2- The Dreaded Hunters of Gotham

Anthony

“This is the third time you’ve rejected a mate Alpha Anthony, the third goddamned time! Are the women of Gotham pack not to your pleasing?” Wolverine

Silver shrieked wildly, and I struggled to unhook my eyes from where they had rolled to the back of my head.

The elder from the wolf council had been yapping on for the better part of an hour, and I could tell from the way my brother had slouched

onto the white pillars of the throne room that he was far more tired of hearing the same bullshit than I was.

It wasn't the first time the whiny bitch elder had called a meeting of the wolf council, the stiff-necked beasts responsible for Alpha affairs.

“Yes Silver, your women are shit, child makers, all of them, and even that, they aren't good at. That wife of yours though, my, I hear she has quite the rack...” Michael growled, shrugging to his feet like a panther with a feral smile spreading across his devilishly handsome face.

Wolverine Silver’s gaunt face widened with surprise before he rose shakily to his feet,trembling

with indignation while I tried to hide a smirk behind my palm, ruthless Michael, dreaded Michael, Michael the reaper of souls...how many names had my brother gathered over the years?

The 6’5ft blonde with his chiseled angular face and beefy frame was the Prince Charming of most of the Gotham women wolves, as free-handed with his cock as a stripper in a fucking tavern. He couldn't get through his women fast enough. We were alike in our ruthlessness, he and I...and yet he was nothing like me.

I was colder, harder to please, my heart black where his was grey. And something about the meaningful look I caught in my brother’s eye when he stared at me told me he knew which one of us had the bigger cock.

“All I'm saying, Anthony Gotham, is that you should find yourself a good woman from the pack to be your Luna!” Wolverine Silver hedged, completely ignoring my brother who snorted loudly, before letting out an “Oww!” when Alfred, our beta cousin jabbed an elbow into his side.

I could sense more of the elders agreeing when I caught them nodding and murmuring between themselves, the tension rising in the air as my patience thinned.

My claws scrapped noisily against the throne of skulls I sat on, and the heat from the flame torches behind me made the full mat of my black hair stick to the back of my stocky neck.

“I would mind that pick-pocket wife of yours if I were you, Silver, what right do you have speaking on mates?” Alfred chimed in and a scandalized gasp went through the crowd as the elder wolf’s face drained of color.

It was well-known how his wife had been dragged through the streets and stripped for robbery, and I felt satisfaction knowing that the beta knew where his loyalty lay.

“Enough! I will not stand for this intimidation!” One of the wolves who had been sitting stone-faced the entire time piped up suddenly and I almost threw my hands up in frustration.

I needed to catch my evening hunt and now I wasn't even going to make it in time before fucking sunset!

I hated missing evening hunts...they were important.

“This pack needs a Luna to move forward! We’re open to attack as it is from whoever wishes because our powers are not at a maximum!” Another big-chested wolf elder piped up, and it only took a split-second for me to close the distance between us, all 6’7ft of my towering frame dwarfing his own as I clenched my claws around his neck.

“YOU DARE QUESTION THE EXTENT OF MY POWERS RODERIGO?” I roared in a deafening voice that seemed to shake the throne room to it's foundations.

I could hear the creak of chairs as some of the elders fell to their knees or leaned away, horrified.

Who the fuck did this maggot think he was questioning my power?

“I have razed seven

thousand

wolf armies to the ground in a single night and YOU DARE QUESTION MY BLOODY COMMAND?” I thundered again, watching the man’s square face turn blue as he struggled futilely against my hold, his eyes widening when I lifted him off the ground.

“Your Highness! Shit! Anthony!” My cousin’s voice echoed somewhere behind me but he need not have bothered because the rage flooding my system pounded hotly in my ears.

I saw red threads weaving around in my vision as I ground my teeth, tightening my grip on the man’s neck and watching as his veins jumped and bulged from his thick neck.

“Christ!” More gasps rose from the crowd before the sharp crack of cartilage breaking filled the air and a rush of silence followed after I allowed the man’s corpse to fall to the ground with a heavy thud.

I turned back toward the crowd calmly, catching my brother’s excited face, his bright blue eyes still focused on the blood pooling by my feet with a dull intensity. Hunger. I could feel my wolf drooling.

Fucking hell, I needed to get into the woods.

“No one, none of you gives the orders. We do. Understood?” I hissed in a harsh, commanding tone that brooked no argument, watching the elders exchange horrified glances before they bowed their consent.

“Court’s dismissed. Get your asses back in your tents! The Big Bad Wolf’s is over and signing out!” Michael hollered behind me as I stormed out of the hall and I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face.

It was just like the annoying son-of-a-bitch to make jokes over a dead body.

“Tony! Tony man wait up!” Michael hedged, jogging up behind me as I fastened my pace.

“Not my fault you have little legs Johnny,” I answered sarcastically, eyeing his long, sturdy legs with some envy.

He was faster than me, Michael. He was the scout, the reaper before the Devil came to collect. It was how the pack saw us.

The Dreaded Hunters of Gotham.

“What's for tonight? Blood and bones? The usual ram or something special?” Michael panted, and I could have missed the sharp flash of his big white fangs if I hadn't been looking.

I felt bloodlust shudder through me as I snapped my head up to the moon, waiting. We usually fed on prisoners only, the bad, the corrupt...but I didn't feel like tasting the iron in their blood this night.

No...I wanted something special...something different.

I shook my head, nodding to the guards who doubled over in a bow as we strode through the large iron gates of the city, the fluorescent halo of the wall searchlights stopping just short of the tree lines.

There was something about the moon this night, the way the silvery light shone over the shadowed arc of pine trees.

It was quiet tonight in the dark woods, and it was never fucking quiet. Not even the chirping of crickets and the song of birds could be heard.

“Something‘s wrong Tony, I can feel it.” My brother’s quiet growl came, only confirming the anxious knot in my gut.