Zach walked out of the room and closed the door behind him, and waited. The instant he heard the front door close he reopened it, poked his head out, wanting to get one last look at her as she left. When she realized she must have gone in the opposite direction, he began to bang his head gentle against the door framed.
What am I doing? He asked himself.
"Are you okay?" The voice brought him around and looked up to see Ted's concerned face.
"Just a hard day, man, that's all." He stood up straight and walked over to his business partner and friend.
Zach had known Ted for over six years, meeting him when he'd begun to hang around Marquette. He was a man of medium build and height, with brown hair and brown eyes. As a third dan black belt that had earned his third dan six months before Zach had, he was the master of the class. Not that Zach minded at all, let Ted do all the paperwork and administrative things, all he wanted to do was teach.
"Did you have any problems with the new students today?" He asked.
"None out of the ordinary. You know how it goes, can't do a front stance or a back stance to save their life even after an hour of practise. But I guess everyone's like that when they start." Ted chuckled.
"I know I was," Zach laughed along with his friend. "I couldn't even do a middle section block for weeks. I thought I'd never get my yellow belt."
"They do say that the yellow belt is the hardest to get."
"They are correct." Zach walked back to the shower room and peeled off his workout clothes, threw them in the hamper, took a quick shower, then headed home.
"What am I doing?" He moaned to the road as the miles sped by. So much had happened that all he wanted to do was get home, crawl into bed and sleep for a week.
He worked in Marquette but lives near Quinn, about three miles outside the small town. So his commute was nearly forty-five minutes. He didn't mind, the ride gave him a chance to strip his mind of everything that went on during the day arrive refreshed and ready to relax without so many worries.
But today was different. He couldn't get Zenah out of his head. Everything about her was perfect. From the way she talked to her smile. Even the way she picked up on his instruction gave him a sense of completeness. He'd felt empty when she'd had to leave, a feeling he'd never experienced before.
All of his life he'd been fine being alone. He'd lived alone ever since he was old enough to get out of the house. Of course, back then all he had to worry about was a mob with pitchforks and clubs chasing him if someone saw him change. Now, in the day of constant global overhead coverage, he had to be a lot more careful.
As he pulled into his driveway, he decided on a run. He hadn't had one in almost a week and he could feel it in every muscle. His race needed to change form at least once a week, if not they would become irritable and unpredictable. Since he was a cat, he preferred to run by himself. He shared his kills with no one.
Until tonight, if she were here he'd share with her, anything she wanted, he knew it. He laughed at himself out loud as he walked into his house. After a meal of ramen noodles and soda, he set off into the woods. Over his shoulder he carried a backpack filled with bottled water and some protein bars. Other than that, there was nothing inside it.
He walked slowly beneath the large trees, touching some as he passed, a memory shared with each one. For the last two hundred years, he'd own this property. Passing it to people that had already died, then buying it from them once he had a new identity established. He shook his head. It wasn't nearly as easy to make up a new identity as it had been in the past.
He owned almost six hundred acres of forest and had for two hundred and twenty-six years. In all that time it had never been cut, not one tree had been harvested from his land, and now the trees were enormous, the undergrowth almost non existent. He had been here for at least two growth cycles of the mighty maple trees that dominated his land. Watching them grow from seedlings up to huge trees that he could not reach around, then die and become a part of the soil once again. So he felt a special connection to everything he saw when he was out in these woods.
Finding a small patch of grass, he took off all of his clothes and folded them neatly. Next he placed them into his backpack and zipped it shut. Placing it against the base of one of the oak trees, he settled onto all fours.
Clearing his mind of everything else seconds later he felt his skin begin to prickle. Glancing down at his arms, he watched snow white hair begin to sprout from his skin. Then the pain hit, driving him onto his side.
He'd always liked those movies and novels that portray their werewolves or shifters as transforming without any pain from form to form. He'd really like that right now, with bones grinding together and muscles moving from position to position he could have used a little magic.
Minutes later he bounded to his feet, not even a lingering ache in his body. This was the present at the end of almost unendurable pain. He lifted his muzzle and screamed to the wind. Snarling, he tore off deeper into the woods.
He was like a pale shadow weaving through the trees and sparse undergrowth, two sets of legs working in complete unison, moving him without sound through his domain. But being a snow white leopard in woods filled with brown and green had its disadvantages as well. The biggest one being that nothing in the fall of the year except some species of mold was white. Another being the fact that all the prey species in this area learned at a young age that anything white and as big as he was was dangerous, very dangerous. So hunting had been difficult from the beginning.
But he'd learned as he'd aged how to hunt every creature in these woods, from the tiny mouse all the way to the moose that sometimes made their way through his forest. On this night he was after deer, white-tailed deer. He'd smelled them the instant he'd changed and was now working his way towards a stream bed. He needed to get down wind of them so his scent would be carried away from them, one whiff of him and they'd be gone in an instant.
He made it to the lip of the stream bed only a few minutes before the deer. He could hear them coming so he dropped to his belly, just the front of his head peeking over the rim to see what was below. Seconds later, a small herd of seven deer walked into view. There was five does and two bucks, one a mature twelve point, the other a small four. They milled around the creek side, their delicate noses thrusting into the moving water from time to time while no less than four of them kept watch. Their eyes and ears never stopped moving, never. But they couldn't see everything, nor could their noses pick up the scent of a predator that was down wind and at a higher elevation.
After they finished drinking, they began to work their way up stream. They would lower their heads to the ground and pick off a few tender shouts, then move to the next place and search for more. The more they moved up stream brought them closer to his over watch. At last one of the does was under him, not more than fifteen feet from where he perch. Its scent was literally rammed up his nose at this range. Unable to control himself any longer, Zach, in one mighty leap, flew off the lip of the ravine, landing on the deer's back.
Snorts and screams ensued as the rest of the herd scattered, but there was nothing his victim could do. She bucks and ran, but with two hundred and forty pounds of feline on her back, she didn't have the energy for sustained combat. All Zach had to do was hang on and wait. His claws made that simple, three inches of razor sharp bone. All he had to do was dig them in and wait.
At last the doe stumbled, the last of her energy spent, and went down. Leaping from her back, Zach clamped his massive jaws around her windpipe and sank his fangs in deep. It only took seconds for the lack of oxygen to stop the animal's heart. He hung on for a few more minutes to make sure of death before he began to feed.
The perfect ending to a very nice day.
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