Chapter 4 – My Pups

Gabriel POV

I paced restlessly in my office, my muscular frame taut with pent-up energy. Those damn Silvermoon omegas were at it again, their constant attempts to undermine my authority grating on my last nerve.

"Those omegas are up to something again," I growled, unable to mask my annoyance.

Talon, my most trusted beta, nodded in solemn agreement. "They never learn, do they? After the humiliation we handed their alpha during the last conflict, you'd think they'd know better than to challenge your supremacy."

Flashes of our previous confrontation with the Silvermoons played through my mind in vivid detail. The bone-crunching satisfaction of victory, the coppery scent of their alpha's blood filling the air – it had been glorious.

"It seems they are planning for revenge."

Fury, my inner wolf, stirred within me at the recollection, a rising snarl of bloodlust thrumming beneath my skin.

"Calm down, Alpha." Talon's gruff timbre was laced with a calming effect, momentarily quelling Fury's escalating frenzy. "We will deal with their insolence as we always do – though your overwhelming power is always to our benefit."

I inhaled deeply, struggling to contain the raging bonfire of my primal urges. As satisfying as it would be to simply descend on the Silvermoons like a force of nature and grind them into oblivion, there were...complications.

"If only it were that simple," I bit out through a clenched jaw. "Our spy has informed me that the Bastard is seeking Humad aid this time. Forces beyond their pitiful comprehension that could foolishly believe they can defy my supremacy."

Talon went still, his sable eyes sharpening to merciless obsidian. "The human?" He mumbled. " The interference in sovereign pack affairs is unforgivable and will be met with annihilation. Do we know who dares risk such catastrophic overreach by aligning with those weaklings?"

"Not yet." The admission was nearly as galling as the bitter tang of failure on my tongue.

Unconsciously, my hands fisted until razored claws extended with a barely audible shnik, scoring deep furrows across the ancient surface of my desk. "But the message from a human Intel claims to possess those very answers we require. They insist on meeting face-to-face to...share what they know of the Silvermoons' treacherous alliance."

For a long moment, silence reigned absolute but for the steady thrumming of rain against the windows. I could sense the calculated gears turning in Talon's ever-pragmatic mind as he weighed the inherent hazards of such an unorthodox approach.  

"Would you wish to enter the human world?" he asked at last, giving voice to the unspoken caveat. "How can you Disguised as a human? It should be someone else...?

"

A feral grin split my features as I threw back my head, harsh laughter echoing through the vaulted chamber. "When have you ever known me to entrust matters of such vital importance to any besides myself, old friend?"

Pivoting to face him fully, I allowed my towering stature to blot out the meager firelight in a burn of primordial menace. "Your concern is appreciated, Talon, but it's not necessary. I have no intention of belittling myself as a human, but this I must do."

One by one, I extended my senses outward, embracing the intoxicating rush of power thrumming through my corporeal form. The scents of pine resin and sharpened ozone flooded my bestial olfaction. A dizzying vertigo of cosmic attunement subsumed my vision until it seemed as though I could glimpse the pulsing crimson threads woven into reality's very fabric. And beneath it all, the relentless cadence of my alpha heart pounding with vitality potent enough to subjugate entire civilizations through sheer proximity alone.

"I am the last of our race's ascendancy, Talon - the living apotheosis of millenia spent evolving, culling, and ascending toward genetically-coded supremacy over this realm and all its denizens." My words reverberated with a resonance that triggered subconscious genuflection in the most base of prey creatures. "No mask or veil of deception could withstand my presence for long before faltering. So rather than concealing my bestial magnificence, I shall project it as a bulwark to cow these insects into compliance."

At this unequivocal pronouncement, Talon rumbled low in his chest, the noise a preternatural blend of reluctant trepidation and unwavering conviction. As ever, he would be the stalwart pragmatist walking the edges of cataclysmic change I embodied, ensuring some semblance of order remained amid the upheaval of my wake.

