Chapter 9- Slade, ten years ago

Nothing compares to the feel of the wind coursing through my fur beneath the light of the moon, through the trees, the naked ground beneath my paws, with a pack of my brothers running alongside. The freedom, the simplicity of it, is the closest my kind will ever get to Heaven on Earth. I do not let these feelings override our mission though, do not allow myself to get lost in the euphoric emotions the merge brings, of the beauty of each vine, the masterpiece of every flower, the sounds of the birds and other creatures dancing among the trees, the rich smells of the moon’s creations, because the moon must be avenged, and our own cub returned to the pack. Violations of the worst kind have been committed against the moon’s children, both those that walk on two legs or many, and blood is the price to be paid from the transgressor. The moon demands blood, and as moon favored and the strongest among its creations, we will make sure that debt is paid in full.

Our strong legs carry us through the wooded hills of Kentucky to where one forest kisses another, and into the edges of the Smoky Mountains in less than half the time it would take by tuniculas’ vehicles. Even with thirty of our brothers, I can smell them all in the wind, each pelt a different scent, we waste little time reaching the place near where the blasphemer took our cub and his human mate into the woods. But we are forced to wait among the shadows and follow the commands of the beta in command. Because our woods are crawling with humans and their hounds tonight, also searching for our prey. They carry guns large enough to pierce our skin and into our hearts or skulls.

My father briefly shifts back into his human skin to better give us our orders.

“Most of us must wait. We cannot risk so many. Each pack will choose two of their best and most stealth trackers to send into the woods to search for Bale, his cub, and the human girl. The rest of us will remain here awaiting further command until it is safe to enter the woods. The humans will suspend the search at some point and then we will be ready to take over when that time comes. We can cover eight hundred miles far faster and more adept than they can, as we are not shackled by their human limits. For now, brothers, we watch and wait.”

Of the three packs which have made it here tonight, six wolfs are chosen to search the woods, tasked with not only tracking the scents we are after, but also avoiding the humans and their dogs. We must not be seen. We must remain hidden as the moon intended when it gave us our coats that blend in with the ground and trees. We are natural born predators and trackers. From our pack, Leif and Hollis are chosen. They will move like ghosts through the trees and the humans will never know they are there. A large black beta the color of night and his brown coated brother are picked from the Blue Moon pack, both kin to its Alpha, while the Timberlands Pack offers up two lean betas with dark grey fur.  In their wolf skins, Leif is the color of moss that grows along the trees while Hollis’ fur is the color of the moon.

The younger wolfs among us are far more restless as we wait. I flatten my body to the Earth and try not to whine like a cub, while some of my packmates pace among the trees. My instincts battle the commands of my beta, my wolf wants to take off into the trees with my nose to the ground, while I know I also must obey. The moon rises higher in the sky, letting us know the night is passing, and it will go to bed when it meets the sun. The night is slipping further away and still we wait, we submit, though my wolf is not pleased with it.

 If a human scent drifts closer, we retreat further back into the trees like we are commanded, though I don’t like it. I want to be out there tracking down the one who brought dishonor to the moon, I want to be the one to put him down and save our cub. It is not easy for me to lie and wait, but I submit, and my senses miss nothing. The humans trample through the forest with the grace of elephants, I can hear the cracks of the twigs snapping beneath their feet, their voices carry on the wind loudly, their scents stink up the forest. If Bale still stalks these woods, he will hear and smell them coming from miles away. The humans, even with their tracking dogs, do not have a chance to find our prey, as he will always be several steps ahead of them.

By the time dawn begins to break through the trees, we are forced to retreat. Several of our hunters run off to return to pack lands to await further instructions, while Father and our hunter band merge back into our human skins, clothe our bodies to blend into the human world, and climb into our vehicles. I try to hide my frustration, but Father senses it just the same. We have lost an entire night to find those girls as the humans blundered their way through the forest. Even with their search and rescue teams, volunteers, setting up grids, Grady confirms they only made it through a hundred or so miles of terrain overnight. Our packs could have done triple that in a single night, with a narrowed focus at that.

I sigh and lay my head back against the seat, “Bale and those girls will be long gone at this rate. The humans are making a mess of everything.”

“I know its hard, but we must be patient. Grady says they will likely suspend the search tonight until dawn. Then we will get our chance,” says Father.

