All three D’arenbergs eyes sharpen in focus on me. “So if you have a problem with killing and death, now would be a good time to walk away. There’s no shame in it, but you need to understand what we’re going to be doing here.”
“Carolyn and I were talking earlier and she has gone to speak to some of our pack, the ones who are likely to want a seriously good fight.”
“What?” Aubrey says shocked by this information.
“Oh no, we’re not defying you.” Anouk says to her sister quickly.
“Just undermining me.” Aubrey snaps back at her.
“No. We’re talking to a few others, and Carolyn is making it perfectly clear, that this is not a pack duty, that there is no reward in doing this. She’s just seeing if anyone else is uh, you know, interested in stretching their legs on this fine lunar evening, with us.” Aubrey sighs heavily with exasperation.
“She’s probably only get one or two if that.” Anouk says. “We analyzed who would be most likely to be open to the idea of uh, helping out our cousin and his friends,”
“Our cousin?” Aubrey repeats back at her. “Is that part of the sales pitch that the pack leader’s cousin is in danger and needs help, and the pack leader will be in debit to you if you do this one thing for her?”
Anouk screws up her face momentarily. “We might have implied, that it couldn’t hurt to do something that the pack leader could look upon favorably if she uh, so saw fit.”
“Damn it Anouk!” Aubrey yells at her. Paris tries to defuse the situation.
The rest of us don’t really know what to do or make of it, so we let the three of them argue back and forth about it. It’s already past dusk and getting darker. I need these three to calm down and get their heads in the game if they’re coming with us.
The sound of cars pulling up outside the house and engines being switched off grab our attention and we all move to the windows to look out.
My heart leaps like it might just break through my chest. I see a familiar site get outside of the first car with Xavier D’arenberg behind the wheel. A tall blonde male werewolf with sky blue eyes. Eyes that remind me of my dearly departed father.
“Aksel!” I’m racing for the front door before anyone has moved.
My oldest brother and pack leader along with three other Breukelen wolves has arrived. By the time I get to the front porch, I see that there are in fact another four Breukelen pack wolves with in the second vehicle and behind that, a car that Carolyn gets out of with three other cars after it.
My brother comes up the steps and embraces me, instantly. Leaving me with a kiss atop of my head. “Sorry it took so damn long to get here, there were delays with the flights.”
“What matters is that you’re here.” I say tearfully.
“We’re gonna get him back.” Aksel says as Booker Parish and Nick Olsen walk up the steps behind him. “What about the Breukelen?”
“Bodil is in charge in my absence, she’s backed up by Boden, Christa and Niche.” He says as I lead him into the house. “They’re fine, what matters is here and now and getting Markus back to us.” I go into the house feeling a lot better than I did thirty minutes beforehand.
“Here,” Aksel says as Booker hands him a package wrapped in cloth. “We couldn’t get your’s through airport security, we knew that. So Booker had a friend up here, do a bit of shopping for us, so he could collect them for you.”
I unwrap the linen with Chinese embroider characters in red along the side of it, as Aksel lays his hands out flat.
Inside the cloth are two black metal, Sai trident weapons. My smile grows bigger. “New, cheats!” I look up at him.
“Hey, whatever works for you right? You’ve always been different Bg, but with these, you’re practically unstoppable.” Aksel says as I pick the Sai up and feel the weight of them in my hands.
I feel rather proud that my big brother would say such a thing. But I remember him watching me train every now and then.
Everyone else is utterly silent and looking at me and my weapons of choice. The Quebec werewolves don’t understand why I would require weapons, as such.
Werewolves don’t use weapons for the most part. They rely on themselves being the weapon. But I know my strength is not as a fighter, at least not as good as these wolves around me.
I need the extra help yes and after my attack at fourteen, my father, not really knowing how to deal with my wellbeing, did what he thought was best. He had me train to fight, not only in self-defence, but in how to attack my attacker.
He had my teacher use these weapons with me, to teach me how to be deadly. I’ve only used them once since my training days. But I do so love using them.
I reach up on my tip toes and kiss Aksel’s cheek. “You’re the best!”
Carolyn walks in after us and she looks from Aubrey to me. All eyes fall onto her. I look at the rest of the package, there is black material under the Sai, I pick it up.
“How many did you get?” Aubrey asks her as we all wait in anticipation.
The mood in here has changed quite dramatically from how it has been for the past few hours. It’s charged with anticipation and a subdued sense of excitement. Yeah, werewolves, there is something inside us deep down that remains primal and longs for this kind of interaction.
“Fifteen.”
The black material is straps, it’s a harness for housing the Sai. Booker helps me see how the pocketed straps work, how you wear it against your body. I do it up, Aksel slots the two Sai into the back holders of the straps.
“That’s a solid number.” I say happily. Our odds are slightly more favourable now from what I know of Norden’s pack numbers, going on old information that Thane gave me and making a few assumptions.
“All you have to do,” Aksel says to me “Is reach behind you and pull them out. Apparently there’s a few ways you can wear the harness.”
“Remember how to use them?” Booker asks me, as a friendly taunt.
