Mated To The Alpha: A Standalone Wolf Shifter Romance, стр. 54
Being the oldest, she'd done her best to help out as any boy-child would, learning to hunt and fish as well as garden, sew and cook, but she knew her dad had always hoped to have a son or six to follow in his footsteps as a were-hunter and to take on the yearly pilgrimage to the castle.
Keelyn could hunt as well, if not better, than any local boy she'd ever gone up against, but she wasn't sure she wanted her occupation to be that of a were-hunter like her father, and his father, and his father before that. Female were-hunters were unheard of, and besides, she was leaning toward becoming some kind of a doctor, specializing in babies and pregnancies. That was also unheard of, for a woman to be a doctor, but that didn't seem to bother her nearly as much as the thought of becoming the only known female were-hunter did.
She had yet to actually come across a werewolf, which seemed to annoy her father greatly. He just knew that once she took one down, she'd be as addicted to the were-hunt as he was, but every time he'd taken her on a hunt they'd come up empty handed.
"Were-hunting gets in your blood, Keelyn." He'd said many times over the years. "It becomes who you are. The money is pretty good, but it's the high, the pure joy of taking out one of those foul creatures that sticks with you. If I'd had a whole mess of boys, we'd be swimming in coin. But with it just being me hunting them, and with you being a girl and still just a bit young to go off were-hunting on your own for months at a time, well, at least it still pays our yearly rent."
Her mind was running all of his well-known speeches together in her head as they closed in on the downed deer.
The shot had been true, no need to put the buck out of his misery as he was already dead.
They took a moment to quietly thank the buck for giving its life so that her whole family could eat for days, and also use the hide for clothing and such, and settled in to prepare the deer for easier carrying back home.
Keelyn was clearing her mind for the task at hand when something made every hair she had stand on end. She knew to listen to her instincts, and paused in her efforts long enough to take a hard look at the wooded forest surrounding them. Something had set off her internal alarms, and she wasn't about to get lost in the routine of preparing the animal until she knew what had caused her discomfort.
Her eyes darted quickly, from shadow to tree, letting her instincts aim her gaze. She heard her own sudden intake of breath and felt her entire body freeze as she spotted it. Her brain took an extra second to catch up, to process what her eyes were seeing.
It was almost invisible in the shadows of the forest. The leaves swayed softly overhead, making light and dark dance against tree trunks, splattering the pine needle-covered forest floor with splotches of darkness that helped to hide things that stood this eerily still in the darkening woods.
It was the shine of the eyes that gave it away.
Keelyn eyed the animal as her brain tried to take in enough details to decide if it was a normal wolf or a were, although why she bothered, she didn't know. The method of dealing with either was the same.
She sorted her thoughts in an instant, self-protection kicking in. She knew field dressing a deer was supposed to be quick work as the scent of blood from a fresh kill could draw anything from a bear to a bobcat, or their were-versions, in like a magnet to investigate the scent.
Everything seemed to run in slow motion as she took the animal in. She knew somehow that only a heartbeat or two had passed, but she'd had time to notice that this wolf was larger than any normal wolf she'd ever seen.
True, any wolves she had seen were from a distance, hugging the tree line, looking like a close cousin to a domestic dog or coyote, but not this creature. This wolf was huge.
She was drawn in by the creature's eyes. There was intelligence there, a calculated wariness, which made her hackles rise even higher. It helped confirm for her that this was no normal wolf.
Just as she was about to stand up, to raise her bow and load an arrow, the wolf suddenly confused her. It blinked and nodded its head, almost in acknowledgement that this was her kill, and it seemed to start to back away.
The odd feeling of knowing the wolf's intent hit her brain in the exact instant that her father stood up from the buck's carcass, like she'd been about to, his bow already drawn and aimed.
He muttered the words, "And there's our last bit of rent money now," as he released his pull on the bow's string, sending his arrow flying toward the werewolf.
The wolf raised its head, seeming to brace itself with a grimace, and the arrow skimmed along from snout to ear, cutting a slice out of the wolf's face but doing no further damage.
The wolf stood its ground for an instant, seeming to Keelyn to say "Really, that's the thanks I get for bowing out?" before slowly turning and walking away.
Why her dad fired at the wolf's head as it was facing them dead on, she had no idea. True, this was the first werewolf she had seen in person, and her father had not only seen but killed many others, but even she knew that a kill shot was aimed at an animal's tender bits, not its hard, protective skull. Their homemade, sharpened arrows were capable of great