by Angela Foxxe
His wolf rumbled inside of him, reminding him it was there, ready to spring forth and destroy if called. Richard smiled, it calmed him somewhat to feel that part of him. To know, no matter what else, his wolf was with him. Beyond the internal rumbling he could also feel the pack. He closed his eyes for a moment, and he could almost visualize each one in his head, feel what they were feeling. He thought that was going to take some getting used to.
For now it seemed, Cara was asleep, her captive must have grown tired of her. Being upwind from them kept his senses in the dark, they could be on him and he wouldn't know.
He waited a few minutes before resuming his walk. He wanted them to know he was there, but not make it too obvious it was a trap.
He was a hundred feet from the barn when his sensitive ears picked up the click of a gun, and it took all his willpower not to dodge. The dart impacted his arm with little pain, its payload delivered.
"Well, well, how mighty do you think you are," came Edward’s voice from the dark.
"Edward, I'm here to talk to your alpha, one to another."
The much smaller man's face screwed into a sneer of contempt.
"I'm the alpha now," he barked, "I took the old man to his grave months ago."
That explained a lot, thought Richard as he casually pulled the dart from his arm and cast it aside. He could smell the fear on Edward, and something else – pride.
“Edward," Richard put his hands to his side, palm out, "I recognize you as Alpha."
He finished with a short bow, it was a custom, and a sign of respect, and if there was a small chance Richard could take Cara and go without violence, he would take it. Their numbers were too few to quarrel.
For a moment, Richard thought it worked, but then Edward's face showed his answer.
"I don't need, or want your token respect. I'm alpha by right of combat. And soon, your pack will be mine as well."
"It doesn't have to be this way."
Normally before a fight, Richard felt an unease, a tightening of his stomach, the flood of adrenaline, he felt none of this now. And then, he understood.
"I couldn't get that whore to give up where you were hiding out with the pregnant cow, doesn't matter, though."
That worried Richard, he was hours away from the lodge, even if he sent Indigo back now without him, whatever was going on would be long over.
"Listen to me Edward, it doesn't have to be this way, give me Cara and we can call it even. In the next grand pack I'll even back your claim. There are so few of us left, we don't need to fight," Richard said.
"Few of us? I don't care about you stupid werewolves, all I care about is me, what I can do. And I'm a god. These morons do whatever I say because of your traditions and beliefs. There's nothing magical about being an Alpha, yet they all line up to lick my boots. Pathetic."
Richard understood at last, Edward should never have been given the gift of the wolf, he was the worst kind of human, and his personality didn't, couldn't, exist in the wolf world. How he survived the turning was beyond Richard.
"You've made your decision then," Richard said, "let's see you enforce it."
***
"Do they know we’re here?" asked Skye.
There were four of them out by the lodge. Two of them had large hunting rifles shouldered, ready to fire.
Chuck grinned. “We’re downwind from them, they have no clue."
Skye nodded and patted the old man on the back. All four of them were packed in the front of the cave, looking out the small window that provided a view of the parking area. The cave itself was slightly elevated and a few hundred feet back from the lodge.
Reign had perfect vision according to her optometrist, but she could barely see anything. The moon was just a sliver in the sky.
"How are you seeing anything?"
Skye turned to Reign with a grin on her face, her eyes a brilliant yellow in the dim light.
"Wolves," she said with a shrug.
Abby spoke with such a quiet voice Reign thought it was a whisper.
"Two of them are human."
"You sure, girl," Chuck said, "all I smell is the wolf."
She seemed unsure of herself, but she nodded.
"Well, that makes things easier,” said Skye.
"Abby," she continued, "take Reign to the back of the cave, if you hear this door open without a knock you get out the back and down to the trading post, there's a car there with the keys in it. Got it?"
Abby nodded and reached for Reign’s hand.
"Wait," Reign said, "I want to help."
"You can, Richard wants you safe, and doing that helps us, okay?"
"It's four against two, you need us," Reign said.
"Nah," Chuck grinned, "they’re just pups."
Skye nodded to Abby, "go, be safe."
The two started down the cave toward the rear. Reign looked back one last time. Chuck had stripped his shirt off and was unbuckling his pants. Skye had already pulled her tank off revealing her amazing bust.
"I love being a wolf," she heard Chuck say with a lecherous grin.
"Keep it in your pants, it ain't gonna happen."
"We'll see," came the echoing reply.
Reign followed Abby to the back, but instead of going to the rear door she took a turn to the kitchen, and opened a door Reign hadn't previously seen.
"What this?"
"Security center, it has CCTV so we can watch the front door."