“What if its too late by then? Bale is unhinged. He probably hasn’t even fed those girls or given them enough water to drink. Not to mention all the dangers in the woods to them he’ll likely overlook. It’s cold, especially at night, and the other predators they face out there besides him. Bears are rampant in these mountains. And there’s the threat of one of them getting hurt out there, twisting an ankle or breaking a leg, and Bale would likely leave the human girl behind to die if that happens. We need to find them Father. And like yesterday.”

What I don’t say is that might be a better fate for her, dying alone in a forest from lack of food or water, or picked off by some predator then life with a sadistic rogue. Anyone with a moral compass and a shred of humanity, would know an 11-year-old girl is still a child and too young to physically mate and carry cubs. It makes me physically sick and disgusted. But I can’t think of any other reason the sick bastard would have taken her for, especially as Bale doesn’t hold any love for humans. He became obsessed with her mother, and the poor kid looks just like her, so Bale decided to claim the daughter too. I hope he hasn’t hurt her in that way at least and we aren’t too late to save her from that horror.

“We’ll find them, son. I know we will. Have faith in the moon.”

“What kind of state we find them in is what worries me,” I reply.

The day passes even more unbearably slower than the night before. Grady feeds us tips as the human’s search progresses. A blood-stained shirt believing to match that of the oldest Cross girl is located early afternoon, along with other signs they made camp in the forest. My stomach clenches at the news of the bloody clothes, but we knew the oldest girl had been injured in the shed. Luckily, no other traces of blood are found which we take as a good sign. But the wait and not knowing are killing me. I’m going crazy from it, and it takes all my will power to stay put and not run off to join the search. The thought of Father sending me home for disobeying another direct order is the only thing that grounds me.

We are crammed into an outdated motel room. But I force myself to go through the motions of eating and napping so Father won’t bench me from tonight’s hunt. Clay is up to his usual shit despite the tense mood and even though he prefers to annoy the fuck out of Wolfe the most, he chooses me as his target today. He messes with my shit by swiping my phone from its charger as I sleep. I awake to the sound of his voice reading old sext messages Beryl sent me.  River cackles from the other bed, nearly choking to death on a mouthful of chips, Wolfe tries to steal the phone from Clay’s hands to see if the she-wolf sent me any dirty pictures, while Father scowls at them from the table where his file is spread out before him. It’s now been updated to include the murders of Jack and Ava Cross and the kidnapping of their daughters.

“…Take me in the moonlight, at our favorite spot near the cedar tree, I’m already wet and waiting for you, my Alpha. I cum just thinking about you inside me. I’m touching myself right now.”

“Let me see! Did Beryl send a pussy pic?” demands Wolfe.

I snarl and jump to my feet. Clay bats away Wolfe but I come at him hard, slamming my body into his and knocking the air from his lungs. I tackle him without mercy, his back making contact with the queen-sized bed River is perched on the edge of, and I take him to the carpeted floor. I can smell the musty scent of it as I pin my cousin, who laughs like a mental patient in the nuthouse, and throw a fist into his jaw.

Wolfe is egging me on, telling me to kick Clay’s ass, and pumping his fist. Riv moves out of the way taking his bag of chips with him to a safe distance. Father sighs loudly from the corner of the room. Clay blocks the next hit I have aimed at his face.

“Don’t break anything. The deposit was fifty bucks,” mutters River around another mouthful of chips.

“Take it outside boys,” says Father, “on second thought, knock it off. We don’t want to draw unwanted attention to ourselves. We’re here for a job. Stop messing around.”

I ball Clay’s shirt into my fists to use it as leverage to knock his head against the floor. I thump him a good time or two before a left hook catches me on the side of the head.

“You’ve been holding out on us Saint Slade!” laughs Clay, “she’s ripe for the picking, all rosy and juicy-”

I head butt him. Then River is there pulling me off Clay who has red teeth and a bruising jaw. Wolfe has used the advantage to pick up my phone from where it landed between the beds. The fucker smiles like a wolf on the night of our fertility festival, where the mateless of our pack gather to try and find a good match, to make new cubs to expand the pack.

“She sent pics! Damn. I might have to hit that.”

I growl again in River’s hold and shoot a look of pure murder at my cousin. Clay grins wider from the floor as he swipes a hand across his bloodied lip, “Scroll to the left. You can see all her downstairs.”

“Give me back my phone you perv or I’ll fucking rip you apart!”

