Unspecified Rage

Family Ties

No one in the van said anything. John was confused and a little disturbed. He felt something stirring under his skin, slow and sluggish, but also a little painful. Julia was hanging onto her humanity by the barest of threads and it seemed to be pulling something...dark out of the wolves around her.

The Old One was doing her best to keep the other wolves from Changing while htey drove to the Lonely Place. It was the center of the Pack's territory, their meeting place. Graham would meet them there with the strongest of the Pack members backing him up. But if the Alpha had truely given Enrique to the rogue wolves, the presence of the other dominants might be a bad thing.

Julia's harsh panting breaths drew everyone's attention. "She's hyperventilating." Edwin warned, trying to get the young woman's attention. "You need to slow down your breathing. Take big deep breaths in and let them out slowly." he instructed.

Julia glared at him, gold eyes shining. She sucked in a deep breath and it rumbled out of her chest in a slow growl as she exhaled. "I'm guessing that ordering her around right now might be a great way to shorten your life expectancy." John called from the front seat. He'd seen Julia slip into one of her rages before, driven by pain into a violent outburst. And that was when she was still constrained with human limits. Now that she knew about her wolf and it was overtaking her personality, there's be a lot more damage.

"Julia, talk to me please." he asked her, taking hte rol of supplicant. "I miss mom and dad and Ben." he added in, not even lying. The pain in his voice pulled Julia's attention to him. She crawled over the bouncing van floor and settled down as close to him as she could. He felt the heat of her skin radiating against him.

"I miss them too." she managed to say, voice rough. The loss of her family was a terrible distraction, reminding her of how much she hurt but it compelled her to try and distract her brother. "So I've been looking into getting some of those Vibram shoe thingies." she said randomly.

Edwin blinked in confusion, not following the jump in conversation at all. But he realized that hte surge of violence in the van eased off as Julia talked about completely random things. "Yeah?" John asked, going along with it. "That;s the shoe with toes right?" he asked.

"Yep. I'm hoping that switching to barefoot style shoes will help with some of hte joint pains." she mused, clawing a little more of her humanity back. So they sat there, discussing the merits of forward striking foot motions while driving towards an insane Alpha, terrorizing rogues and a tortures enforcer.

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Graham had circled the Lonely Place with his dominant wolves. Tiffany and Andrew wanted to be there but htey just weren't high enough in Pack structure for him to feel comfortable risking it. Andrew was probably the most submissive wolf they had left, and Tiffany wasn't any better. He'd wanted to keep Megan away too but she refused to leave his side, saying he needed someone to watch his back. Normally she was very submissive to his commands, but not tonight.

The Borealis Pack had long ago built an ampetheatre in the Lonely Place. There was a large marble table in the center that was used for human picnics in good weather, and negotiations with rogues in bad times. The sides of hte ampetheatre were ringed with long low stone benches that could seat more than a solitary Pack. Right now the entire area was empty, but there were splashes of blood staining hte marble and stone. Graham's sensitive nose picked up the copper scents and also found lingering traces of fear and pain. Someone had been seriously hurt here, and recently. Graham's wolf rested just beneath the surface of his skin, ready to explode out and secure his Pack's meeting ground. This was his place and hte interlopers had purposefully tainted it with violence in an act of defiance. He wasn't Alpha yet, but his presence held the other wolves around him at the ready.