The wolf took control, total and complete. Russel’s mind started to get pushed down by that animalistic savagery. His already heightened senses sharpened even further. He could hear, smell, touch, and even taste things that had been outside his grasp just a few seconds ago. They were added to the other sensory information he’d picked up before but did little else for him at the moment.

The other wolves saw him swell up to enormous proportions and backed away. They changed themselves, some of them more wolf than man like Russel, but they had no hope in hell of matching his strength. They knew it.

But still, they tried.

Russel let out an impressive roar of challenge and then ran, watching the four of them closely and then choosing one that was clearly the weakest of the bunch. It was a tall, gangly wolf with an oversized head, lopsided limbs, and missing fangs. Whoever he was, or wherever Drake had found him, he hadn’t done much to take care of himself. Russel bowled through him completely, knocking the wolf to the ground so hard, he bounced back up about a foot before coming back down. A groan escaped him and both eyes shot open wide as all the air inside him was suddenly knocked out. Before he could struggle to get away or do much of anything else, Russel grabbed the top of his head in one hand and yanked him up. It was a move very similar to what Lola had done to Drake but where she had just left him in one place, her fingers slowly crushing his skull, Russell swirled his captured wolf around and around so fast, the landscape became a blur. The wolf he held onto struggled helplessly at first and then just started screaming in fear as the speed built up.

When he was ready, Russel let him go.

The mangy wolf went flying through the air with the speed of a horse running at full gallop. Maybe even faster than that. Russel timed his throw just right too. Another wolf, this one a woman with ridiculously long hair, was about to try her luck but the wolf he threw crashed into her before she could. There was a crash of impact and then the force of the one wolf’s flight sent them both tumbling and rolling away. In less than a minute, both of them were swallowed up by smoke and disappeared out of sight. That left two more to deal with.

“I’ve got limited control like this,” he managed to say, the words coming out as a harsh, rumbling growl. For the moment, he was himself. For the most part. He could feel the wolf trying to overwhelm him again but he still wanted to give these wolves an opportunity to run if they so chose. He didn’t relish the idea of killing them and wanted to avoid that if possible. “Leave now. You won’t get another chance.”

The two remaining wolves attacking him looked at each other for a moment, something passing between them. An unsaid conversation maybe. Whatever it was, they made their choice and that choice was to fight him.

“Remember I gave you a chance.”

They came for him at the same time and as they did, Russel let the wolf yipping at his mind come all the way back in. As he did, his body felt like it was controlled by something else. Rage-fueled fury overwhelmed him and that urgent need to kill he despised so much colored everything with red.

He lunged high into the air, launching himself with the powerful muscles in his legs. The two moronic wolves followed his movement, their heads arcing upward as they traced him up into the sky. They faltered, wondering what the giant werewolf planned to do. Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t a good idea to be in the spot where he might be landing. Both of them turned and tried to get away but Russel literally came down on them like a meteor. He wasn’t aiming to land on top of them though. Instead, he made a guess as to which way they would run and timed it to where he would land right in front of them. His body hit with enough force to create a small crater of impact. In the next instant, he swung out one arm in a massive swipe using all of his considerable strength. It smashed into the side of one wolf’s head and knocked it clean off. His blow didn’t stop though. It continued on to the second wolf and did the same thing. In seconds, both of the strange werewolves were dead. Their bodies toppled over and fell into the dirt and grass as blood poured out of the stumps of their necks where their heads used to be.

That wasn’t good enough for the wolf though.

It wanted more.

Russel tried to stop himself but the lust for murder and death rising inside him was too much. He went to the bodies and completely desecrated both of them, ripping them apart until they were nothing but chunks of disgusting meat and organs. Blood dripped from his muzzle and claws. His breath came out in giant huffing clouds of vapor and his eyes burned with blue light. He turned slowly, hunting through all the chaos so he could find his next victim or victims.

More explosions ripped apart the night. Orange, fiery clouds rose up into the air. The ground rumbled and he almost lost his balance.

He walked through all the fighting, the wolf’s senses rooting through dozens of different scents and sounds. Most were growls or roars. Some were the sounds of fighting between werewolves. There were more explosions, which were so loud they were almost painful all on their own. If he came across an enemy wolf, he killed them outright, usually in a very grisly manner. Pretty soon, most of his fur was splattered with red.

All the while as he hunted through that battle, he looked for Lola. Even in his altered state with his mind more wolf than man, he still knew he wanted to get to her. He needed to find her and make sure she was all right. He also wanted, so very desperately, to find Drake and kill the bastard himself. Whatever he thought he was doing by gathering up his pathetic army of mangy, nearly emaciated werewolves, would ultimately fail. He was going to make damn sure of that. It was pretty clear he was trying to start some kind of half-assed revolution.

“Lola!” Russel screamed at one point

Things were getting crazier by the second. The thick smoke was starting to choke him. It made his eyes sting and tear up too. He needed to get to a spot that was pretty much clear of all that. All he could smell though, was that smoke. His heightened senses couldn’t grasp hold of anything else beyond that. It was potent and only made the irritation to his eyes that much worse.

“Where are you!?” he tried yelling again.

Nothing. If she heard him, then she either couldn’t respond back for some reason or she was…

He cut the rest of that thought off.

No, he told himself. She is not dead. I refuse to believe that.

She was strong and a capable fighter, especially since their hours and hours of grueling training. There was no way these assholes would be able to take her down.

He wasn’t watching where he was going as he walked through that thick haze. His foot caught on something and nearly sent him tumbling end over end. He caught himself at the last second and looked down. At first, he had no idea what he was seeing. It was like his mind didn’t want to process the information.

He saw a body lying on the ground. It had been ripped apart, quite literally. The arms had been pulled off and there were deep gashes in its side. A dark, cold feeling rippled through him. The body’s head was severely mangled. One side of it was caved in but despite that, Russel could tell one thing.

The body was a woman.