I should have sent the pictures to a secure file or changed my passcode. I let the bastard use my phone last week to call home when he broke his.  No good deed goes unpunished. That was a serious error in my judgement. I seemed to be doing a lot of that these days. I shouldn’t have let them get under my skin this much, but this latest case has me all messed up and on edge. A wolf should be the master of his own emotions. Calm, controlled, disciplined, especially a hunter. I can see the disappointment written on Father’s face without him saying a word.

“Are you good, cuz?” asks River, then he turns to Wolfe, “stop being a perv and give the man back his phone.”

Wolfe takes a screenshot and clearly sends the picture to himself. I hiss, seething. I’m going to delete those pictures off his phone the first chance I get or smash it into a thousand pieces which will probably make me feel better. Smashing Clay’s smug face again will also make me feel better, but I resist both urges at the moment.

“I’m good. Let me go,” I assure River.

He releases me and I straighten my clothes. Wolfe holds out my phone and I snatch it from his meaty palm. Clay winks at me as he picks himself up off the floor. He pushes back a mop of blonde curls out of his eyes. Many of the Ironclaws are dirty blondes, but River, Dad and I broke that mold. Wolfe’s hair would have a golden hue if he ever washed it.

This room is suddenly far too small and crowded. It chokes me and I need to get out. My wolf claws below the surface. Even in the light of day, it longs to shed this human skin, and take to the trees. To hunt. To find. To kill Bale. To save those girls.

“I’m going to get some fresh air,” I call over my shoulder as I head towards the door.

“Keep out of trouble and stay close. I’m expecting another update from Grady and the packs soon,” informs Father.

I nod. Our best trackers weren’t able to cover much ground last night in the mountain country swarming with tuniculas. They picked up our target’s scents but couldn’t follow them properly as it ran them into the search and rescue crews on the ground. We have some scouts in their human skins out watching the woods from the peripheral and a few were even able to officially join the search and infiltrate their ranks. Though it goes against our natures to hunt by day and in the presence of humans, Father trusted Hawke for this important task.  He will do nothing to risk exposing our kind and can blend in well with humans like need be. He wears many skins, while the younger among us are still learning that valuable skill how to inconspicuously mingle with the humans.

We are all raised on pack lands and not let out into the world outside our forests much before we have absolute control of our shifts. Our kind are most at risk in the few years following our first merge as strong emotions can easily lead to a shift. Then is our greatest risk to exposure, until we learn to be one with our wolf, and control the merge and our emotions better. Cubs too young to shift are vulnerable in other ways but pose less risk outside pack lands until they receive the gift from the moon.

River beats me to the door. He smells heavily of salt and vinegar, his favorite flavor of chips. I try to dodge the arm he swings around my shoulder.

“Want some company?” he asks with a huge grin that practically splits his face in two.

“I’m good thanks. I just need some time alone.”

“The bathroom’s free,” he suggests, “it always works wonders for me. Of course, it’s not the same thing as being with my mate, but it works in a pinch. Or you could pick up a tourist. I saw a flock of decent looking ones on the way in. Get to them before Clay pounces on all the good ones.”

Even if the walls in this motel weren’t paper thin, I wouldn’t jack off in the bathroom among wolves with sharp hearing and an even better sense of smell. And my cousin knows my stance on wolf/human entanglements. I won’t hook up with a human even for a one-night stand as it goes against all my principles.

I shrug him off my shoulders, “You know I don’t fuck humans. You know how I feel about that. Shouldn’t you be off calling your mate? It’s been a full thirty minutes since you last talked to Willow and I’m sure she’s losing her mind over it.”

He smiles even bigger though I don’t know how it’s possible.

“Maybe one day a human will fuck you, in a good way, little cuz. Just wait, all it takes is for the right one to come along and you’ll eat those words.”

I snort, “Unlikely. That will never happen. Now get out of my way, asshole. I have places to be. And it smells like ass crack in here.”

He laughs and I can tell by the glint in his eye what he’s about to do next. I try to dodge and tell him, “Don’t do it fucker,” but I’m too slow as my cousin takes a sadistic satisfaction in messing up my hair. I punch him afterwards and his chuckle follows me from the room. I shut the door roughly behind me happy to get away, not only from the nasty smells and invasion of privacy, but also the awkward conversation.

River has never been with a human girl to my knowledge, but he doesn’t have any prejudices against such relationships. Clay is all about free love, literally, and he’s even experimented with males of both species too. Wolfe is a fair-weather Lycan in that regard, back home and among other packs, he’ll spout off his views on keeping blood lines pure and no interspecies mingling, but out on the road, he doesn’t miss the opportunity to put his dick in whoever is willing. He’s a hypocrite and when I’ve called him out on such issues before, he claims fucking a human girl isn’t the same thing as claiming her as a mate and accepting her into the pack. I see little difference between the two.