I pull the two Sai out and spin them in my hands before doing some fast moves towards Booker who takes up a fighting stance.
We engage in quick, sharp, hand to as combat at the side of the table as everyone else back up away from us.
Booker is an excellent fighter. When it becomes apparent we’re going to go into a stalemate I begin to ease down and relax, Booker grins doing the same. Proud of what we’ve just displayed for the Quebec werewolves. Of course, that’s when I lunge at him. He should know better, we used to spar together like this.
With a Sai tip landing under the soft pallet of his jaw and the other raised directly at his eye-ball. It’s so close that he has to freeze not to be impaled by it. Holding his breath, desperately back from me.
I smile and back up properly lowering the Sai again. I hear the collective sigh by a few of the others in the room.
“Count me in,” Xavier D’arenberg says standing beside Paris. “My brother’s son isn’t going into a battle without me by his side.”
My smile gets wider and I nod my head. “Let’s get everyone inside so we can brief them.”
43
The new recruits are sent out to the forest early. Hours early, to traverse the landscape We now have enough numbers to get them scouting the grounds.
I feel my emotions settle down now that I am surrounded by my pack, my head is clear and my thinking is precise. I can’t be any more ready than I am for this fight. This is as good as it is going to get in our favor.
Aubrey drives us to the forest. And we start phase one of the plan. I drop my telepathic shields and send out an all bulletins message to Norden.
Norden, remind me to thank you for reuniting me with my long lost brothers, before I ruin your life tonight. Just like my mother did twenty-nine years ago when she rejected you and trapped you into remembering, all that you cannot have.
I figure there is no need to be subtle. We both hate each other and he has to know I’ll fight him all the time. Besides, he may be a megalomaniac psychotic werewolf, but
I doubt he’s completely stupid.
I hear his laughter come back at me through my head and put a hand to the side of my head.
Tonight, you will take the place of your long lost mother by my side. You will say goodbye to all that you currently know, and you’ll never see any of it again, wolf.
And then his voice is gone. I sigh and shake myself visibly. I hate the idea of Norden being inside me, in any sense of that word.
I look over at the group of alphas standing around me, “He got the message, game on.”
We disperse quickly as the cover of darkness descends on the forest landscape, Thane and Phelan stay close to me as we run through the forest quickly, together, still as humans whilst our recruits do so as wolves.
There was some debate over how to do this part, but the three of us pointed out the obvious to the others. We needed to bait Norden and couldn’t necessarily do it as wolves if he didn’t see or recognise the prized wolves to come after.
So to begin with, we run as humans, giving Norden and his wolves enough time to sight us and follow us, while majority of our side sets themselves up for the ambush that we’re going to lead Norden into.
Booker and Addison will remain hidden behind at the start of the forest, and watch to see where Markus is taken, they’re job is retrieve Markus and get him out of there, safe back to Quebec pack territory and strong hold.
As I run, the landscape blurs around me, I feel the sharpness of the air as I cut through it and my hands go up like a perfectly time rhythm as they anticipate when I will need to push branches of shrubs out of my way, so I do not break stride.
Phase two. Bait the line.
I thought you’d be faster than this Norden. You must be getting old if you can’t catch us. I laugh at the thought internally.
I see you wolf. I see all of you. You cannot out run me. Norden replies back to me.
“Norden’s nearby.” I yell as we keep running. I watch as Thane and Phelan drop their speed incredibly quickly until they can stop completely. I do as they do and we all stand around panting.
“Can you tell which direction he’s coming from?”
I shake my head because talking will only be done in deep breathless gulps at the moment. My heart is pounding and my nerves are climbing my veins through my body. I put my hands on my head and breathe in deep lung fuels of air and at the same time, tilt my head to the night sky. My nose twitches and I scent the air around us as Thane and Phelan catch their breath too.
I smell the earth around us, it is damp from the night’s coldness, there is moisture in the air and everything around us smells dewy and bitter. Bark smells acrid and leaves are like ani-seed on my tongue.
Amongst the moist smell of the forest on a cold night, everything else is crisp by comparison when you recognise it as not part of the landscape. Fur, wolf fur, there is a light coating of it in the air. Which means, if Norden of any other werewolves are watching us, they’re still a bit of distance between us and them.
“What do you get?” Phelan asks me.
“They’re around, but we’ve got time, now’s the time to shape shift.” I state back at the Cavello brothers. Who start stripping off their clothes immediately.
I keep standing still, surveying the landscape around us. Norden is a tricky bastard and if there is ever a vulnerable time to attack a werewolf it is during the process of shape shifting. Because once it starts, we can’t stop it. We’re trapped into a procedure that has to run its course.
But some werewolves can do it faster than others, so it may not be such a sensitive time to attack as I’m making it out to be. But it’s a moment and it can give an enemy an edge if they know when to do it.
Thane and Phelan are alpha werewolves so shape shifting for them, especially after a run like we just had, isn’t really an issue. They’re shift will be quick and smooth. I have to hope mine is too.
But the air changes before I can consider ripping my top off. And I tense, inhaling it. “They’re closer now. Much closer.” I say out loud to the Thane and Phelan’s wolves who suddenly take up defensive positions around me. “Norden is close.”