"Very well, my Alpha. Your path is clear, though shadows await in blind corners unseen," he intoned in a tone hinting at countless battles and intrigues woven throughout our shared existences. "Shall I summon a vanguard to accompany you? A blatant reminder of your authority may be...required to keep the humans in their proper lowly place."

The very notion was almost enough to coax a contemptuous sneer across my features. Talon meant well, but as always, his councils erred on the side of caution and metered force. A belief underpinned by the quaint notion that simply demonstrating my supremacy would be sufficient to achieve total capitulation rather than open the floodgates to utter mayhem and destruction.

"No escort will be required, Talon," I countered, clasping his shoulder in an age-old gesture of acknowledgement leavened by mutual respect. Talons sharpened to project scorching menace slid free from their sheaths with a whisper of metallic finality.

"The time has come for humans to understand the true consequences of defying their genetic betters. The Silvermoons and whichever deluded forces they've rallied to their doomed cause shall learn firsthand what happens when deluded prey beasts forget their place in the cosmos..."

In the sudden absence of sound, even the steady tattoo of precipitation seemed to fade to utter silence as the monster slowly rose to bear witness. Fury inhaled with relish the portents spooling through every plane of existence.

Tonight, I'll infiltrate the human world to get my hand on the information.

....

I stalked through the night-shrouded streets of Los Angeles, my senses on high alert despite the human disguise cloaking my true nature. The stench of exhaust fumes and squalor assailed my heightened olfaction, making my lip curl in revulsion. How these weaklings could exist surrounded by such repulsive odors was beyond me.

'This realm reeks of insignificance,' Fury growled, his deep timbre resonating through my consciousness like rolling thunder. 'Why do we lower ourselves to trek among these insects?'

"Silence," I hissed under my breath, reining in the beast's impatience through sheer force of will. "We're here for information, nothing more. Do not allow your bloodlust to jeopardize this." I warned, at last I disguised myself as a human, because I don't want to grab attention. It might end with me losing the Intel.

Fury subsided with a rumbling grumble of displeasure, though I could still sense his rage simmering just beneath the surface, waiting to be unleashed. Maintaining control in this suppressed human form was growing increasingly difficult with every passing moment.  

The scents and sounds of the city seemed to press in from all sides, grating against my hypersensitive primal awareness like shards of broken glass. I found myself tensing with the urge to shrug off this flimsy human camouflage and give reign to the monster straining against its ethereal chains.

'Let me out, Gabriel,' Fury crooned in a deadly whisper. 'Allow me to show these cattle the folly of existing in our presence. We could reduce this entire metropolis to ashes before the next moon rises.'

I exhaled a slow breath, struggling to maintain my iron discipline. As tempting as his offer was – the thought of watching this cesspool of humanity burn was certainly appealing – I couldn't risk jeopardizing our mission. Not until I had the intel about the Silvermoons' traitorous alliance.

As I struggled to keep Fury intact, a familiar scent drifted through the smog-choked air, barely perceptible but shocking in its clarity. I froze mid-step, every preternatural sense zeroing in on that faint trail like a laser burning through the chemical miasma.  

No...it couldn't be.

That rich, earthy musk laden with the unmistakable undercurrent of power could belong to only one source.

A scent I would recognize through all the planes of existence, even despite the improbability of its presence here.

My own. How?

'At last, something worthy of our interest,' Fury rumbled in evident satisfaction as we changed trajectory to follow the tantalizing vapor trail.

'Though how one of you managed to escape our territory undetected is a mystery. No matter, we shall simply slaughter the offending party and reclaim what is ours by right.'

I shook my head minutely, still struggling to process the implications of what we were both detecting.  From everything my father and the elders had decreed, my line was to end with me – a tragic inevitability due to my inability to sire a mating partner befitting my alpha primacy.

I had grudgingly accepted this solemn pronouncement years ago and devoted myself entirely to ensuring our pack's continued dominance in the absence of an heir.  

But now...now that faintest tendril of scent whispered of a different reality entirely, one where my bloodline remained unbroken despite the ignominy of my "condition" declared by soothsayers and spirit-walkers.