The monitors showed images from all over the lodge, even inside the main building. The four intruders were spread out, all within visual contact of each other. They must have heard something because they were all on alert.
On the monitor Skye was a blur, her wolf tore through the first human, nearly shearing him in half. Reign put her hand over her mouth to keep from throwing up. She could feel Abby tense beside her.
"Are they going to be okay?"
"Chuck's been around a while, I'm sure they'll be fine."
* * *
To his relief, they put Richard's chair next to Cara, his arms and wrist were tied to the chair in thick leather strips, same as hers. She looked awful. Fresh bruises on her face, burns and cuts on her torso and arms, if it wasn't for her wolf, and the pack, she would be long dead.
"Richard? What are you doing here, oh no no no no," Cara whimpered, "you said you were coming to get me, please get me out of here."
"Shhh, Cara, it’s okay, it will be okay," he tried to reassure her, but she was so hurt and abused, her fear and panic was too strong.
The meth head, who smelled of urine and cigarette smoke, hooked Richard up to an IV. He felt the cool liquid enter his veins, still unsure of what it did.
"I don't get it, Edward, why the torture, and the truth serum, you know drugs don't work well on us."
"I need to know where you keep your stuff, Dick, and Cara here held out pretty good, but I think you, well, you will cave the second I start cutting into her."
Richards fists involuntarily tightened, raw emotions churned inside of him. His wolf howled, but it was a distant pitiful howl that seemed trapped somehow.
"This is a bid for territory? It's not about Reign?"
"Who's Reign?” Edward smirked.
"Listen, you know the women who survived are barren, they can't have children, and the right kind of person to be a wolf is rare, we are dying as a species, Edward, stop this petty bullshit and help me save us," Richard said.
This whole time he'd thought Edward was trying to control Reign, to seize the future for himself, but it was about territory and money.
"Why the fuck should I care about your species, you all can go burn for all I care. As long as I live, that's what matters. And what better way to live then with your money. I know you have it.
Your fancy hotels, new cars, that big fucking lodge you live in. You see what we have, this shit-hole of a town, crappy farm house. Power is supposed to come with money, Dick, I want my fucking money.
When you set that cow up in
Seattle, I figured she must be important to you. Had I known you would come for anyone, I would have grabbed the red head you left behind."
"Edward, I challenge you for leadership of the East Cascade pack," Richard’s voice was full of the promise of a painful death.
"Why would I accept, those are your ways old man, not mine."
"They’re all our ways, pup. Accept, and die with a little honor.
Maybe the great wolf will take you with him. Continue down this path, and you will die miserable and alone, and damned to hell," Richard said.
Edward pulled a large serrated knife from the table, it was coated in dried blood. Cara's eyes welled with tears as she hyperventilated just seeing the knife.
"It's okay Cara, it's okay," Richard said soothingly, "he's not going to hurt you anymore."
"Oh yes I am, I'm going to punish her for leaving us, and when I'm done with her, I'm going to burn her until there's nothing left but ash."
Edward was inches from Cara's face, Richard could see the anger and pain in the young man. He wished things could be different, he wished Edward had never been turned, there was more to being a wolf than just surviving the transformation.
* * *
"Can we help them," Reign asked, "there must be something we can do."
"Skye said stay put and run if they get in, and that's what we’re going to do."
Reign bit her lip, the Goth wolf didn't speak much, but she wasn't prepared to go against someone assigned to be in charge. Reign had to admit, it looked like Skye and Chuck had it handled, they'd transformed into wolves, left the cave, and were circling behind their prey, according to Abby, and they were coming in against the wind so they couldn't be smelled.
Still, something bothered Reign. She wondered why the humans were using guns when they knew they wouldn’t work.
If the stories were true, and she had seen first-hand that they were, the wolves regenerated incredibly fast, were strong, fast, nearly indestructible. So why send humans with guns? Why send people at all, hadn't Richard said there were rules about humans knowing, rules that he himself broke in telling her.
"Abby, listen, something isn't right, why send humans to hunt you? There guns won’t work, right?"
Abby thought about it for a second. “They slow us down, especially if you hit a major organ. But no, they don't work that well."
"Silver bullets?"
"Nah, that's a myth, purified silver works against vampires, but not us, the only real thing that hurts us is fire, because it's total cellular destruction, we would have to regenerate everything new, it can be..." she paused for a moment, her hand errantly going to her face, "painful."
Reign put aside the thought that vampires were real for a moment, to focus on the larger question.
"Then why guns, unless they know they will work, otherwise its suicide."
"Watch, you'll see, people underestimate us, and men always rely too heavily on guns."
