Free Story #21 - Endangered (Chapter 4)

To say I was speechless would be the understatement of the century.

Jenna was so shocked by the fact Lucas had defeated the reverend that she had completely forgot her hatred of the man. Kari and Stephen had held each other close upon seeing the body fly through the window but now, they were barely holding each other. Shadow and Doug were both as dumbfounded as Jenna, although Shadow was admittedly as clueless as I was about the significance of Lucas obtaining the highest rank.

We all just stood there, staring at him as if hoping it was all a dream. But sadly, it wasn't.

Lucas raised his head to the sky and howled. To see it coming from something that appeared human was nothing short of disturbing. When he had finished his celebration, he looked at us and smiled a curt smile that didn't look in the least bit friendly.

Within a few seconds, a noise started to echo through the air around us. If I didn't know better it sounded like faint growling. Then, when I noticed every living member of Campbell's pack were surrounding us, almost as if they would attack us, I realised I didn't.

Lucas raised his fingers to his lips and whistled. And in that moment, they transformed into their wolf forms, and attacked us.

Thanks to my quick reflexes, I ducked a few smaller betas and ran away from the battlefield. Or at least I tried. A middle aged werewolf knocked me on the cranium and I fell landing on the trodden mud. I swung to the left as quickly as I could to avoid his snapping muzzle and to my great relief, he slammed his face into the ground. I took advantage of the opportunity and hit him on the nose using my left foot.

He whined in agony and his weakened appendage began to bleed. Half of me felt I should apologise. But self defence was paramount. We couldn't win this battle, I knew that for sure. So the only sensible thing to do would be to escape.

I ran into the fray of swirling wolves and transformed. I lost my clothes in the process but to be honest, it wasn't important. I had to get the others out. I may not be part of either pack, but they were my family. Stephen had changed as well and was fighting off a male with looked like he belonged more in a gay porno than a wolf suit. Thinking I would sort my first impression later, I snapped at his ear and tore it from his face.

He screamed in pain as it fell to the floor. I motioned for Stephen to follow me and he nodded without a second to consider. We ran through the crowd and eventually found Doug, who seemed to be holding his own against a wolf who looked more feminine than most. If I had taken a closer look, I would have seen that he was a hermaphrodite but at the moment, either rescuing or escaping was number one on the list of priorities.

When Doug had finished immobilizing his opponent, he ran over to us.

"Have you seen the others?" I asked.

"No, but we need to get out of here now" Doug replied.

Glad his attitude mirrored my own; we split up and continued the search. After circling twice around the group, I found nothing but unfamiliar or enemy wolves. The only thing that I could think of was that I had to find Jenna and Shadow.

I needn't have worried about Shadow, he was fighting off the wolves just like Doug would do and using the same tactics I would employ. Like the old broken nose trick I had pulled earlier. When he noticed me, he ran over and rubbed against me. I licked him and he did the same. The next sentence that I spoke came out like I had run a marathon.

"Are you alright?"

When he spoke, he was as breathless as I was.

"Yeah, but we need to find Jenna, she didn't look good"

To my horror, he was right. Unlike Shadow, Jenna was finding it a bit harder to defend herself from the attack of the werewolves under Lucas's command.

Her grief had weakened her skills, making her make the wrong choices. I felt like I had to help her somehow so I charged forward and snapped at one that had bitten her leg in several places. To my relief, Doug pounced on him at that moment and he fell to the ground. A horrible snap indicated that either his back or his neck was broken. Either way, he wasn't moving. Which made me feel ever so slightly sick.

Lucas's whistle rent the air. The wolves attacked us pulled away and changed back into human form. Once they did, they turned tail and went into the church. Stephen bounded over to us and thanked our lucky stars we were still alive, although bruised.

But to our horror, not all of us did.

"Where's Kari?" Stephen asked.

When he asked, we all stared around looking for her. But she was nowhere to seen.

A deep laugh ran through the air. Realising the direction it was coming from, we spun to see Lucas, holding someone in his arms. It was Kari, and his teeth dripping with her blood.

I knew I didn't have the strength to face him head on, so for the moment I bottled my emotion. It was like keeping a volcano from erupting but I did it, just. The tears fell from my face but I paid them no heed. I had to hold onto my self-control, without it, I would end up just like her. She must have tried to challenge Lucas to protect us all, but her effort had been in vain.

Stephen however, was reeling from the effects of losing his father, and now his lover. He ran forward so fast no one saw him go past. Lucas saw him and held up a large hand to stop the werewolf colliding with him. He tutted, grabbed his muzzle and flung him to the ground.

Stephen got up almost immediately and howled with pure rage.

"Temper temper young wolf" Lucas said with dark humour clearly present.

"How could you do that?" Stephen screamed.

"She was weak, and thought she could challenge me. Stupid child" he spat.

"She was not weak you fucking psychopath!"

Lucas growled.

"What did you call me?" he asked slowly.

"I called you a psychopath! Kari was the best friend I ever had, she was my lover!"

Lucas's face contorted.

"You dare argue with the word of an alpha?" He snarled.

"Yes I do, because you will never be my father!"

Lucas pounced and landed on Stephen's right leg. It snapped and he screamed.

"I am more of an alpha than he will ever be. Because I am his sire!"

We all gasped, even if we didn't know what he meant by the term. Stephen was clearly shell-shocked.

"That's not true! That's impossible!" he yelled.

Lucas laughed another cold laugh.

"Who do you think trained him to be a good leader? Who looked after him until he was ready to take his place as alpha in the pack he had joined?"

"So why didn't you challenge him yourself?" I asked.

He snorted at the interruption.

"I had already lost a challenge to the former alpha. He was too strong for me. I surrendered and vowed I would try again to be an alpha. But I couldn't challenge him again, because I had already lost to him. So I would have to wait for a space of alpha to become available"

"So that's why you waited until Campbell was dead?" said Shadow.

"Yes, I didn't want to challenge him because I made him. So I decided to wait until he fell"

Jenna and Doug started to growl, as did Stephen. Shadow kept silent as did I. We had no place in this disagreement. For now.

Lucas let loose another heartless laugh.

"Well as fun as this has been, I must warn all of you. If you dare come on our patch without our permission, we will hunt you down and eat you for breakfast. Am I understood?"

After waiting for answer, he smiled.

"Glad you understand. You may as well go home. It's time for the pack to eat"

And with that, Lucas walked into the church with Kari in his arms and slammed the door. Stephen launched himself at the door and banged at it to get it open. But it wouldn't budge.

Jenna ran over to him and grabbed him. For a second, he tensed but then he fell into her arms and sobbed.

"I can't believe he did that to Kari" I gasped.

"Neither can I" Shadow echoed.

I half expected Doug to go over to his pack. But after looking at them for a while, he turned slowly around. His eyes were glistening once again. After a series of short soft glances, we joined together in an embrace that solidified our family bond. Not enough to be a hug but just enough for us to feel comforted by each other's presence.

To our relief, the wereleopards hadn't been hurt. They had escaped through the back of the church when Lucas had arrived and now, they tended to our wounds and gave us the support we needed.

The loss of Kari hit us really hard. People say life's a bitch, they've got no idea.