A reality where some unforeseeable event had conspired to defy the inevitable and produce the continuation of my lineage that I had been so cruelly denied.

The scent trail grew stronger and more pungent the deeper we ventured into the city's pulsing underbelly. At last, we emerged before a towering edifice of metal and glass, its sterile architecture seeming to gleam even in the dead of night.

A plaque near the entrance identified it as some kind of medical facility run by humans – a place of healing and convalescence by their terms.

Or so I had assumed, until a new cadence of life energy pulsed into my sphere of perception, distinct from the overall din thrumming through the structure's walls.  This beacon called out with the irresistible cosmic resonance of my own primal essence, singing through the ether in a language as old as existence itself.

The delicate susurrus of a new life...forged from my own flesh and immortal fire.

"MY HEIR! MY PUP " Fury roared in wordless exultation, his own spirit blazing with predatory possession so absolute it threatened to unravel my restraints and burst free in an unstoppable tsunami of dominance.

With an ear splitting boom, the facility's entrance shattered before my unstoppable charge.  

Fury was in complete control now, our unified purpose obliterating all desires for subtlety. He would not be denied from claiming his birthright, not when the ultimate culmination of our species' upward ascent pulsed so tantalizingly close!

Shrieks and panicked screams echoed through the sterile corridors as I barged ahead, riding the currents of Fury's unearthly senses toward the epicenter pulsing brighter with each passing heartbeat.

Humans cried out and scrambled for cover, their pitiful attempts to intervene glancing off my inexorable progress like filthy rain from an ancient monolith. I barely registered their feeble affronts, all my focus locked on that exquisite tempo reverberating through the fabric of my being, amplifying to a crescendo that reached...

...a pair of swinging doors at the end of the corridor. One of those insignificant human females cowered before me, reeking of terror yet pitifully attempting to block my path.

It was an affront too egregious to withstand.

"Out of my way, insect," I snarled in a tone resonating with enough alpha dominance to scour the final vestiges of her countenance into a rictus of horror.

With a single backhanded swipe, I sent her ragdoll form crashing through the seal into the chamber beyond.

My prey's nest, where the offspring of my unbroken legacy gestated in the cosmic womb granted to its mother.

The chamber was cast in harsh fluorescent lighting, though its glare paled in comparison to the celestial radiance surrounding the lone female standing in its epicenter.

Porcelain skin glistened with a sheen of angelic iridescence, dark silken tresses tumbling across features seemingly sculpted from marble perfection.

A goddess made incarnate, lips slightly parted and depthless silver eyes shimmering with transcendent wonder at the inevitability unfolding before her.

And cradled protectively in her delicate arms, the swell of her swollen abdomen from which the irresistible siren song of new creation emanated.  

My pups. My bloodline. My immortal heritage's ultimate triumph over the ravages of time and oblivion itself.

With a leonine roar steeped in the authority of eons, I zeroed in on that sacrosanct truth with the synaptic clarity of a thousand trillion suns exploding into singularity. This was my destiny made flesh, the genesis of a new age of dominion and infinite ascendancy!

No force in all creation would be permitted to interfere.

"ENOUGH!" I thundered with such cataclysmic force the walls trembled and fissured, glass shattering in a pyrotechnic detonation as I stalked forward. Fury's influence blazed through every word like a solar flare incinerating the veil of night itself. "NO, You won't Abort My Pups!" I muttered.

"NO FURTHER HARM WILL COME TO MY PUPS THIS NIGHT!"

In the sudden silence, only the delicate cadences of my heirs' frantic pulses reached my preternatural senses. Their sacred resonance was my entire world's orbit, the cosmic masterstroke by which all future epochs would be etched across the firmament.  

And as my smoldering gaze met the mother's luminous stare, I knew without a shred of uncertainty that by my claw alone, the dawning of a new golden age had begun. An age of genetic ascendancy, of evolutionary supremacy realized at long last.  

The time of reckoning for this decadent world had arrived. THE HEIR THAT WAS THOUGHT TO BE LOST!

MY HEIR... MY PUPS.