I push such thoughts away as I let my human feet carry me aimlessly through the touristy city. River is right and there are plenty of pretty tuniculas out and about. It is spring break for some colleges I think and the town is overrun with extra bodies because of it.  Clay will be on the prowl soon enough with such prime pickings. It doesn’t make our jobs any easier with all these humans milling about, but my cousins are welcome to them. I ignore more than one flirtatious smile and girls attempts to get my attention, as I make my way down past the tourist shops, bars, and restaurants mostly dotting the main streets.

 The air is at least more fresh and clear out here, and the sight of the mountains rising proud and tall, hugging the trees, brings me comfort but also makes me think of home. I miss Shadow Ridge. I miss my little brother, my stepmother, Beryl, my own bed, and about half of the pack. I again wonder if I’m cut out for the life a hunter. But then I remember those photos in Father’s file, the way Jack Cross was so torn apart in his own hallway and his wife was left dead on the grass in their backyard, a small pink blanket coated in vomit, and I know that the sacrifices are worth it. This is what I was born to do, it won’t be an easy life, but it will be a fulfilling one in the ways that matter most. I will bring honor to the moon and the pack. I will avenge the moon and right the wrongs of its creations that go feral and break our most sacred laws.

I feel an inexplicable pull in a certain direction through the mountain town, as if a thread has bound itself to me, and pulled taut the further south I traverse. I have only ever had such feelings of connection before while wearing my wolf skin, when I can feel the pull of the moon itself. To feel it in my human skin, in the sunlight, both intrigues and intimidates me. I have no choice but to follow. I need to trust my instincts and go where the thread takes me. But I can’t help but wonder what holds the other side of the string. Fate? My destiny? Or the moon even though it now slumbers?

So, I walk, losing track of time, as day fades towards dusk and the fireflies begin to come out to paint the sky.  My phone buzzes in my pocket but I ignore it with an obsessive need to follow the invisible thread to where it ends or perhaps, begins. And then I catch a scent in the air. The rogue we are hunting has passed this way and not so long ago. And he was not alone, the wind also holds the smell of rain and roses, and jasmine and sandalwood, the Cross sisters. Bale’s musk is of sandalwood and grass, traces of which his cub inherited, just as I know I smell of my father’s cedar along with blood oranges. Every wolf has a distinct odor, much in the same way every human as unique fingerprints.

I break into a jog as I chase the scent, my heart thumping like a war drum in my chest. I cut across a busy street barely dodging the heavy traffic, a chorus of honks follows me, and one angry tunicula shouts out his window at me. I know I should call Father and let him know I’ve picked up the rogue’s trail, as it is not safe to hunt alone, especially with prey as dangerous and cunning as Bale, but I’m compelled to keep going and don’t have time to pull my phone from my pocket. I’ll let my hunter band know when I reach my destination. For now, I put my nose towards the wind and let it guide me.

I know I could move much faster if I shed my human skin, but that is not an option with so many tourists around, in the sun where I cannot hide my pelt the cover of a muddy river, and I will not break our laws. A hunter is not above the laws of our kind, we should hold ourselves to even higher standards and obey. My two legs carry me to a bar made of logs, the lot filled with cars already even though night has yet to fully claim the Earth.  The sign tells me the place is called Another Bar. But the scents of my quarry are not all I smell now, the smell of death taints the mountain air. And I know enough now to tell it is human flesh that rots and decays.

I know the place where Bale and the Cross sisters emerged from the woods. I can pick up their trail into the thick line of trees nestled around the bar. It ends in the gravel lot and that must mean from here they left by means other than their legs. But I need to know who is rotting in the woods. I know it’s not Sloane at least, that she is alive or was recently, and that brings me a bit of comfort.

 I’m careful to make sure no humans see me enter the woods. I creep among the trees nearly soundless as I look for the source of the flies that now buzz more abundantly in this patch of green, the origins of the eye watering smells that fill the air. I soon come across a man, lying still and bone white among the moss and branches of the forest bed. Even though his corpse is not mutilated, I can tell this is the handiwork of Bale, as the rogue’s scent is all over the dead man. His neck juts out an unnatural angle. His dark eyes stare up lifeless at the sky above. I figure him to be about my father’s age, though he’s overweight, with a full beard and mustache. A cowboy hat lies discarded several paces away and the steel plates on his boot tips reflect off the fading light.

