one eyebrow arched and his mouth open as he mouthed 'faeries?!' to me and I struggled with my straight face once more.
     
    "Laugh all yer want lad. Those mounds are faery forts. Bastard creatures they are wit' their mind tricks." His face turned slightly wolf, darkening the structure of bone and ligament until his every contour seemed cut hard in crystal rock and polished in soot. "I doan't step on their land and they doan't step on mine. The wolf wants tae claw their pretty eyes out,