Remorse

    The cool Autumn breeze ruffled the sable fur along her back.  Remorse lifted her wet muzzle into the night air and inhaled deeply.  Her nostrils were filled with the scent of decaying pine needles and deer scat, long cold.  She bounded along the path searching for something, anything to satisfy the pinch in her belly.
    The cubs were slowly starving as her milk dried up and she knew it.  It had been almost five weeks since Lars had gone hunting, never to return.  Remorse never knew how much she and the cubs depended on his kills until he was gone.  She and the cubs had been hungry ever since.
    As she ran on through the forest, she constantly scanned the light breeze for the scent of game.  So far, she had detected none.  She was wandering farther from the den with each new moonrise.  Her thoughts turned inward as she ran on auto-pilot.  Lars was the only other lycan she had come across in all her twenty-two years.  At least since here parents had succumbed to the blood sickness that plagued their kind.  She was the only surviving cub in the only litter her parents had ever raised, thereby gaining her unusual name.  Now her own two starving cubs might well be the last of the lycan race.
    The night wore on and still she could find nothing.  She ventured closer to the human's territory. Game, once plentiful in the region, had become scarce as more and more humans settled in.  What the wasteful humans did not kill for food or sport, they chased away to make room for their farms.  So far Remorse had been lucky.  No chance encounters with the humans.  She had chosen a den safely hidden in the depths of the forest far from any of the human settlements.
    Suddenly she stopped running.  Something abruptly snapped her thoughts back to the present like a slap in the face.  Excitedly, she realized what it was.  She could smell food!  The scent was faint, but unmistakeable.  Remorse cautiously moved forward a few paces and froze.  Her sensitive nose dectected something else.  Humans.
    She instinctively scrambled backward and turned to flee, but forced herself to stop.  The cubs were nearing death.  Her maternal insticts insisted that she stay, while her rational mind screamed at her to run.  There were only two choices for her and the cubs, feed or die.  Remorse chose life.
    For what seemed like an eternity, Remorse stood perfectly still.  She waited and watched, almost a statue except for her fur rippling in the wind.  She listened and repeatedly tested the breeze for any sign of the humans.  Faintly, she could hear the sound of the cattle shifting about.  She could detect no threat.  Slowly, she began to inch closer to the cattle pen.
    Now she was close enough to see the large dark shapes shambling around in the pen.  She could hear their deep, slow breathing and smell the warm blood pulsing in their bodies.  The excitement was almost too much for her to contain.  Her heart beat rapidly in her chest, and she was breathing shallowly.  It was all she could do to keep from leaping into the pen wildly.  This was important, and she must be cautious not to lose this oppurtunity for the sake of the tiny cubs.  She forced herself to calm down.  Salvation was so close, yet something in the back of her mind was still urging her to flee.  Remorse ignored it, and stealthily closed the short gap between herself and the pen.  At last she was close enough to get a good look at the animals.  She crouched down ready to spring, and began to scan for a suitable target.  Then there she was, a small brown calf still wobbly from birth.  Remorse tensed the large muscles in hear hind quarters and leapt.  She was on the calf in a flash, clamping her jaws deep into the calf's neck and ripping at its tough hide with her back claws.  The first spurt of hot blood flooded her mouth as the calf struggled against its impending death.  All around, the other cattle mooed noisily and frantically pushed to get away from the predator.  Quickly, the calf ceased her struggles with one final shudder.  Remorse began to feed with great pleasure.  After she had her fill, Remorse sat down to rest and lick some of the gore off of her fur before heading back to the den.  When she was satisfied, she tore off a large chunk of flesh from the carcass for the cubs.  She turned and tried to leap out.  WIth her bloated belly, she struggled before getting over the side of the pen.
    Remorse the crack of thunder as she landed on the other side.  Seconds later she felt white hot pain sear into her right hind quarter.