The Crystal Moon Curse: Book 5: TAKEN

Chapter 1. Humans

KYRA

The whimpering gets louder as I track the scent of a human child through the dense woodland.

I should just let it die. Or eat it. But I’m not hungry and humans are not very tasty. You’d have to be desperate to eat one, or mad, and I’m far from either. What I am is cautiously curious.

Humans have never come this far up the Blackwood mountains before. They usually stick to the hiking trails far from our clan lands. It’s the rare adventurer or a stupid hunter that attempts to venture into bear territory and very few leave alive.

This human child appearing does not bode well and unease prickles under my fur.

Crouching low, belly to the ground and well hidden behind a thick bush, I spy the tiny female.

Her head of pale curls is matted and dirty, and her face is strewn with tears and snot as she shivers in the fast-cooling night air. The bright red jacket she wears will not save her from the freezing night when it comes. These mountains are not human-friendly. The child will be dead by morning, that is for certain.

I wonder how she got out here in the first place?

For a moment I think about leaving her here and heading back to Udyr, but there is something about the child’s pitiful sobs that are all too familiar.

I wait patiently and watch. It does not take long for the child to exhaust from its crying and the bitter, biting cold.

Only when I sense her breathing has evened out to deep sleep, I shift, and my fur gives way to skin. Unfortunately, the child is too small and frail with no scruff for me to pick her up and my canines would do more harm than help.

With a heavy sigh, I push apart the bush and pad across the ground to the child.

I scent her carefully, memorizing every marker in her human pheromones before I pick her up.

It is only a few miles to the cave I use when hunting and not for the first time I wonder how she got lost so far up the mountain.

Holding her tiny body close to mine, I run through the familiar terrain to get us both into warmth before the night closes in. I may be a werewolf but I am not invulnerable to the harsh mountain elements in my naked skin.

I approach the cave with caution and awareness. It’s not really necessary, most animals fear my scent and stay clear, the only ones I have to be wary of are bears. The real ones, not the shifters. Real bears hate me and for good reason. I am a werewolf in bear territory.

Moving through the narrow cave chamber until I reach the spacious cavern at the back, I place the child down covering her with a deer skin before I shift back to wolf.

Sighing with relief at the immediate warmth I glance back at the still sleeping child assured she is warm enough under the skin.

Evening sets in as I backtrack to where I found the child. The mountain forest fills with sounds of the evening, cicadas, and small animals burrowing down for the night.

The familiar, comforting sounds fill me with contentment, despite the disruption to my usual day the child has brought.

I hone in on the child’s scent marker and track it through the brush.

It’s surprising how far a lost child can wander but it only takes me a couple of hours to track back to the camping ground where three tents are pitched and the scent of humans is strong. I’m only slightly disturbed by the fact that I’ve had to leave clan territory to get here. Udyr would not be happy.