Something was not right. Runa Skogkatt lay with her eyes closed. Trying to pull her fragmented thoughts together, she remained motionless. She could feel the sun on her back. Its wane early morning light, warming gently where it touched her bare skin. She could smell the Earth right beneath her nose.

She was on her stomach, that much she could tell. But Runa knew something was not right. Her arms were behind her, and her left shoulder was pounding with pain. Why was that?

Her whole body hurt now that she noticed it. Her mouth was dry, and she could taste blood in her mouth. Runa's senses were clouded, and her head was spinning. Why did she feel like she had just received the worst ass whipping of her life?

Runa tried to remember what had happened to make her feel this way. She scrunched up her face with the effort. Nothing, she could not remember at all, everything was foggy. The last thing she could think of was feeding a litter of fox kits some freshly killed meat.

After their parents had failed to return after several days, she had begun caring for the little ones. Runa remembered their plaintive pleas for her to stay and play with them. But the night was drawing near. She recalled smiling and promising to them that she would be back in the morning. Her memory became hazy after that. Why couldn't she remember how she had been injured?

Suddenly, through the confusing swirl that was her senses, she caught the sound of slow movement nearby. Keeping her eyes closed and her body still, she tried to sense who was near. Someone leaned above her, and she nearly flinched, she hadn't known they were so close.

"Do you think we should kill her, Hedin?" A shaky voice muttered quietly.

"No Bolli, we're taking her back with us, she's gonna pay for killing my brother." Snarled a gruff man, who was closest.

With those rough words, she began to piece together what had happened. The resurfacing memory causing her to tear up with sorrow and fury. Her body trembled, as she was forced to relive those painful moments from her past.

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

She had been leaving the fox kits and was already on the run when she had smelled the scent of man. She recalled sliding to a stop in the deep pine straw upon the forest floor. The scent was faint on the sluggish breeze in the thick woods. To Runa's horror, it was coming from behind her, near the fox kits.

Poachers! She turned and raced with all her strength, back to the defenseless young, she'd carelessly left behind. When she had reached them, she found the glade of the fox family, soaked in fresh blood. Three filthy, human men stood over the bodies of the four little fox kits. Each body with its own, still quivering arrow piercing the fuzzy fur.

Runa was caught by the sight, her body trembled. To say she was furious would have been an understatement. Her vision clouded with a red film of rage, and She launched herself with silent fury, upon the back of the closest man. As her attack took him by surprise she pulled his head back, giving her access to his throat. She ripped his throat out with her blunt, human teeth, his blood gushing out and spraying her face.

As the man crumpled to the ground she leaped off and quickly sought her remaining prey. It was then that she felt a hard hit in her left shoulder. She had been struck by a barbed arrows wicked point. It struck her from behind, hard enough to exit out the front.

Runa cried out in agony and reached for the painful shaft. Before she could grab and break the metal, wicked tip, it was pulled from behind, setting the barbs deeply in her flesh. Looking over her shoulder Runa traced a thin wire from the short arrow to one of the men who had killed the little fox kits.

Narrowing her eyes, Runa wrapped the hand of her uninjured arm around the wire connecting her with the idiot, and yanked hard, pulling him off balance, causing him to fall. Before she could make a move to leap upon him and end his miserable life, she was struck by another arrow. This one struck her hard in her right thigh, the sharp barbed tip grazing her femur and piercing it the back of her leg. This one was also set with a quick tug from the man on the other end of the thin wire.

Now she was caught in the middle, twisted and pulled in opposite directions by the arrows penetrating her body. The pain in her left shoulder and right thigh, caused her mind to reel. She screamed, a primal, bestial roar of pain and rage.

The pain was triggering the shift, the ability to change from a human to an animal. Something she had been born being able to do and was as easy as breathing for Runa. Her eyes turned from their usual hazel-green to pale gold, and her pupils narrowed to pinpoints.

'I must stop the shift', she thought as she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. 'Changing now would seriously hurt.' She wrestled with the instinctual reaction of a shifter in pain. She was able to suppress her inner beast, but she was still in danger. When she opened her eyes, they were hazel once again.

Whoosh! All Runa saw was a wooden club, arching towards her face. She tried to block it quickly with her forearms, but only managed to make the blow unfatal. Because that's when she lost consciousness, and everything went black.

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

Runa opened her tear-filled eyes, shaking from the memory of the dead kits, and looked through the blades of grass at the toe of a dusty brown boot. She tried to move her arm to raise herself and realized she couldn't. Her arms were restrained behind her back, and her ankles were trussed up and tied to them. She growled a vicious warning, through gritted teeth.

"Glad to see your awake." The man chuckled. "I'd hate for you to miss your execution."

"I'm going to kill you both. " Runa snarled.

The grimy boot before her eyes withdrew from her line of vision, and a sudden searing pain spread through her left shoulder as pressure was applied. As the pain increased, she felt her consciousness slipping yet again.

"I'll see you slaughtered for what you did to my brother," the gruff voice of the one called Hedin, faded as she passed out. Runa's world went black once more and she floated in the darkness of oblivion.