He'd already lost one meal tonight, and the wolf didn't intend to lose his second. He'd been following the girl's scent up the stairs, and up and up, past other people on other floors, ignoring them completely. Many of them would have been perfect prey, slow or confused, but he knew that the scent he'd caught was the best out of any of them. The sweetest, the most satisfying, the one he was meant to chase down. He had fleeting thoughts about a grandmother, somewhere, that he needed to kill first, then negated that. He'd killed her already.
That gave him pause. When had he killed the grandmother? Then he brushed it aside. He'd killed far too many to remember them all, she could have been anyone.
The scent got stronger and stronger, until, finally, he reached the penthouse floor. He came over the top of the stairs, padding quietly toward the group gathered there. Nowhere to hide, here, and he was on his own. He'd separated from his pack a long time ago.
He needed to get her away from these people (some of whom looked vaguely familiar) and the great....thing at the other end of the hall. It smelled off, unnatural, not like any creature he'd encountered before. He felt he could take it if forced to, but that would be a lot of unnecessary trouble.
All he could see was the red cloak, but he knew he had the right girl. He'd chased her in dreams before, the ultimate in prey, innocent and trusting, and too curious for her own good.
He stalked forward, brushing past her friends as if there was nothing unusual about a giant wolf in the hall, playing friendly. Just a big dog. If he remembered rightly, she'd been fooled by a mask of harmlessness sometime before.