I knew it was more than one man. Maybe four of them, if I were to tell the eight feet that hit me hard. I would soon be home, I just needed to cross the signal that had just turned red and prevented three black cars from going on their way.

“Where do you think you’re going?” shouted a man emerging from the alley on my side.

I hadn’t noticed him there. I was watching the sidewalk that broke for a crosswalk that would take me to the block closest to home, and I was busy trying to see the interior of the dark cars to notice the sound of his footsteps mixing with those of his friends.

But when I noticed him, I already had one of my arms stuck in one of his strong hands. The man pulled me against his body so easily that I felt like a human little girl in front of a frightening adult. The smell of fear spread through my body and my blood, and my eyes widened instinctively.

“I don’t want problems,” I tried to justify myself.

I wasn’t human, they were. On a scale of strength, I should know how to protect myself. I should be stronger and more agile than them, but when I was surrounded by men and had my sides blocked for possible escapes, I could not contain the despair that made me release a low grunt. I was like a wounded animal trapped in an ambush of its predator. I knew I was completely screwed in that whole situation.

“But we want trouble, little dog,” said the owner of the first voice that provoked me. He was so close that I felt his garlic breath and cheap drink. The smile on his face was viperine, cruel. “We know that your type has a formidable appetite for males. How about going into heat at this moment so as not to have fun?”

I was terrified.

I always knew that humans hated us. I always knew that wolves without packs were easily found dead and that supernatural creatures were captured and tortured for pure sadistic pleasure. But I never knew about cases of some kind of abuse against werewolves. I never knew that our period of heat was of human knowledge.

That was an ugly part that I rarely used to expose to people close to me. The period of heat was terrible, cruel, and humiliating. Even though I didn’t have all the strength and dexterity benefits of my race, I had guaranteed the worst sides without the slightest effort. And the worst of them for sure was the period when I was desperately looking for a male to warm my bed.

The period of heat made us easy targets in the crosshairs of cruel humans. We didn’t think straight. We became fragile and inattentive. Our senses failed. But I wasn’t in heat. I didn’t get in as easily as an alpha. There were periods in the year when that happened, but the idea of being forced… I was forced to take a step back by despair.

“Be careful, puppy,” mocked a man who was on my back. He ran his hand over my waist and touched my belly. My blood froze when I felt the volume in his pants touching my ass. “You’ll ruin the game if it’s too fast.”

“Please let me go,” I begged, pulling my arm away from my captor. I staggered one step when he let go and fell into the arms of another of the evil men. That one pulled a kiss from me by force, and the others laughed when I screamed to get away. “Please, I need help!”

I didn’t know exactly who I was yelling at. Deep down, I hoped that Mia would emerge from somewhere and that her noisy motorcycle would be my best escape method. However, Mia did not return the message I sent when I left work. Maybe she was with her partner, and the cell phone would be the least of her worries.

It was a Friday night, and the humans in the city were not caring about a wolf with problems. Everyone knew that we were the minority and that humans had no obligation to respect us. No one would take my problem as their own just by listening to my request for help. And I was starting to pray to some ancient God that everything would end quickly when everything happened.

It was not as fast as I would have liked, perhaps because I had too sharp a sense not to absorb every detail of the attack on my aggressors, but the point is that the arm of the man who was now holding me suddenly let me go. Not only did he let go of me but of his own body when claws appeared like a flash on his back and cut him sharply.

“What the fuck is this?” shouted the man attacked in total agony when he noticed the blood gushing from his torn arm.

The other men opened the circle in which they kept me to try to see where the attack came from, but quickly each of them had their throats pierced by sharp and yellowish nails. The men fell almost at the same time, some grabbing their throats to contain the blood, others just willingly accepting death.

I found myself in the center, with eyes wide in surprise and with fear still bubbling in my veins. I thought they were at least three creatures due to the speed of solving the problem, but I was pleasantly surprised to notice the man who straightened himself in front of me, cleaning the blood-stained claws with an extremely white and soft-looking handkerchief.

“I had forgotten how human flesh can be easily torn by our claws,” he commented as one who did not want anything.

And as soon as his eyes found mine, I was shocked to notice the red eyes of a born hunter. The expression that had become lupine by hatred and that now became again similar to human traits. The size of his large body prevented me from seeing the black cars still standing in front of the traffic signal that was now green, but I heard the sound of the engines.