Chapter 1

Beautiful Leila in the picture.

Leila'pov

"Do you realize how stupid you look right now?",I just had to ask because I really think it's lost on my brother that he looks like a complete idiot wading around trying to catch a fish with his teeth because, and I quote said idiot, "bears do it all the time". I just watch him from land and enjoy the feeling of the sun on my fur and watching the sun glitter on the water surface, with the occasional giggle at his feeble attempts. Which comes out more like a sneeze in my current form. After sucking water into his nose making him choke and cough and damn near drown about a dozen times he finally gives up and drags himself up to dry land and plants himself with a huff next to me.

"Soooo, you hungry then?" I ask through our pack link looking at my wet and somewhat pissy looking brother.

"Well my dear sister, whatever gave that away? Could it be me trying to catch a meal for the last hour?" is the ever so slightly sarcastic answer I get.

"I guess this would be a good time to tell you that I have some money in my clothes, and I could really go for a burger", I tell him and let out a lazy yawn.

"Are you kidding me? You had money all along and just let me make an ass out of my self?"

"Well yeah, isn't that kinda my job as a sister, let you make an ass of your self?" With that comment I get a big paw slapped across my face, but he knows better than to try to fight me because he might be the male, but I'm the fighter and there is no way he can win against me unless I let him.

We both get up and shift back to our human form, and put on the clothes we left by a tree. We look pretty similar I guess, most people know we are brother and sister by looking at us. We both have dark brown hair, his cut short and mine a little longer than shoulder length. We both have tan skin, both muscular, but lean. Same high cheekbones and the same straight nose. I have a dusting of freckles, and I love them. The biggest difference is that he has the most beautiful dark blue eyes and I have green eyes, and I have been told by a nice collection of males that they are beautiful as well.

Hell, there seems to be the general consensus amongst males that I am quite alluring, and I don't mind that because I enjoy male company every once in awhile. Especially two times a year when I go into heat, one time I was unprepared when it hit. I got so crazy I tried to mate with a damn bear, my choice was my brother or the bear, I still say I made the right call. But the bear didn't see it that way, I ended up unmated with some serious claw marks and a brother who still, years after it happened teases me about it. Family sucks sometimes, but I love the doofus, so I stick with him. That's actually really rare in the tiger world, but we lost our mother when we were 4, and when we survived together against all odds it just felt natural to stay together.

From time to time me and my brother get sick of eating raw meat or start to get on each others nerves, so we find a town, get jobs, usually waiting tables or doing dishes, so we can make some money and eat actual cooked food, go to movies, get haircuts or get motel rooms so we can take showers and sleep on real beds. Just because we live like animals a lot of the time does not mean we are animals. And since we are a bit more social than most of our kind we do well with people around us.

Getting into town was easy enough, we splurged on a truck a few months back, we just park it by the side of the road whenever we feel the need to run or hunt. So about 30 min later we found our selves sitting in a booth in a burger joint waiting for our large order of burgers, fries, sodas and milkshakes. It's not like we get fat with our shifter metabolism, so why restrict calories?

One problem we often run into in towns are werewolves, those asshats seem to be everywhere, and they do not like us very much. The feeling is mutual, it's the whole cats and dogs thing I guess, we just always seem to get into fights. Luckily so far we have gotten away before anything too serious have happened, but there has been the odd broken nose and some bloodshed. So whenever we are discovered by wolves we try to disappear as fast as possible, before we cause a commotion. I'm not really sure what makes us fight, I just know that their scent alone is enough to put me on edge, and probably read more into their actions and words than I should. So I can't completely blame the wolves, but they are annoying as hell. So far neither of us have scented any so we both relax back in our seats and enjoy some people-watching through the window next to our booth.

About midway through our meal I see someone on the street that makes my blood run cold. He's in his mid-thirties dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, so he looks like an everyday kind of guy. But this is a man we have seen before, and our last encounter was not a happy one. This guy is a hunter, and what I see in his eyes sends another chill through my body; he recognizes me too.

"Fuck, get ready to leave in a hurry," I send through our mind link "we have an unwelcome guest of the hunting variety."

Kyle tenses, but quickly recovers and keeps eating like nothings going on. "Excuse me miss," he calls on our waitresses, a woman in her late forties, attention "is there a back way out of this place? I just saw my ex and I really wanna avoid an awkward situation", he's using that smile and flirty tone that makes all women, and plenty of guys, stop and blush. Our waitress is no exception when she smiles back with a face the color of a ripe tomato and gives him directions for the back door. "Thank you honey," he says and winks at her, the poor womans face takes on an even darker shade of red and she actually giggles.

Paying our bill, and giving our waitress a nice tip, we get up and move towards the back door.

