They didn’t answer but it didn’t matter.  Their leader changed each cycle, but their goals did not.

“If I’m the dreamer, then we all know the outcome,” I said.  “Walk away and maybe I’ll live for another day.”

“I don’t think so, little girl,” he said as he eyed my knife.

“I’d hoped history wouldn’t repeat itself this time.  I’m tired of dying.” The fear left me.  Only sorrow remained as I spun the knife deftly and plunged it toward my soft middle.

The man roared and moved before the tip did more than pierce the surface.  I’d underestimated their speed.  But, when he batted it out of my hands, he didn’t realize he furthered my cause.  A thin trail of fire blazed across my middle, superficial at best, but his nostrils flared as he scented my blood.  I shifted my stance, bracing myself.

He growled but didn’t touch me further.  We stood facing each other with me slightly bent holding an arm against the sting on my stomach.  The other two stood several paces behind their spokesperson.

“Come with us on your own and spare yourself some pain.”

Spare myself pain?  He had just acknowledged I remembered my—our—past lives.  “Stupid dog,” I laughed.

He cuffed me upside the head, knocking me to my side.  I staggered but did not fall.  It hurt my cut but brought me closer to my knife.  I didn’t look at the shining blade resting on the decaying leaves.  Instead, I straightened and faced him again.

“Your brain mustn’t have expanded again with that last shift.”

This time he slapped me.  It was hard enough to justify a stumble a few more steps to my right.

“See?” I managed on a pain-filled exhale.  “Pain is all you know how to give.  There won’t be any sparing of anything but kindness and mercy.”

He snorted.  “Mercy is for the weak.”

“No.  Mercy is for anyone with a big enough vocabulary to —”

I didn’t get to finish the insult.  He knocked me hard.  The side of my face exploded in agony as I went down.  This time, right on the knife.  I laughed like a madwoman as I lay there.  No one moved to touch me again. Were they trying to figure out what was so funny?  It didn’t matter.  I’d reached my goal.  They wouldn’t have me this time.

Putting my arms under myself, I palmed the handle and stood, hiding my weapon behind my back, trying to angle the blade for my next fall.

“Stupid,” I taunted.

Before he could move, something big and dark flew toward one of the beasts, knocking it into a tree.  I didn’t take my eyes from the man in front of me, but it looked like another one of them, half transformed.

The attention of the one in front of me didn’t waver either.  As soon as one of his own hit the tree, he immediately grabbed for me.  I slashed out with the knife, taking him by surprise.  The wild swing relieved him of a not quite human digit.  He screamed as behind him another member of his pack flew at the new attacker.

The wolf before me ignored the blood dripping from his hand and crouched slightly, watching me closely.  His injury had wiped his patronizingly amused expression from his face.  Tense, he hesitated, unsure how to come at me.

I grinned at him.  “Stupid and slow.  A bad combination in a fight.”

His lip curled back in a silent snarl a moment before he lunged toward me.  I swung the knife up and over in a diagonal slash that caught his chest and part of his face when he pulled back.  My arm ached from the force I’d used.  I knew I wouldn’t take him by surprise again.  Or could I?

He lunged once more, but this time I did not swing for him. I brought the knife up to my own neck.  Seeing the edge poised at my throat, he suddenly flew backwards, away from me.  The move gave me a clear view of who’d joined the fight.

Luke, shifted to a mix of more wolf than man, held my tormentor by the throat.  The man’s flesh bulged between Luke’s fingers.  The man flailed but didn’t make a sound.  He couldn’t.  Luke spun, putting his back to me at the same time his arm twitched.  A loud popping crack sounded.  The man stilled.

In the silence, I caught a distant sound of drumming feet hitting the ground.  My shoulders slumped and the unfurling hope within me quickly withered.  Too many this time.

Luke tossed the dead man aside and pivoted toward the sound. His strong back shielded me from the horde racing toward us.  For just a moment, I rested my forehead against the solid wall of him.  I breathed deeply smelling his sweat and soap.  He didn’t move.  His focus remained on the oncoming pack.  He would die for me.  My chest tightened, and I struggled with my next inhale.  I didn’t want that.  But I knew he wouldn’t leave.

The drumming grew louder.  Branches snapped as the wolves forced their way toward us.  A howl rent the air.

How had I been so stubbornly stupid?  In a way, I still was.  Too afraid to admit, even to myself, how much I cared for the man standing in front of me.  I’d squandered any chance for happiness—no matter how brief—in this life.  I hoped the memory of Luke and how I felt for him would give me more courage in the next one.  Courage to trust.  Courage to see the truth.  He wasn’t one of them.

“I will hold the memory of you in my heart forever,” I managed to say before a single tear rolled down my cheek.  That’s all I had time for. I hoped he knew what he meant to me.  Straightening, I flipped the knife so the handle was clasped in my hand, but the blade along my forearm angled outward. I hoped it would be harder to knock out of my hand that way.

As the first of them erupted from the underbrush, Luke spun out with his claws, slashing through the wolf’s soft underbelly.  Its sharp cry pierced the air and signaled the start of madness.

I braced myself, ready for anything, but nothing broke through Luke’s guard with the first wave.  He knocked body after body back, eviscerating those he could.  Blood soaked the ground, but he held firm.

A movement away from the main attack caught my attention.  I looked away from the carnage to see several sneaking around us.  Turning, I stood with my back to Luke.

I stood in a bloodied field.  Bodies littered the ground around me, but still more came.  I moved like water, bending and flowing over the mass that would kill me, anger fueling me.  I had no claws, but the knives struck them just as well.

The vision slammed into me, then left me as I blinked at the dogs who’d come several steps closer.  The echo of that epic battle burrowed into my mind and wouldn’t let go.  I could fight.  Loosening my stance, I slightly bent my knees, ready on the balls of my feet.  I could do better than a lucky swing that might claim a finger.  I could kill.  Adrenaline surged through me.  I looked at the numbers around us and doubted it would be enough.

The first one crept toward me, and I felt Luke shift behind me.

“Focus on your side,” I said as I moved like water once again, but for the first time in this life.  Wide stance...lean to the side and sweep the arm out as you move, I thought.  The blade slid through flesh and bumped bone.  I pulled the blade back and shifted my weight to the other side to kick out, knocking the shocked beast to the side.

I grinned.  I got this!  Using my muscles in ways they had never been used in this life time, I continued sweeping and slashing my blade.  The sharp edge bit into the fur covered flesh of three of them before they partially shifted.  They didn’t want to kill me so their fangs and claws had less use than opposable thumbs.  Still, I had an advantage for a while.  Then, I noticed some of the cuts I’d made starting to knit together.  I needed to do more than wound.  My mind knew the moves, but my untrained body often fell short on delivery.

Soon their anger over my continued slices had them striking harder.  Aches formed where they’d managed to sneak through my guard and hit me.  Those punishing blows were meant to wear me down.  It worked.  An attacker caught my arm and pulled me forward, off balancing me so I fell toward his chest.