<span style="font-family:Carme">When Holly saw him, so many things ran through her head. She recognized his scent first as the new one that had joined in pursuit of her in addition to the other three she had known were there all along. It wasn’t a scent she knew at all; then again, she could not claim to be familiar with all the scents of the pack she’d been adopted into. It was hard to learn all the scents and sights when she actively avoided being involved with them any more than absolutely necessary. He could have been one of the pack that she’d just never encountered yet and that fact alone frightened her because she didn’t trust them at all. None of them were willing to contemplate how hard this was for her to go through. Holly not only was thrust into a world that seemed impossible to her, but she was also taken away from any home she had once known and prohibited from ever returning. It was painful for her to endure. <br/>
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Not knowing who he was and suspecting that he might be an additional member of the pack sent to retrieve her because she’d run away when she wasn’t supposed to, the sight of him sent more fear flurrying through Holly’s wolf form. Her eyes followed his movements and focused on him completely and solely on him as he got closer and she frantically pushed her paws against the snow, trying to slide backwards although even she knew by now that the chase was over. Even if this one wasn’t with the pack, she wouldn’t be able to run far enough fast enough to escape the others anymore. She could barely move as it was. <br/>
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Watching him shift, her eyes - surprisingly - didn’t turn away from his nakedness. She was too afraid of what she might miss in his movements if she actually turned her head away from him. Even though she knew she was not actually going to escape anymore, that didn’t mean she automatically thought it was all fine and dandy to trust the were who she wasn’t familiar with at all. Holly still had some of her wits about her even if they had been swallowed in pain and adrenaline during the run itself. Slowly, they were starting to come back among other things. Despite that her eyes remained, though, she was grateful that he seemed to have clothes with him and her gaze of fear softened just slightly. <br/>
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There was one thing she noticed about his voice when he spoke. One thing and one thing alone. He was calmer than the members of the pack she’d been taken into. Whenever they spoke to her, it wasn’t anything that she would say was mean necessarily, but it was firm and commanding. Holly didn’t have a choice in the things that they told her; it was just as absolute as they said it was. Although this man… this wolf… this <i>person</i>... wasn’t exactly giving her choices, he wasn’t telling her what to do either and it made it easier for Holly to actually consider listening to what he was suggesting and to what he was saying. Breathing was the easy part because not only was he suggesting it, but her own lungs were demanding it as well and it was very hard for her to deny something to her own body. Imagining herself shifting back was harder, though. There were so many conflicting desires running through her head. Some involved getting away and getting home. Others involved ending the pain and physical distress her body was currently enduring and she really wasn’t sure which she desired more. It made things difficult. <br/>
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A small whimper managed to escape through her closed muzzle as her eyes looked into his briefly. This entire ordeal certainly wasn’t a pleasant one for her, but she was going to try. Then her eyes closed and she let an entire deep breath wash through her body, knowing that the deep inhalations sometimes helped to carry away the pain, if only briefly. Anything was helpful at this point. Then she could feel it start to shift within her body. Although her muscles tensed, it reached a point where Holly couldn’t stop it anymore, either. Her body shifted back into her human form leaving her a curled up woman in the snow. <br/>
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The first thing she noticed was the chill of the snow upon her skin and it prompted her to push herself up from a lying position so that there was less contact with the crystalline winter powder despite aching muscles that protested any change in position. In doing so, her arms also curled up in front of her, wrapping around and over her breasts because she just as quickly realized that Okomi was still close and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to let strange men see her completely nude even if it did seem to be one of the ways of being a werewolf. Normally, the movement would also signify that she was cold, but Holly wasn’t cold at all, not really. It was another odd thing that seemed to come with what she was and that small piece didn’t really concern Holly too much. <br/>
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<span class="fixed-color" style="color:deeppink">“Thank you,”</span> was the only set of words that Holly managed to say before she could hear the rapid breaths of more running wolves, all three of them closing in from different directions and giving both her and Okomi little room to escape had they even been capable of doing so. He might have made it on his own, simply because they weren’t really after him, but the window of that opportunity passed when he’d approached her and talked her through the change back to her human form. There wasn’t much choice but for him to meet her pursuers now. <br/>
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Freya came to a stop directly in front of them, choosing to remain as a wolf while the other two accompanying her came up from the left and from the right. There was an odd thing about one of them. A deep brown pelted wolf was wearing what almost looked like a backpack and it very nearly ruined the image that would’ve otherwise been very beautiful. The she-wolf nodded towards that one in particular and he transformed into a man right then and there; he lacked the modesty that Okomi had possessed to turn away immediately, but it wasn’t anything that Holly hadn’t already seen on multiple occasions. Almost as promptly, he reached for the knapsack he still wore and pulled it off his shoulders. Reaching in, first he pulled out a jacket and offered it to Holly with a reach of his hand. Holly didn’t take it, though. She shook her head and said, <span class="fixed-color" style="color:deeppink">“I’m not going back.”</span> <br/>
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<span class="fixed-color" style="color:darkslategray">“Holly, it’s not safe for you to go back. We’re trying to help you so that maybe eventually, you can go home. Please let us do what we know. Come back. Learn. Then you can have some of your life back,”</span> Griff stated calmly. Throughout it all, he didn’t once glance at Okomi. This was pack business in his mind and Okomi wasn’t one of them. <br/>
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Throughout it all, though, Tris’s eyes watched the rogue. They had learned caution well and it was not something any of the three wolves were about to forget about now.</span>