The Waiting

The next seven days that followed were fraught with even more tension than before, with the mortals tip-toeing around Andrev’s nest of furs and his cooking fire. On the second day, some of the hunters from various tribes began leaving kills by Andrev’s pallet - a brace of coneys, a pheasant, a string of half a dozen fish. Sometimes Andrev accepted them, sometimes not. Sometimes he lounged in tiger form, eyeing the mortals lazily, tracking them with his eyes, making them twitch as if they sensed his hunger, and others he was humanoid, a boy, weaving grass mats.

He waited.