There are flies swarming his body, along with beetles and ants, but it’s the lack of a certain bug not carpeting the corpse which tells me the most. The body has no maggots which means he was likely killed less than a day ago. I pull out my phone and dial Father’s number. It takes no time at all before he and the rest of my hunter band join me in the woods. Though Father isn’t pleased I did this alone, he is proud that I made such an important discovery in the case, and that my knowledge of bugs has allowed me to pinpoint a time of death for the deceased.

Bale is breaking his usual pattern, not because he has had a change of heart and is showing mercy to his kills, but from a matter of convenience and anonymity. This tells me it’s because he now has something to lose that he didn’t care about before. In the past, he flaunted his kills and didn’t try to cover them up, but he drug this body deeper into the woods to hide it. Now that he has his cub and his mate, he is being far more careful. It means he doesn’t plan on giving up either of them, even at the expense of his own pride. In his own twisted way, perhaps he feels something for his cub at least. But the rogue’s feelings are warped, and he is not capable of love. I fear it’s obsession he feels for his stolen little mate.

Father calls the rogue’s latest crime into Grady. We are once again forced on the sidelines of the human side of the investigation, but my discovery has not been in vain. There is no need to waste valuable pack time and resources prowling the Smoky Mountains tonight, we come to this conclusion far quicker than the humans do. They can waste their manpower, while we will move on as we know the feral no longer haunts this area. It takes them far longer to put together certain pieces than it does us.

 Grady passes all their latest developments our way, even though we ID the dead man first through the contents of his wallet and know his killer. Our detective passes along the information of the Red Dodge Ram registered in the murdered man’s name. All agencies are put on high alert to be on the lookout for the vehicle and we tell our packs to do the same.

Grady also sends us a link to the footage of the security camera in the bar parking lot that picks up Bale leaving in the stolen truck with the two little girls in tow. The images aren’t the best as it’s dark, and the man’s murder is not captured in the frames, but it sparks an even greater nationwide manhunt and media frenzy even before the first rays of the morning sun. It also proves that the human girl and the cub were alive, and seemingly well, fifteen hours before.  With so many eyes looking for them, we are confident it won’t be long until they are spotted again.

I convince Father to order our band to head south. I have a feeling in my gut that is where the feral is taking the girls. I feel the same pull inside me as I did which led me to the dead man, and it didn’t steer me wrong before. I don’t tell him I feel a physical tug, just that it is my instinct. He accepts this and doesn’t question me; he is far more spiritual than I and attributes it as the moon is speaking to me. When the moon speaks, we must listen.

We are already on the road heading south when we get the call just before the last traces of light leave the Earth, as twilight dawns, Grady’s news is grim. A call has just come in and units responded to a horrible scene near the Florida Georgia line. Eight people have been brutally slaughtered, a massacre at a gas station. A witness reports one man is responsible for tearing through the lot and breaking necks of people as they tried to run. But even more troubling, is the fact a camera pointed at the register inside the gas station picked up a wolf entering the store, tearing through a bullet proof partition, and mauling the clerk to death. It’s a gruesome scene that the detective sends us the footage too.

A camera at the pumps picks up an even more heartbreaking image to my eyes. I’m affected by watching Bale’s rampage as he cuts down the innocent humans running for their lives, but I’m nearly physically ill as I watch the young girl beating on the glass of the truck and screaming. Her look of horror, and then when she lies her head against the glass and her body shakes, nearly destroys me. I feel the salt of my own tears. Watching Sloane Cross break, breaks me in a way I never thought I would. I’ve seen a lot of bad shit in the few short weeks I’ve been a hunter, but the sight of one small, human girl coming undone, affects me in ways I can’t even comprehend. Her pain becomes my own and it takes all I have not to let out that grief. I fight back against my own tears and swarm of emotions as we make for the Florida State line, now four impossibly long hours away. 

The rogue has over a four hour head start on us. He could have taken those poor girls anywhere by now, but I can feel in my heart they are still close by the murder scene. My gut tells me he’s taken them into the woods again, to lie low after the latest carnage he just left behind in the human world. Those girls will never be the same. They have seen far too much, far too young, and I fear for more than just their physical safety now. I pray to the moon they aren’t damaged beyond repair.

As Father guns it towards the state border, it’s no longer images of torn up bodies that haunts my waking mind, but the face of Sloane Cross and her silent screams.