It was grey, it was gloomy, and it was gross, and Danger didn't want to do anything but curl up into a ball and sleep until it all went away. Rainstorms weren't always so terrible; their howling winds swept the stagnant old air out of the forest and replaced it with brisk, delicious, clean atmosphere, something that gave Danger a wonderful buzz. He could pick through scents faster and more efficiently than sighted wolves--impressive given the advantage wolves already had over most animals--but storms heightened that ability impossibly further because afterward there wasn't any junk in the air to interfere with individual scents. Everything was distilled into perfection. Ahh. But not right now. The sky hadn't decided rain properly yet, and the overwhelming blanket of humidity and general depression smothered Danger like a dirty wool blanket.

Thunder sent seismic tremors through the boiling black clouds above. Danger shivered in his den, the sound shuddering through his bones. Rain, dammit. Rain so I can stop feeling like shit. Idly the ink-colored soldier wondered what the other Bright Moon warriors were doing. And by other Bright Moon warriors, Danger meant that scary femme Iso and the equally scary Alpha Darcia. What did they do to amuse themselves on electric days like this? Were they huddled in their respective hiding places, waiting for the first explosive waterfall of rain to drop? Who the hell could guess. At his old pack, the one where Danger had served as both laughing stock and punching bag, storms meant hunting. Everyone would gather up into teams--almost always excluding Danger--and head out to bring down an elk or whatever, using the raging noise and scent-erasing deluge to mask their approach. They usually made their kill fairly easily. Danger was expected to eat last, something the others used to rub in his face before they realized that the blind brute met their taunts with silence and taunting was no longer fun.

Another rumble of thunder. Danger felt himself dozing off, lulled by the oppressive weight pressing upon him from above . . .

Perfume, feral and lovely. Iso.

Danger smelled her signature on the sluggish wind and instantly stiffened where he lay, muscles contracting in panic. He squeezed his deformed eyes shut and silently begged her to somehow miss him and walk past. She didn't.

Great.

The poor monster listened to the sly female make herself comfortable nearby and restrained his ears from perking up when she called out. Cat-eyes? Wowwww. He'd NEVER HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE, HE THINKS WITH HEAVY SARCASM. Danger warily opened his shockingly feline eyes--even though that didn't actually change what he'd seen behind his eyelids--and yawned, pink tongue stretching past his chin and curling back in as if he'd been out like a light. Maybe Iso would get the message that he was tired and leave. Except she sounded really impatient, and that flimsy hope was useless.

"What's going on?" Danger asked in his typical apathetic way. Luckily for the brute, his voice didn't quaver with the fear he felt. The coal-dark boy was buried so far within himself that he rarely portrayed outward emotion, coming off as aloof and cool when honestly he was a wreck. "Did we plan something I forgot about?"