What the hell had possessed her to move up here?

And in the middle of winter?!

It was highly unusual for Kaiyla to follow any of Sera’s orders—if they could even be called that. The woman claimed that she was under no obligations, as was stated in the contract, to follow any orders. After all, a woman such as her was above giving orders. She was, of course, not above giving suggestion. Still it was there, signed in blood and wrought in black ink: as long as there no problems in completing her assignments, Kaiyla could do as she pleased.

That’s how things appeared to be on the surface. She was very thankful that she had been one of the agents that had not been required to be present at the base when the last one had failed to consider one of Sera’s suggestions. It was bad enough that she had been one of those who had seen the lacerated corpse that had been pulled from the Hudson on her way out of the city after completing an assignment.

There was a noise, a crack of a brittle branch, to her left. A small curse passed through her lips before she stopped in the shadow of a tree. Senses on high alert she leapt onto the closest branch and waited.

This is why she hated the daylight meetings! It was so easier to disappear when the moon was high and the shadows were deep.  She preferred the comfort of knowing that it would be impossible for anyone from town to notice as she crossed the rotted bridge towards the island that birthed screams and howls. It was almost pathetically cliché, the base of operations for the Northern Groupe. Clichéd as a haunted island was…it worked. There were just enough traps to occupy the locals and the tourists that were foolish enough to cross the bridge. No one had ever died.

At least no one that anyone cared about.

Of course, the only way to get to the haunted island was to skirt the edges of town until she could reach the bridge. Which was why she was wearing her day clothes, just in case.

Biting her lip, Kaiyla pushed back the memories that surfaced at the reminder of just in case. Those were places that were best off left alone. Heavy steps came closer, and her stomach rolled. Silently she unsheathed the dagger under her leather jacket and waited.

Dark, intelligent eyes set deep in a golden-complexed face poked out from the thorny underbelly of a nearby bush before the rest of the body followed. She took a moment to brush the indigo lock of hair that had an annoying habit of obstructing her vision at the worse possible moment, before dropping down to the ground below.

For a moment to the two merely stared at each other. Warm and dark met soft gold.

“Well, aren’t you a sweetie?” Her voice was soft, so as not to frighten him. He only looked at her in silent surprise, looking around uneasily. Her silver dagger glinted in the sun, drawing away his attention.

Kaiyla smiled at him easily and knelt down next to him. The forest was surprisingly silent, void even of the occasional chatter of birds. The absence of the flapping of wings as she dug the dagger into the back of his, through the coarse fur, and drove it through deep breaking the bone of the skull and piercing the brain.

He emitted a strangle cry when the blade broke through the flesh and blood trickled down and then went still.

The pristine snow was stained a sparkling ruby as she cleaned her blade against the frozen snow. Standing up, she studied the still form of the young cougar. It was small, too small to be wandering through these woods by itself.

A normal person probably would have been making post haste right at the moment, but then she wasn’t exactly normal, was she?

Sheathing her blade Kaiyla continued through the woods, her walk at a more leisurely pace. Raising her finger she sniffed at the blood on her fingertips. Her tongue darted out to taste it. Strange, it was so strange. Animal blood smelled no different then human, but the taste…

It was like the difference in between a sterile Thanksgiving dinner and a meal at a Mexican restaurant. The spice, the fat…it gave the blood so much more flavor then the crimson liquid of humanity.

Strange…so very, very strange.