We move calmy until we are out of view from the outside, and then we head for the back door like we have the devil on our tail. Which is pretty much the truth, to shifters hunters are the devil. We burst through the door and as luck will have it, it leads straight towards the woods, that is the only place we have the upper hand. At least that's what we hope. As soon as we burst through the treeline we shift, ripping our clothes in the process. But that is not a big concern at this time, we just have to get away and clothes are easy to come by. Now that we are in our tiger form our senses sharpen, and we soon realize that the hunter was not alone.

The scent of 20+ humans are close by and judging from the adrenaline mixed with their scent it's not campers, meaning the hunters came in numbers and they were ready for our move. We can even hear barking, which means they brought dogs. Now dogs would normally not be a problem, but faced with so many hunters we can't really take our time to stop and kill dogs. And they can track us, meaning it will be harder to get away. Past experience tells us that the dogs are most likely equipped with GPS trackers, so hunters placed further into the woods can track where we go.

"Shit, it feels like we are surrounded, so which way do we go?" Kyle damn near screams through our mind link as we pause for a matter of seconds to get our bearings.

"Well if we're surrounded, it really doesn't matter where we go. So I say we keep going straight and hope the Goddess is on our side today". And that's what we do, we run.

As soon as we start running I can hear the sound of guns going off and feel bullets whizzing by our bodies, but luckily we are moving so fast that we make hard targets to hit. One hunter is stupid enough to stand right in the way of my escape, he must be new to the game cause he panics and shoots with his eyes closed when he sees me. I leap on him and sink my teeth into his neck, I taste the coppery taste of blood in my mouth and the man gargles as I bite down and easily tear his throat out. I feel no remorse at that, if the choice is me or someone else then someone else will die. By some kind of amazing luck we get past the first line of hunters with barely a scratch, I can feel that at least one bullet nicked my back, but that's not enough to slow me down. Bullets will kill us, we are shifters and heal fast, but we are not immortal. It takes a few good hits to take us down though, so as long as we keep moving fast it should be ok.

We run as fast as we can for several hours, I don't know how long, it's hard to keep track. But judging from the sun it must be at least five hours later when we smell water and finally slow down, to rehydrate and try to figure out our next move. I start scenting the air and listening for threatening sounds, but smell and hear nothing so I give the go ahead to drink.

"Man, it sucks that we had to leave our truck, I really liked that piece of crap. We saved for months to get it" Kyle starts griping as soon as he's done drinking.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, but we can save and buy a new one. The important thing is we're still alive". I say while I drink and he keeps a lookout for danger.

"I guess, but it still sucks. I didn't even get to be pulled over and fined for driving without a license. I was kinda looking forward to that, and maybe see if I could flirt my way out of the ticket."He says with a grin on his tigerface. I had to laugh a little at that.

"I knew I shouldn't have let you watch Cops, it's giving you the weirdest ideas. But let's get moving, it still feels like we are to close to danger." We start moving again, I won't feel safe until we are at least a day away from the town.

After another couple of hours I feel the hairs on my neck stand, it feels like we are being watched. I stop to scent the air, and that's when I hear guns firing and feel bullets pierce through my flank, my neck, and of all places my ass! I turn around and see that Kyle is also hit, but still standing. We both start running as fast as we can, but we are losing blood and our situation is going downhill fast.

"The fucking assholes are probably waiting for us to succumb to the bloodloss, then they will send in the dogs to track us and finish us off" Kyle says, pain present in his tone.

"I know, but we can still catch a break, I smell water, if that's a river we can jump in, let the current drag us for a while and get out on the other side. That will at least make it harder for the dogs to track us and slow them down." The constant moving is keeping our wounds open and the blood pouring. I'm starting to get really weak by this point, and the only thing keeping me going is adrenaline and the thought of what would happen to Kyle if I give up.

As soon as we reach the source of the water scent I feel like crying, it's a river and we still have a chance. I sent a silent prayer and thanks to the Goddess and we both jump in. The cool water feels like heaven on my wounds and my sore, tired body. We let the river carry us downstream for quite some time, we only get out when the cold water goes from being our friend to becoming our enemy. We don't want to add hypothermia to our list of problems. Using our last scrap of energy we drag our selves up from the water and crawl more than walked over to some trees hoping it will shield us a little. We both fall asleep from the sheer exhaustion, as the darkness creep up on me I think to my self that sleeping is a bad idea, but I have no control over my body anymore.

I wake up with a feeling of danger, but my body is still too weak for me to do much more than open my eyes. And that's when my senses come back and I just want to scream. There are at least 10 people standing over us, staring, with hostility and anger coming off them in waves. And that smell...."Oh no, wolves", is my last thought before the big guy towering over me spits out a not very nice "Night, night cat", lifts his boot and kick me in the head with so much force that I black out again.

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So, this was my first attempt at writing, I'm hoping it didn't suck too bad. Now English is not my first language so there might be some weird typos and bad grammar, please don't judge me too harshly on that.

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