here's the third chapter! still long, but read it and tell me what you think!
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Chapter 3
Eventually, night cast its ominous shadow over the dense forest and transformed it from a carefree sunlit paradise to a dark mysterious shadowland with towering trees and looming bushes. The chill in the air crept up my neck, sent slight tremors down my spine, cooled the lining of my throat, and clung to my eyelashes.
Trembling, I pulled my black hoodie tightly around me and attempted to warm up my hands, which were purple with cold. I looked down at my shivering body and noticed for the first time that my thin black hoodie and ripped jeans were smeared with blood (I wondered briefly whose it was) and I must have truly looked the part of a werecat. I shivered. My clothes were also very flimsy, leaving little barrier between my skin and the cold. I glanced up at Rourke, who was wearing a brown leather jacket over a black turtleneck and jeans. He looked perfectly warm. I rubbed my hands together again, envious. I just hoped this secret meeting was indoors.
Speaking of which, how much farther away was this stupid ‘clan gathering’? It couldn’t be far now, it must have been nearing midnight. I unfroze my lips to pelt Rourke with more irritated questions but he answered me before I got the chance.
“There it is,” he whispered, his voice mimicking someone who was recalling their deepest desire. It was an almost reverent tone.
I peered through the obscurity of trees, eagerly searching for some sign of what he was referring to.
We had to take a couple steps forward before I saw it. Ahead were four enormous oak trees, larger than I had ever seen, arranged in a rectangular shape about the size of a football field. People, or werecats I suppose, were crammed into every space between them. Well, crap it was outside; I rubbed my arms.
I blinked.
It was like a sea of bodies, growing more and more restless by the second, every one staring at a space between two of the trees. It was filled only by one figure, way off in the distance; the way they were all gathered around him I assumed he was the leader. I could hardly see him and was just about to creep closer for a glance when Rourke seized my arm and started dragging me towards him.
“Rourke? What are you doing?” I whispered, surprised.
He glanced down at me and grinned, showing his pointed teeth, “Taking my seat.”
“What?” I whispered, confused now.
“You asked me why the clan would wait for me. I am Llewellyn’s most trusted accomplice,” he answered, staring straight ahead. His chest swelled with pride.
“Luwhelen…who?”
“Llewellyn”-he enunciated the name-“ is the leader of our great clan.”
“Oh. Sorry… is that him up there, where everyone’s looking?”
“Yes. Now come on.”
“Fine. Let go of my arm.”
He released it.
While I rubbed the skin, I realized something, “Am I going to be sitting up there too?”
“Yes, you are my responsibility now.”
I gave him a dirty look, “What if I don’t want to sit up there with a million people staring at me?”
“Too bad, you’re going to have to deal with it. Besides, they won’t be looking at you, they’ll be looking at Llewellyn. And you will be able to hear better than nearly everyone else.”
I scowled and followed Rourke as we wound our way through the crowd to Llewellyn. He was very tall with unkept brown hair, a long grinning face, sharp features, and a tiny pointed beard. He was wearing casual dark jeans and a black button up shirt that accentuated his height. He reminded me of a rebellious teenager, except with a certain air that suggested power and wisdom. As we drew nearer, I noticed he was busy talking to a short stout man. He looked up and grinned when he saw Rourke. He dismissed the man he had been talking to.
“Rourke! I almost thought you weren’t coming! What took you so long? We’ve nearly started,” Llewellyn boomed, shaking Rourke’s hand energetically.
“Yes, well my apologies I’ve had a bit of a… catastrophe on my hands,” he gestured toward me.
I gave Rourke a scowl out of the corner of my eye before meeting Llewellyn’s eager gaze. It was a bit like meeting the president of the United States, except he was much more zealous. His eyes were bright neon green with highlighter yellow specks and they felt like they were boring into your soul so that you wanted to cover yourself up, feeling unworthy of the eagerness with which he addressed you. It was a very strange feeling.
“Ah, so Rourke’s found himself another kitten has he? The old softie. Did you bite this one?”
Rourke shook his head slowly, smiling at Llewellyn’s antics, “Guerin again, I killed him this time.”
Llewellyn looked surprised, “I know you don’t like him, but he does have to eat. Why’d you stop him?”
“She outran him for nearly a mile, Llewellyn. I saw potential and you did remind me to keep my eye out for that.”
Llewellyn was staring at me again, wondrously, “Nearly a mile?”
I started to feel uncomfortable, “It wasn’t that miraculous, really, he was kind of clumsy and we had to jump over a lot of things. Besides, he did catch me in the end and I would have died if Rourke hadn’t…” I had a feeling I was rattling on, beginning to sound idiotic.
Llewellyn was shaking his head, smiling softly, “Impressive catch Rourke.”
Rourke grinned and winked at me.
And this is the leader of the werewolves? I thought, Greeaat.
“Well, it’ll be interesting to see how she turns out, won’t it?” Llewellyn straightened up to his full height and rubbed his hands together, “I better get the meeting started.”
Rourke nodded and retreated to his seat on the right side of Llewellyn’s. After looking around for another chair and finding none, I sat on the ground by Rourke.
Llewellyn took a couple steps forward and shouted, “Alright! Meeting’s about to begin!”
It was amazing how far his voice carried through the forest, booming and echoing between the trees. The crowd was absolutely silent, as if disobeying Llewellyn in the slightest would lead to great peril.
