Hood strained against her bindings, but the convoluted array of rope and knots was tighter and more secure than ever. It would take her hours to work her way free, hours she feared she didn’t have. With an annoyed growl she motioned with her head toward the ropes binding her one remaining arm. “Lumpy! Bite!” They were good, strong ropes, but Lumpy had once managed to gnaw his way though a fencepost thicker than a man’s arm, and in mere minutes his grinding teeth had reduced the coils of rope to frayed ends. Her arm freed, Hood quickly undid the rest of her bindings, but by then she had managed to work herself into a near-panicked frenzy. Without a moment’s delay she grabbed her sword and rushed off into the woods, following the trail of the demon’s stink. Lumpy followed her with his gaze for a moment before giving a long-suffering huff and grabbing the straps of her pack between his teeth, picking it up and trotting after her into the woods with bad grace. The trees seemed to fly past as Hood ran through the woods, but all she could think was that she wasn’t fast enough. Ulrik could be hurt, could be getting himself killed by some demon or other, all because she wasn’t fast enough to save him. Without thinking she drew upon all the strength she could muster, her demonic blood pounding in her ears as she felt an almost burning heat spreading from her core. Her vision grew red, and she felt as though her teeth and nails were growing, turning harder and sharper as she ran through the dark woods. Her muscles seemed to bulge with newfound strength and her veins stood out clearly against her skin, painting an ugly network of deep red lines against the pale surface. Half crazed with rage and fear, she dropped her sword and threw herself down, her clawed fingers digging into the ground for a moment before she pulled herself forward, exchanging her run for an ungainly sort of wobbling, three-legged lope. The light of the rising sun seemed to flash and flicker in her eyes as she bolted through the trees, her awkward gait somehow pushing her forward faster than she had ever run on two legs. She felt a rising urge to howl her anguish to the skies, but she pushed it down. Howling would cost her some breath, and she needed all her breath to run. When she finally burst into a clearing that stank of blood and sweat, it took her but a moment to asses the situation. A young demon wolf, still no larger than a boarhound, lay dead on the ground, Ulrik’s axe buried deep in its head. More urgently, Ulrik lay prone and bleeding right next to it, the cub’s mother pinning him to the ground, her teeth inches away from his throat. Hood felt as if her heart would freeze at the sight, but in an instant her rage overcame her fear and she felt the demon blood burning in her veins, urging her to act, to attack. With a snarl she launched herself at the beast, toppling it with the speed of the impact and bearing down on it in a mad frenzy. The demon and the girl fought in a flurry of mindless aggression, tooth against tooth and claw against claw as they rolled through the rotting leaves that littered the ground. Hood barely felt the gashes that opened in her skin, her mind empty of all thought save for the need to destroy this thing that threatened what was hers. Gaining the upper hand for a moment, she noticed a large protruding stone in the ground right beside the demon’s head and, acting almost entirely on instinct, she grabbed the creature by the ear and used all her strength to slam its head against the stone. With her foe momentarily dazed, she lunged for its throat, tearing at it with fang and claw until she finally managed to rip open a vein. Blood spurted from the wound in great, gushing bursts, and in moments its struggles grew weak and finally stopped. Hood got back on her feet and howled her triumph to the skies, taking a moment to exult in her victory before settling back in her unsteady, three-legged stance. She cast her head about the clearing in search of other challengers, and… And Ulrik was hurt. He had managed to sit up, but he looked pale and weak and his wounds were bleeding and… And he was pack. Ulrik was pack and he was hurt and he didn’t need a beast to fight for him, he needed a human to tend his wounds. With an effort of will Hood pushed herself through the rage, the rush of demonic strength receding as her mind returned to her. She hurried up to her injured companion and started ripping strips of fabric from his clothes with her still sharp and claw-like nails. As she started binding the worst of his wounds, he looked at her with bleary eyes. “Hood…? You came?” “Of course I came, you idiot. Now sit still and be quiet. Don’t waste your energy.” She continued binding his wounds, but she was acutely aware she was losing a lot of blood herself. There probably wasn’t enough fabric between them, clad in leather as they were, to bind both their wounds. And as if that wasn’t enough, Ulrik didn’t have her demonic hardiness, so she wanted to clean his wounds out as soon as possible to prevent infection. But both her bandages and her spirits were in her pack, half a forest away, and she was in no state to go fetch them. “Damn it all! I am NOT going to lose you! Certainly not after I bit out another demon’s throat to save your sorry arse! It’s just! Not! FAIR!” And that was when Lumpy burst into the clearing like the worlds fattest, most disgruntled angel, her pack clenched between his teeth. The next day or so passed in a bit of a blur as Hood and Ulrik patched themselves up and tried to recover their strength. It was almost nightfall by the time they could find the energy to speak, so of course the first thing they did was have a flaming row. “What on earth possessed you to do something so stupid?” Hood growled. “You should know better than to hunt alone!” “Well what was I supposed to do? You were out cold and quite possibly still out of your wits!” “Wake me, lie low, anything other than go chasing after demons yourself.” “It was drawing closer! I had to lead it away or it might have killed you in your sleep.” “It nearly killed you!” “That’s still better than it killing you.” She stared at him like she couldn’t believe what he’d just said. “Have you gone completely mad?” “Just the opposite! Think about it, Hood. The king of all demons is walking the earth. Do you think for a second that bodes well for the world? And between the two of us, I’m hardly the more likely to stop him. Him or all the other demons killing and maiming their way across the lands as we speak. If I die, it means the death of one man. If you die it would mean the death of the thousands or tens of thousands of people you’d have saved.” “That’s not the point!” “Then what is the point? What point could possibly be more important than thousands of innocent lives?” “The point is that you’re MINE!” Hood snarled, reflexively baring her fangs at him as she felt the rage rising inside her. “You are pack, and I’m not going to let you die.” “And what makes you think I don’t feel the same way?” The brought Hood up short, the rage falling away as quickly as it had come. “I… Suppose I just never thought about it that way.” “Well, you should. You’re all I have left, and I’m not going to let you die just to save my own skin.” Hood let herself fall back against the tree behind her with a soft sigh. “Fair enough, I suppose. But I don’t like it.” “So you’re not still mad at me, then?” She sighed once more, quite deeply this time, but when next she spoke her voice was calm. “No, I’m not still mad at you.” “Good, because I think I tore open the wound on my belly while we were yelling, and I’m going to need your help rebinding it.” With a small, resigned groan Hood dug another roll of bandages from her pack and made her way over to him.