The sounds of birds chirping woke me up. I opened my eyes slowly and sat up. My back was stiff and cracked as I sat up and stretched. I turned and still saw Jake sleeping soundly. The sun was just rising. It had plenty of light but no heat, yet.
I got to my feet and looked at where we were. There was not much to see. Just plenty of large, old looking trees. They were huge, I could hardly see their top branches. The ground space was covered with dead leaves, dry sticks, humus and little shrubs and bushes.
I hard a sinking feeling in my chest that we might even be in London anymore.
I turned when I heard Jake yawn. He was awake now and was getting to his feet. He looked at me with sleepy eyes and said, “You figured out where we are?”
I shook my head.
He groaned and dusted his robe. The watcher robe I had stolen for him.
“You figured out how we’ll get home?” He asked again.
I shook my head again.
He groaned again. “Tonight is a full moon. I’ve never spent a full moon out of a pack.”
“Yeah me too.” I answered.
“I’m starting to feel like an Omega.”
I laughed at that. “Don’t worry Jake. You’re not a cast out wolf. You still have a pack. Infact, you’re the future Alpha. You’re my Alpha.”
He seemed to grow bigger and wider with a big smile plastered on his face. “Thanks Jas. Now, let’s figure out what to do.”
“First, we figure out what to eat. My stomach is growling.” On cue, my stomach gave a deep, long sound.
He laughed at that and walked away to my left.
I went forward to find if there was anything edible for us.
“Jason! Come check this out.” Jake called from deep inside some thick bush.
I scrambled over to where he was and saw what he was looking at. I had never seen nothing like it. It was a large flower shaped like a bowl. And It was filled with dew. I realised I was very thirsty.
I can’t imagine drinking from that muddy stream so I gulped down the dew from all the flowers I could find.
“What do you think we should eat?” Jake asked me after drinking the dew from flowers just as I did.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged and walked to a large tree. “Bugs?” I picked a large beetle from the bark of the tree.
“Gross!”
“I read somewhere that they’re pretty nutritious.” I offered.
“Why don’t you eat it?” Jake swatted the beetle from my hand.
“Because I’m not really hungry.” I made a face at him. My stomach made a large growl as if to yell that I’m lying.
We both laughed and went berry-hunting.
“Hey! Do you think this one’s edible?” Jake was pointing at a small red fruit with spikes all over its body.
“I don’t know. It looks dangerous”
“I looks like one sting from one of its spike would send you to the hospital.” He said. And then he carefully plucked it with his left arm and bit into it.
Jake may not be overly smart or brilliant, but he was brave. He had guts. That was something I could never have and it just proves how much of a great Alpha he would make. His courage covered up his other flaws.
“I feel dead.” Jake moaned. The fruit dropped from his fingers and he suddenly looked blue.
“Oh my god!” I exclaimed, grabbing hold of his arms and lying him down on the floor.
“There are white lights dancing in my eyes… There are people in the sky… is it real or am I dying?”
I glanced up briefly. “There’s nobody in the sky, Jake. And you’re not going to die.”
Some leaves here should be herbal. I ran to a plant with a pungent medicinal smell and plucked some leaves.
Jason was making some sounds I assumed was coughing until I got closer and saw that he was actually trying not to laugh. And he was doing a bad job. He burst out laughing loudly.
“I got you, didn’t I?” He guffawed and got up.
“Oh you silly punk.” I tackled him. “You’re going to eat every last of this leaf I cut.”
“No I ain’t.”
I sat on him and held him down as I stuffed the leaves in his mouth. He couldn’t release himself not matter how hard he bucked underneath me. I finally let him go.
“Damn! Those leaves are bitter… and when did you get so strong?” He said sticking out his tongue and spitting to the floor.
“I’ve always been strong” I said smugly. I picked up the spiky fruit he had dropped and bit into the other end. It didn’t taste so bad. It tastes like an apple but felt like a mango. “What is this stuff?”
“Who knows? Certainly not me.” He started taking off his robe.
“What are you doing?”
“Stripping. Obviously.” He rolled his eyes at me.
“What for?”
“I’m going hunting. I have to shift.”
Oh yeah. I wish I could shift.
Talking of shifting, it’s been a while I heard the voice of my cat.
You still there? Or are you dead? I asked in my head.
I’m still here. The familiar voice rang in my head.
“Hey what are you thinking about?” Jake’s voice brought me from my reverie.
“it’s nothing.” I told him.
He obviously didn’t believe me because he sneered and said, “You’re lying. That’s your serious face.”
He knows me so well. “I was thinking about how I’ll set a fire when you catch a game.” I said. Still lying.
He shrugged and started shifting. “You’ll figure it out… I don’t have a problem eating raw meat.” He said just before he transformed fully.
He gave a low bark at me and raced into the bushes. I rummaged in the little bag I always carried across my shoulder. I emptied what was in the bag. The content was not much. Two bars of squeezed up Chocolate candy. Jake is not allowed to eat Chocolate. All werewolves aren’t allowed. There was also my knife. A withered leaf from the morteaux flower. A feather. A rough pause of paper. And a magnifying hand lens.
How did that get into my bag?
I popped a Chocolate in my mouth and went to gather some wood to make a fire.
The sun was getting hotter now. I made a measly gathering of wood and held the hand lens over a dry leaf until it caught fire. Then I placed the sticks on it and made a pretty good fire.
I stood back and admired my work as Jake came in from behind me holding a dead squirrel in his jaws. He dropped it at my feet and started shifting back to human.
I picked up the squirrel and got to work cutting it up.
“I never knew squirrels are so dammed fast.” Jake said pulling the robe over his head.
“Here. Hold this.” I handed him a end of a stick. “Hold it over the fire.”
The blood and little fat dripped into the fire and it made a sizzling sound as the meat cooked. I held another piece over the fire too.
“How’d you make the fire?” Jake asked. He bit into the under cooked meat and munched happily.
“I found a hand lens in my bag.” I answered, poking holes in my meat to make it cook faster.
“You’re going to burn that meat…” He said.
“Over cooked is better than under cooked.”
“It’s not!”
“It is!”
He didn’t reply to that. He cut out another piece of meat with my knife and held it over the fire.
I ate mine and stood up. “Jake. You’d better eat up so we can get going.”
“Yeah sure. I’m filled.”
We cooked some more meat and stored them in my bag. Then we buried the uneaten parts of it underneath a pike of humus and leaves.
“Do you think we might be in danger?” Jake asked as we walked and forced our way through a thick bush.
“You seem to have forgotten what the Centaur said last night.” I popped the other candy in my mouth.
“Yeah that true.” Jake said in a sober tone. “But we’ve got each other, right?”
I chuckled. “Yeah right.”
“The two of us. Unstoppable. Vampire killer werewolf… and werecat”
We walked on as the sun shone hard and harsh on us.