The Lost Lycan King

Chapter 5 - The Vampire's plan

Dmitri POV

"What do you mean you failed? How could you possibly fail?" I shout at the group in front of me. My entire body is trembling with rage, I want to throw something or smash something. Maybe both.
"There were 30 of you and three of them!"
"They called for reinforcements" mumbles Lorenzo, the head trainer. He's supposed to be our best warrior, which is why I trusted him with this mission in the first place. I glare at him angrily.
The rest of the group stare at the floor and remain silent. I'm scaring them. Good.
"How many did we lose?" I ask, my hands gripping the back of my chair, my knuckles clenched tightly.
"10"
"10?" I boom, my voice echoing against the stone walls "10 vampires are dead with nothing to show for it?"
I pick up the chair I'm holding and launch it at the wall. It makes a satisfying thud as it hits the wall and splits into pieces. I feel marginally better. The vampires in front of me visibly duck and huddle closer together for safety. I'd like to personally kill every single one of them for being so useless, but since we are already low on numbers, that isn't going to help anything.
"Get out of my sight" I mutter, turning away from them.
I don't have to tell them twice, they scarper quickly to the door of the hall.
"Not you Lorenzo" I say as he reaches the door, I see his shoulders slump as he slowly turns around and walks towards me. It pleases me that he looks so uncomfortable and I try to suppress a smirk.
"How did this happen?" I ask. I'm not shouting anymore but I'm speaking through gritted teeth. It's taking everything in me to not walk over and rip his head off.
"We waited until they were closest to the border, like we planned, but they locked them selves in their car, which slowed us down. As we were getting them out, their security patrol attacked and then more reinforcements arrived from their pack house" he stammers.
"How many were there?"
"About 15, maybe 20"
"You still outnumbered them! How can you have come away with nothing? I wanted those twins!" I pick up another chair and launch it at the wall, this one doesn't break, which irritates me even more.
"The twins were better fighters than we accounted for, but we did kill their gamma"
This is new information to me and a grin momentarily passes my lips as I imagine how upset they must be at losing such a vital member of their time. I sigh and walk over to Lorenzo until our chests are touching and I'm centimetres away from his face.
"You'd better pray that the werewolves haven't figured out our plan. If you mess up one more time, I will make you regret it".
Lorenzo gulps and steps away from me, hurriedly making his way towards the door. I don't stop him this time. The door closes with a resounding clunk which echoes around the now empty room.
I pull up a chair by the fire and sit down.
It's been just over 20 years since we claimed this land for our own. For centuries, my kind lived in the shadows as the werewolves dominated the land. That's the thing about werewolves, they breed like rabbits, meaning that their population grows rapidly. This isn't the case for vampires and so we have always been frightfully outnumbered.
The one thing that we do have an advantage on though? Time. A werewolf's lifespan is the same as a humans, 70 or 80 years if they are lucky. A vampire though can live for hundreds of years, potentially thousands. With time on our side, I have oceans of it to plan the downfall of the werewolves down to the very last detail and that's exactly what I've dedicated my life to.
The werewolves were once ruled by the Lycans, a kind of royal family I suppose.
The Lycans were a similar breed to the werewolves, but bigger, stronger and with special abilities. There was only a handful of them, just one Lycan family which tried its hardest to keep its bloodline going. The Lycans had their own pack and packlands and oversaw the werewolf packs. At least they did until I came along.
Twenty years ago, we stormed their pack house in huge numbers and slaughtered every single one of them. Whilst their abilities were great, their numbers weren't and our surprise attack meant that the precious packs that they ruled, barely had time to retaliate.
There was backlash of course, the werewolves were devastated that we had murdered the Lycans, they looked to them as higher beings, almost as gods. There was weeks of fighting following the slaughter, with high casualties on both sides, but what did it matter now? They knew we had won and they knew that the Lycans were gone. Eventually, they retreated and we kept the Lycan land as our own. I should have been thrilled at us finally having a place to live, but I wasn't. It wasn't enough and I felt like if I relaxed, the werewolves would swoop in and take it back.
Surely, if we could take out the Lycans, we could take out the werewolves too. But there was so many werewolves, I needed to be smart about it. First things first, I needed to slow down or stop their reproductive abilities. If every Alpha could only produce one heir, what would happen if I killed that heir? Carnage, that's what. Werewolves follow ridiculous traditions and without an Alpha, a pack is lost. If I could wipe out an Alphas lineage, then all the werewolves from that pack would have to leave and join another pack. Whilst they were confused and afraid with no real leader, I could swoop in and take their land as my own. So I had enlisted the help of the witches.
The witches were very much like the vampires, in the respect that they didn't really have a proper home. Time and time again, the werewolves proved that they were only interested in the witches spells and magic for werewolf gain. For this reason a few white witch covens were allowed to live within the packs. This, however, meant dozens of covens had no defined home. Frankly, I didn't care, but it was easy to manipulate the witches anger and unrest. First  of all, I made sure that the witches knew that they could have a home with us, that our land was their land and that their powers of authority would increase. Initially, they were suspicious, but over time they were drawn by these temptations. Over the years, I'd sprinkled lies and deceit over the most vulnerable covens and now my time was fast approaching to destroy the packs for good.
The werewolves had no idea that they were now housing dark witches within their pack lands. Obviously, we had to be sneaky about it. The witches would have to perform spells for the wolves when asked, such as enchanting the pack borders so that no vampires could shimmer into them. But they were also working behind the scenes for me. They were my eyes inside the packs, they kept me updated with information and some even went as far as seducing the Alphas. This was by the far the best part, as once an Alpha slept with a dark witch, a curse was placed upon them meaning that they could only produce one child. It had taken over 20 years for my plan to come to fruition, but unlike the werewolves, I had all the time in the world. It was now time to strike, before these offspring started reproducing themselves. We weren't strong enough to take on all of the packs at once, but we could pick off their heirs one by one. I wouldn't kill them straightaway, as the werewolves would attack. They would be my prisoners for a while, until they weren't needed anymore, but they would definitely die eventually. Perhaps I had been too optimistic going for twins first, maybe I needed to focus on just one werewolf to take.