3. Declan

The crew has been planning this for months and that bastard Valdis had no idea. 

He withdrew his scouts as the Freeze approached, just as we knew he would. We walked right up to the fucking door. 

Nearly all the crew are the offspring of people he has murdered. Joined together in shared hatred for the tyrant that has dominated the northern half of our world. Trekking through the tall black mountains none of us said a word. Memories of this place ran too deep, scars reopened.

I could have started a new life, down in the warmer southern lands. Never see snow and ice again, endure another Freeze. Allow my wolf to shift form and prance along the fucking beach without a care.

Except I can’t. For twenty years, since a small boy of seven, my dreams have been filled with burning visions of what he took from me. 

Every mirror reminds me of what Valdis left me with instead.

We knew if we waited until the final hours before the Freeze struck we could take them by surprise. Half a dozen purple-clad servants but no guards were spied still above ground. Everyone's wolves were on edge in our minds, scenting the air, alert and ready.

Hidden from view, dressed in heavy black leathers and furs we were an intimidating sight. Twelve of us, armed to the teeth with powerful guns and knives. A unit elected by the rest of the rogues to deliver justice. 

There were a hundred more shifters who wanted to strike down the Bloodstone pack but we had to be realistic. For the plan to work we had to be able to survive the Freeze. If we all attacked we would soon descend into starvation and chaos as we ran out of supplies. 

There were too many tales of bunkers being visited in the spring by their southern counterparts, only to find the gory, desperate evidence of starvation. Shrivelled corpses, rotting on concrete. Trapped with nothing but a slow wait for death. The claw marks on the walls and signs of cannibalism always made me shudder as a young boy.

Not my men. Valdis would not taint me with further deaths. 

We would do this the smart way. So, loaded with machine guns we put my plan into action. I went first, crying for help begging for sanctuary before the freeze. It was a common occurrence at this time, packless wolves caught out by the snowfall.

Guards raced out of the concrete compound like rabbits from a hole, eager to give a helpless stranger a kicking. 

Once all four bunker doors were opened my men emerged and unleashed devastation. Bullets and blood swiftly covered the roof of the concrete compound. We did not shift, bullets were more effective than snapping jaws today.

No mercy was necessary. One look at the scars covering my deputy Reu’s arms would tell you all you needed to know. My grizzled, short brown beard covers a lot of my damage. Enough strikes with a metal tipped whip will leave a scar no matter how hard your wolf tries to heal you. 

Reu got his for daring to stop his little sister being taken by one of Valdis’ Beta’s. He lost his sister, parents and everyone he loved. His blue eyes are hard like diamonds, clipped hair, white as the ice. He is powered by vengeance now. 

Racing around the top of the compound we wiped out Valdis’ guards in a hail of bullets. Gradually their cries of pain lulled, there was no sign of the main man though. 

I charged up a stone turret staircase and almost flattened a purple-clad servant girl. Full of fury, spattered with the blood others, I terrified her. Pointing the gun at her face, “who else is up there!” I yelled sharply.

“Nobody! Please don’t kill me!” her black hair falling around her face in waves. Bright, forest-green eyes pleading with me as she backed against the wall. Fear rolled off her in waves and for the first time I didn’t want someone to think of me that way.

I gestured with my gun for her to run along. Like a terrified hare she sprinted and vanished underground. 

I whirled around checking for danger, ignoring the vanilla scented air the dark-haired girl had left behind.

Ground level secure. Time to descend into the concrete hell they called home. 

“Two above!” I shouted, the rest of us tackled the underground lair. The air was foul, steel doors clattered and banged around us. We knew it would be tricky, those who lived down here needed no signs or directions. It was a mindless rabbit warren for us. I had long forgotten the layout myself. 

We fanned out, our guns cocked ready to kill anything that threatened. I had already told the men not to harm those dressed in purple. Unless they came at us of course, then they are fair game. 

A black-bearded hellion of a man jumped out and fired. I dropped and blasted back. He fell ground and quivered out of existence. Over his bleeding body a huge man with dirty black coiled plaits leapt and ran.

“TARGET!” I bellowed and gave chase. My pulse raced as I followed him down twisting routes, the sound of his slapping feet allowing me to keep up. This was it, the moment all of us came here for.

Like a fleeing rat he went to shimmy up a ladder but found the barrel of Howen’s machine gun pointing at him from above. Howen, my second deputy, was a red-bearded viking of a man. Covered in scars the same as the rest of us under his black leathers his green eyes gleamed as he watched the colour drain from Alpha Valdis’ face. 

His dirty face reminded me of leather. So much older than I remembered too, the white fur lining of his leathers soaked with the blood of his Beta’s. 

“Got ya,” Howen muttered from above. Valdis let go of the railing, seething and shaking with rage as he reluctantly gave up the chase. I lifted my gun, my heartbeat steady as a lake as I prepared to take my moment.

“NO!” screamed a female who flung herself in front of the gun barrel. Long black hair curled and styled with gems and golden braids. She wore expensive red silk and flowery perfume, a stark contrast to the leathery faced rat we had cornered. “You can’t kill him!”

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked, pointing my gun directly at her face. Anyone wearing all that gold and finery was not worth trusting for a second. She placed herself between Valdis and my gun, her silk dress billowing around their legs.

“I’m Corina! Luna Corina! He’s all I have, he’s my father, please show mercy!” she begged.

“You know exactly the sort of man your father is. He rapes, kills and brutalises everyone who is of no purpose,” She better not have a weapon strapped to her back or I’ll fire through the pair of them.

“You kill him, you’re no better!”

“I kill him, I do the world a favour,” I grunted in reply. My men shouted cheers of agreement.

“He should be on trial! Take him south in spring and put him on trial!”

I stepped forward, placing the gun barrel against the weeping Luna’s forehead. “This is the Night of the Rogue's you spoiled little bitch. You want to go down south and plead for mercy on his behalf, be my guest.”

“But…but the Freeze,” she whispered, looking above at the sky beyond the scowling red beard of Howen. “I’ll never make it…”

“If I let you go now, you could. Reu, get all the servants and prisoners assembled in one of the bigger rooms of this shithole. They are not to be harmed."

“Yes Sir,” Reu clipped then strode away to start banging on doors. His ice-white hair almost glows in this miserable concrete gloom.

I study the pair, my finger on the trigger but no longer against her forehead. Valdis remains a seething, scowling bastard, the girl still weeping.

“Take her,” Valdis suddenly announces, nudging Corina forward. “Take her as yours, spare me. Put me on trial. Fuck her any way you like. She’s untouched, ready for a man.”

I don’t even flinch. “You would have me ravage your only daughter to save your own neck?”

“Father,” Corina gasped in shock, looking down at the floor as a scarlet blush enveloped her. Swallowing, she looked back up at me, a hardness in her green eyes that she no doubt gained from him. “I will do it. For my father I will be yours.”

Valdis grabbed at Corina’s red silk robe and tore it roughly exposing her chest as the gold brooches pinning it together gave way. She squealed and blinked away tears she dare not allow to fall. 

Still she stammered, allowing her tattered red dress to expose her breasts, “for my father…I am yours.”

I don’t need pity fucks from the daughter of my enemy. 

Firing a round directly into Alpha Valdis’ forehead is my answer. A patina of grey and red, concrete and blood combined expands before me. The half naked Corina drops to the floor screaming. 

“I don’t want you. Now move, you can join the servants for instructions. Then you can clean up the mess he’s left on the walls. Now put your fucking chest away.”