Abby could be right, Reign thought to herself, but why then, the nagging feeling that something wasn’t right?
Whatever it was, it was too late, Skye and Chuck were in position, Abby pointed out where they could be seen, and even in a high definition monitor with night vision, she could barely see the rust colored coat of Skye's wolf. She moved an inch at a time, like a predator in some kind of documentary, but her prey wasn't another animal, but one of the wolves, still in human form.
When Skye struck it was with a speed and ferocity that Reign never saw in a documentary.
The wolf she hit slammed against the truck they came in, and before he could turn, she was on him, his neck in her mouth, and while there was no sound, Reign imagined a loud crunch as Skye's jaws ripped the man’s head off.
Her hand was on Abby's shoulder and she could feel the excitement in the girl, the wolf inside her yearning to be on the hunt.
Skye jerked, her wolf stumbled sideways, then her haunches failed and she scrambled with her front paws to move.
"What's going on?" Abby said.
On the monitor Skye was there, her wolf was gone, she was covered in the blood of her prey, naked and trying unsuccessfully to stand. The two hunters and the lone remaining wolf stood over her. They threw a lump next to her.
It was Chuck's head.
CHAPTER FIVE
Richard felt Chuck die, as sure as if he was next to him. His blood boiled and he had enough, he called his wolf and he didn't come.
"Something wrong, oh great Alpha?”
He tried again, he screamed at his wolf, raged at him with all his being. He could hear the howl on the wind, he could feel him inside, but there was something...
Richard looked to the IV.
"How?"
"Dave here is a chemist, a full on Pee-h-dee. That is until he cooked meth and spent a nickel at Walla-Walla."
The meth-head smiled around his cigarette.
"Turns out," he added, "making meth is a lot more lucrative than writing papers."
Edward put his hand on the scrawny man’s shoulders. "Unfortunately for Dave, he also started smoking it, nasty habit. He cooked me up this little serum here, I won't bore you with the details, but let’s just say after much inhumane animal testing, we can now inhibit your wolf."
"You tested this on your own pack," Richard couldn't hide his disdain. The wolf inside him made him who he was, it gave him his strength, shored up his weaknesses. To have it removed, was like losing a limb.
"What pack, when I took over, there were ten men and two women, now there are just four men, and three women. Turns out, when you turn enough people, a few end up surviving. The ones that go bonkers, well, they become our test subjects."
Richard took a deep breath, he had been a wolf a long time, and seen many advancements, though few as drastic in the last hundred years.
"You know nothing of being one of us, Edward, I take it back, you're not fit to be challenged. Is this how you killed your Alpha, by drugging him?"
"Isn't that how you climb the ranks, kill the guy above you?"
In a blink he jammed the knife into Cara's stomach, her eyes widened in shock and she screamed.
Richard struggled with his bonds, he called the wolf again, he couldn't remember the last time he was so angry, he could barely see. No, he thought, not anger –rage. .
But the wolf could not come.
"Oh god this is too good. I can't believe you idiots never figured this out, join the twenty first century, man. It's like you all become wolves and forget what decade you were born in."
Richard tried to calm down, tried to center himself and reach deep down to the Wolf. There were other paths to calling him, he'd found them before, long ago.
"You don't know, you think being one of us, is just some sort of physical transformation," Richard said, filling his is voice full of pity.
"There's nothing supernatural about this bullshit, it's a virus, that's all."
Richard closed his eyes, Edward stabbed Cara again, she screamed, but it was pathetic, and barely audible, her agony bled together to form one long constant wall of pain.
"Edward, you really have no idea who, or what we are."
"Stop saying that," he stabbed Cara again, "I'm the one in charge here, not you."
"Then why does it feel like you're just a scared, pathetic, lost little boy who wants his mommy."
Edwards face screwed with rage and he stabbed Cara again, and again.
"Do you want her dead, is that it, I'll kill her, and I'll cook her, and make you eat her."
"You are pathetic. You've been given the greatest gift man has ever known, and you squander it on petty power, and what? Rape? Is that because you can't get it up, or is your dick so small no one wants it."
Edward turned to Richard, there was blood in his eyes, “Oh, you want to see my power, let me show you."
With a viscous scream, Edward launched at Richard, the knife held with both hands as he drove the blade into Richard’s leg, completely out of control he stabbed blindly. Finally
.
“Abby, they’re going to kill her."
"Come on. We got to go, she said for us to leave, and that's what we’re doing."
"You do what you want," Reign said, "I'm not leaving her to die."
She turned to look around the small security room, there wasn't any kind of emergency kit.