“My fellow werecats, thank you all for coming on such short notice with no idea why you were coming in the first place! I have called this emergency gathering because a great threat to werecat secrecy has made itself known. I know that all of you are thinking it is the werewolves as usual”-there were several snarls of contempt amongst the crowd-“ and it is, but this time they have a new leader. He is none other than Bortok”-now the crowd gasped in unison-“our old pack leader. He has betrayed us! The werewolves bit him and now he is leading them in a full-scale assault against our clan! He knows our inner workings, our secrets, our weaknesses. They now have a tactical advantage as well as an advantage in numbers and our only defense will be an advantage in skill. Quality, not quantity. Those of you who have fought the werewolves know they prefer to go off pure instinct, raw and rough. They bite as many people as they can during a full moon and throw them into battle. So, we will try a new strategy! Instead of biting as many people as possible, we will only bite those who show physical ability and train them to perfection. Will all untrained werecats please rise?”
About ten out of all those werecats stood. And, with a nudge from Rourke, I did too. After glancing about nervously, we sat. I shivered as a gust of wind invaded the hood of my sweatshirt as Llewellyn started up again.
“These young werecats will be personally instructed by the council and myself while the rest of you will undergo a series of difficult training courses. Obviously, we will be abandoning our old fort because Bortok literally designed that place. We will be residing in this forest; a new fort has already been built. We will be living in one colony for a while, so it’s going to take some getting used to. Never, in our history have we had so many werecats living together so this could be rough. After this meeting is over, you will receive directions to the fort and your living arrangements. Again, this has never been done before so… well, desperate times call for desperate measures. Dismissed!”
Llewellyn turned quickly, rushed, and called to Rourke, “Gather the council, we need to meet now. You… what is your name?”
“Me?” I stuttered, “oh umm Coden.”
He nodded and strode briskly away, motioning for Rourke to follow as he did. Before he left, Rourke looked over his shoulder at me and mouthed, “follow the crowd.”
And I was left feeling very confused.
It seemed strange that Llewellyn had conducted the meeting in such a rushed manner, he had given the werecats little detail, almost as if he thought he was being watched. And why had he seemed so interested in me? He must meet thousands of ‘kittens’ every day and yet he had been so intrigued by everything I said.
I shook my head, annoyed. Why couldn’t anybody just tell me what the heck was going on?
Around me, the crowd of werecats was swarming and roaring towards someone to my left. I took a step forward, towards him and glanced around. What I saw surprised me. Every face was feral, angry, eyes glistening, shoving each other. On my right, a fight broke out. One large stocky werecat launched himself at a tall hunched one, the taller one swiveled and the other changed direction a moment later. Fangs bared, they circled each other, shoving others out of the way in the process and getting snapped at for their rudeness. In front of me, another fight exploded between an eye-catching woman and a slightly insane looking man. I tried to hurry forward, towards the figure in the distance. The entire crowd was elbowing and snarling, pushing past each other.
“Get outta’ my way!” a gruff voice yelled, shoving me to the ground.
I looked up in surprise and a rough, angry face stared down at me. His eyes glistened purple red.
A new anger pulsed through me, hot in my veins, raging, consuming all reason, filling me with killer instinct thoughts. The monster inside me roared and I leapt to my feet, snarling.
The man who had pushed me growled down at me, “Got something to say to me, kitten?” He laughed and grinned, showing yellowed teeth, his foul breath washed over my face, but I was not intimidated. The new anger in me did not allow it. Where fear would usually have polluted my thoughts, the anger, adrenaline, an eager need to fight, and prove myself ran through me.
“As a matter of fact,” I began, my lip twitching, “I DO!” My hands, of their own accord, came up and shoved him instinctively. He stumbled backwards.
“Oh-ho! Shouldn’ta done that, kitten. Now I gotta’ teach you a lesson,” he grinned confidently but I had seen the surprise in his eyes when I shoved him.
“You can try,” I challenged, grinning as if the idea were ridiculous. What was I doing?! He was huge! But suddenly I didn’t care. The monster in me didn’t care. People in the crowd had turned to look at us, a newborn werecat against a huge full-grown one that I assumed, from the shouts in the crowd, was well-known. Why did they care? There were a million fights breaking out left and right, why did they choose to stare at us?
I pushed the thoughts out of my mind, focusing on my opponent. The watching crowd swelled, anticipating excitement but I didn’t care. It was just him and me.
We circled slowly, him making sarcastic comments about apologizing to Rourke for beating me up and me grinning evilly, as if I knew something he didn’t.
“Oh, kitten, I have a favor to ask. When I beat you, don’t cry too hard. People will accuse me of ‘child abuse’,” he laughed, and his friends joined in.
He laughed again, grinning at one of his friends in particular. I realized how ridiculous we must look. He was enormous, bearded, over muscled, wilder looking than several werecats there and I was small, slight, perhaps agile looking but dwarfed in size. I was an idiot.
He turned his head to the side, exposing a fraction of his large beefy neck. With no warning, I launched forward and knocked him to the ground, my skinny hands wrapped around his neck. His eyes were wide with surprise, as were those of the audience. He pushed me off and swung a club-like arm at my face, but I was quick. I darted between his legs and launched myself at his back, my arms forming a strangle hold around him. He shook me off but I landed on my feet, swept his legs, and was on top of him again. My fists beat his face, one two three four times! How good it felt when his nose cracked beneath them, when he let out a strangled cry!
He regained composure and kicked his legs up, sending me flying over his head, and then rolled onto his feet. I landed on my feet somehow and turned to face him, dodged another fist and slipped to the side, back and forth, back and forth, dodge, punch! It all felt so good, so natural. Suddenly we stopped, the sound of our ragged breathing filled the air and then I threw myself at his neck again, felt the rough skin under my hands which were contracting slowly. He struggled to breathe…
“Coden!” a familiar voice called out in surprise, Rourke.
The fight was over. But I knew I had won.
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what do you think?
thanx for the reply you rock! 
or should i say you have got some grooves? lol it is so cool to have fans now! thanx again!!
Um...put in more descriptions of area. I guess. DON'T EAT ME!