by Angela Foxxe
Indigo had the pack spread out around the perimeter of the farm house. Other than the garbage dump the wolves had done nothing to mask their scent.
Indigo and Richard had worked with each other a long time, and with that time came a trust and friendship forged in fire. If Richard said this was the only way, then it was the only way. The pack moved as one, all in human form, watching their alpha’s back.
So far they hadn't encountered any guards. There was a bunk house about two hundred feet from the barn. That must be where the whole pack stayed, then the farm house beyond that. From the corner of his eye Indigo spotted Richard. He parked the white SUV just down the road and made the rest of his way on foot.
Indigo thought the plan would be damn foolish if it didn’t work, but had learned never to underestimate Richard. He just hoped his confidence was justified.
* * *
"That's the emergency exit, if for some reason anyone gets through the front door, we go through here, pull the lever at the end that collapses the cave, out the back and about a mile down to the trading post, got it?"
Reign nodded, it was a lot to take in, they had a medieval style cave complete with modern armory and food supplies. The main door alone could withstand explosives.
"Why do you have all this? Do werewolves fight a lot?"
"Wolves, we actually just prefer being called wolves," Skye said.
"Okay, now that sounds interesting, spill."
The two girls were pouring hot coffee and cocoa, Chuck and Abby stood watch at the main entrance while Skye showed Reign the ropes.
"Not a big story, you see the tales you've read about werewolves are mostly true. We're humans that turn into wolves on the full moon. After you've been one for a while you get a sense for working with the wolf inside of you. It took me five years to not switch when I was hurt, or angry, another five after that to not switch on the full moon every month. There's only one time of year we all change though, the last new moon of the year, don't ask me why, it's just irresistible."
"Were you born this way," Reign asked.
"No," Skye said with a smile, "there are very few shifters born anymore."
Reign noticed the shift in her voice, the sadness that felt palpable. Skye seemed like a very capable woman to Reign, she was physically strong, emotionally tough, respected by her peers, yet there was a sadness there, a sadness Reign had noticed with Cara as well. She assumed that Cara being barren was a cover story, but now she wondered.
"Skye, can wolves have children?"
"The men can father them, but all female wolves who survived the blight are barren."
"Skye, I'm so sorry," she reached over and put her hand on the woman’s shoulder.
"Is this why I'm..." she motioned to her belly.
"It's Richard’s hope that a child born to a human will be a natural shifter and immune to the blight. If not, well, it won't live long. Trust me, if it wasn't for how strong the wolf is in me, I wouldn't have survived either."
"Is it like another person?"
"No," Skye replied, "more like a force of nature. It's why we just refer to ourselves as wolves, even when we look like humans, it's always there, guiding us, protecting us, and sometimes getting us into trouble," she said with a wry grin.
"At least those of us who had guidance, lone wolves well..." her sentence was cut off by a static burst from the intercom.
"Better get up here, babe," came Chuck’s voice, "we got party crashers."
* * *
Richard was nervous as he climbed out of the SUV. It wasn't like him to be nervous, but it wasn't like him to fall head over tail for a girl barely old enough to vote. Even now, walking into danger, just thinking about her made his stomach knot and his skin hot. Good god, man, get a grip, he thought.
The walk from where he parked to the barn wasn't far, it only took five minutes for him to come out of the forested drive to stand in the field near the bar. The wind ruffled his leather jacket as it breezed by him and wafted his scent to the small farm.
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.
