Asta paused, ears standing straight up. She huffed, breath fogging in the cold, and glanced at Mert.
She had a few options. One was risky, but could potentially prove the most beneficial. She huffed again, the nodded to herself and allowed the elk form to melt away.
One small caveat to her powers was that she usually had to take human form— even just for a few seconds— between shifts, typically bigger ones. Elk to wolf was one such shift, prey to predator.
Ghostly pale and completely without the protection of clothing, she shivered in the snow a moment before falling forward onto four paws, raising her head to sniff the air. She had to resist the urge to howl back, to let the wolf overtake her: This was the risk. If she could fight the instinct to alert the pack to her presence, she might be able to make a bid for territory against them.