I cannot change now. A shape shift for me would in all likelihood take too long. It’s never been something that as a werewolf, I’m particularly good at.
“Show yourself you fucking coward!” I yell out into the forest, continuously looking around me at the same time. “What’s a matter, afraid of the werewolf who howled at the hurricane and swallowed it whole?”
I see the moonlight glisten off werewolf eyes first, more than one pair. We are surrounded by werewolves in almost every direction from the front, the way we have run in, and either side of us, Thane and Phelan hold their grown as they too see the wolves appear out of the forest.
And as one, Thane, Phelan and I all begin to move backwards through the forest away from them. There is far too many of them for us to take on by ourselves. Way too many and I can recognise a bad situation when I see one. But they are still a good fifteen feet away from us.
“Run!” I yell and turn at the same time as Thane and Phelan and I run again, sprinting fast through the forest continuing forward.
I pump my arms, as I move my legs light like feathers as I traverse the landscape with ease. My feet picking up and barely landing as I run along at a galloping speed.
Running won’t keep you safe wolf. It won’t put enough distance between you and I. Not ever. I will have you. All of you.
Norden’s voice is in my head as I am sprinting and I ignore it. I look at the watch on my wrist glancing at it every few seconds as I whip around trees. It calculates distances that you can program for your runs. It’s Aubrey’s, she loaned it to me. I’m close to the first clearing now, it should be coming up on the horizon at any moment.
I can hear the movement and crunching of twigs cracking and breaking and moving aside as the werewolves behind us chase us. They’re going to be close to us the whole time, but we have enough of a head start on them to reach the clearing first.
I jump over a log and Thane and Phelan bound along beside me, keeping up pace until we reach the clearing.
I get to the center of it and skid to a barefooted stop, digging my heels into the soft earth. Thane and Phelan circle back around to the front of the clearing, crouching in the line of two trees, so they are out of sight as the thundering wolf pack approaches me.
I cannot tell from a distance which one is Norden. But I assume he is going to be front and centre, leading the charge. After all, his ego is driving this pursuit of me.
I see the werewolves emerge in the distance. Shapes moving fast into the darkness of the woods. A terrifying image. I brace myself in an attack stance. The scent of werewolves is heavy in the air here.
The wolf eyes glow in the darkness and glisten from moonlight and are what I see before I see the body bulk of the werewolves approaching.
I keep looking for Norden amongst them. My night vision is excellent and I can see from quite a distance with it, in detail. And as I scan the first wave of werewolves running to-wards me, I do not see a wolf matching Norden’s description amongst them.
Has he played me? Shit!
“He’s not with them!” I yell out in frustration as Thane looks back over at me.
I give a silent signal for hold your position by raising my hand up in a fist above my shoulder. To an untrained observer it would look like a raised fist in anger, given the circumstances.
But in our brief on the mission back at Aubrey’s house, we discussed communication and our best communication had to be done in silence, even though we could not trust using telepathy as would have been ideal, given Norden’s ability.
It was Xavier D’arenberg who suggested the use of military hand signals. Which I thought was rather ingenious. Of course for military hand signals to work, I had to remain in my human form until I couldn’t.
Which was planned all along. But Norden doesn’t know that.
This would prove a bit of a hiccup, give
n that it was full moon night and I wouldn’t be able to resist the shape shift tonight. It was an impossibility. But I could delay it and it could be dragged out for quite some time. After all, that was essentially what Paris and I did back home in New York on full moon nights, with our sexual play.
We call it riding down the moon.
The werewolves keep flooding the forest forward, towards me, they’re speed has decreased somewhat I can see that and it makes me think that Nordon must have given a command to them of some kind.
One I figured which was that I was his to touch and no one else.
The werewolves break the edge of the forest into the clearing and Thane and Phelan leapt at the nearest wolves to them, sinking their teeth into the soft sides of the wolves, tearing at them till they gushed blood.
It confuses the following werewolves behind them as Thane and Phlean circle around the clearing, dragging the injured and bleeding two werewolves around the clearing to draw a circle of blood around us.
Aubrey said in the past this particular spot, the clearing had been used as an arena of sorts for werewolf dominance fights.
So it seems an appropriate place to shed some blood and make a last stand.
44
The blood does its job as Thane and Phelan let go of the bloody wolves’ bodies, dropping them from their jaws.
Norden’s werewolves are thrown by us taking first blood and in the manner we’ve just done it. I see some of them, lick the blood line before being growling at us and pulling back into ranking lines by the werewolves beside them who know better than to be so easily distracted by a little werewolf blood.
Phase three is now set. We stage our stand and we draw Norden out.
I’ve successfully captured Norden werewolves’ attention and dragged them and hopefully Norden, to exactly where I want them to be.
In this circle of blood, there is no mistaking that I am challenging Norden. It should be more than enough to entrap his ego into accepting the challenge of me.
Norden’s werewolves spread out on the outside of the blood line in a full circle around the three of us. Just like we figured they would.
Red White and Werewolf Page 17
