direction suddenly in unpredictable erratic leaps. We crashed through the fur trees and undergrowth behind him, narrowly avoiding the heavy trunks and other hidden dangers. My lungs burned as I struggled to keep up.
Lupe! Connor’s voice screamed in my head. You stay on the right, and just run straight at it. I’ll go left .
Okay , I telepathically called back to Connor, keeping my eyes fixed on the bouncing deer ahead.
Connor and I drifted apart, flanking the White Stag. We both ran in a straight line through the trees, no longer trying to match every wild direction change of our prey. As the deer zigzagged between us, we began to run it down, coming up alongside it.
We closed in like a pincer, just as the White Stag darted left. Connor lunged, catching its hind leg in his jaws. The Stag bellowed as it came down in the brush. It bucked and kicked violently. Then I heard Connor’s deep snarl instantly break into a squealing yelp.
Connor disappeared in the undergrowth as the White Stag bounded awkwardly back to its feet. It shot right across my path in front of me, within striking distance. As my front paws came up off the ground to make way for my back paws to take their place and propel me at my prey, my front legs caught on a fallen branch. I crashed to the ground in a flailing heap, and the White Stag pranced off into the trees.
“Oh fuck!” Connor cried, now in human form, holding his hand to his bleeding nose and mouth.
I stumbled to my feet and shook myself. God, he looked good, standing there among the trees in all his naked glory. I couldn’t help but look down at his cock. I swore that it twitched when he realized I was looking.
“Come on,” Connor snapped me out of it. “Let’s get this fucking thing.” He dived down onto his arms and transformed back into that wonderfully speckled brown wolf.
We ran after the White Stag, following its scent through the trees. We burst out into another snow covered clearing that ran all the way down the mountain to a small lake at the base of the valley. Our prey was already halfway down the slope when we resumed our chase in earnest. Even though Connor and I were the same size in wolf form, he was still faster. As we ran down the Stag, Connor pulled out ahead of me, first ten feet, then twenty. I was no match for him.
Lupe , his voice telepathically called out. Chase it into the Wendego Pass. I’ll cut it off at the other end . With that, Connor shot off into the trees to the right while I continued to pursue the White Stag down toward the lake.
I had closed the distance by the time we reached the shoreline, but I was in no position to bring it down. It kept trying to go left, but I needed to force it into the narrow gorge to the right. I came left to cut it off. As I did, I saw the White Princes approaching from downstream of the lake. They were over a mile away, but their presence ratcheted up the tension. Christ, where were the four grays? I thought.
There was no time to worry about that. My flanking maneuver worked, and the White Stag darted to the right, bounding along the shoreline toward the Wendego Pass. Although I was tiring, I was gaining. The Stag drifted away from the gorge, heading back uphill. But I shifted my trajectory, taking up a higher position, and at the last second, the White Stag of Lycanthus darted into the Wendego Pass.
I charged in after it. The close, rocky walls of the Pass towered above me, and shot past at a frightening speed as I sprinted with everything I had. Each jagged turn swung at me violently, trying to protect the fleeing deer ahead. Its scent and exhausted breath, concentrated in the close quarters of the Wendego Pass, filled my nostrils, spurring me on.
I was getting closer, catching longer and longer glimpses of the White Stag at each sharp turn. Before long, I held it