Big Bad

Revenge

The large old stone building was perfect to suit their needs. It had many bedrooms, stables, kitchens, and other things required for a large number of people to be living all at one place. That, and it was surrounded by a tall stone wall for defense which doubled as blocking the view of wolves from nosy passersby.

The wolves had all heard the stories the locals liked to tell about the building. The most common theory was that the building was haunted by an old disemboweled general, angry that his fort was given over to the British. Other people claimed the site was like Area 51 and was some kind of center for government experiments or the covering up of aliens. The old man whose farm touched the edge of the fort even went as far as to claim that he saw wolves in the forest, picking off his chickens and leaving prints on his land. He said the fort was certainly not abandoned, and that it was jam packed with shifters--- half humans.

The wolves pondered taking care of him, but his stories weren't plausible enough to make it very far and he wasn't seen as a threat.

As far as the wolves were concerned, their neighbors never needed to know how close they were to discovering the truth. The gates remained locked up tight, and the other world housed within the high stone walls remained obscure. Inside the walls nature and humanity coexisted, they overlapped. It was a world where nothing was simply just one thing, a world where things shifted and changed all the time. It was also the home base and pack house of the Gibbous Moon pack, one of the largest packs across the Northeastern Quadrant of the United States.

They ran several "distilleries'' as footholds within their territory-- all the way from Buffalo to Albany. That made them the second largest wolf pack in New York, and the general northern area. They had a fierce bitter rivalry with the downstate wolves from New York City, and each pack had to be careful to keep suspicious information out of the other pack's hands.

With the death of Jonathan Midas, Sampson's father, things were even more on edge between the wolf groups as many suspected their rival wolves as taking out their alpha to leave them vulnerable. It worked.

They were extremely vulnerable.

Sampson let his adrenaline pump through his veins and moved his legs like a well oiled machine.

The wind whizzed, the sounds schussed, the pain fizzled. He could focus on nothing else but victory. He tore through the large open gates of the pack house and kept running. Once he'd gotten several yards inside he dropped down onto the grass next to the path and let his head fall back with a sigh.

His barreled chest rose and fell harshly as he struggled to catch his breath. Being winded was an uncommon experience for Sampson, but he craved it because it meant he'd pushed himself. The faster he got, the harder it was to push himself.

"Nice run, mate?" A voice called from above Sampson's head. The man pulled his hand to cover his sweat soaked brow and block the meager rays of sunrise that were suddenly blinding to him.

"Issac?" Sampson asked with slight confusion, his chest still shifting rapidly. "How'd you know I'd be out here?"

"You're always out here, bro." Issac shrugged. As Sampson's eyes adjusted his friend came into view. Issac was a few years older than Sampson, somewhere between twenty eight and thirty, and one of Sampson's few friends. The man had curly blondish hair that matched his light brown wolf, and a slight bit of stubble across his chin. He himself stood in a shadow cast by the high walls of the fort, so the hints of sun only affected Sampson. In the darkness, Issac's eyes glowed a friendly amber.

"I want to shave a couple seconds off my time." Sampson grunted.

"Here." Issac said, and tossed Sampson a water. The man took it graciously and downed half in one go, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. When he pulled the water from his lips he poured some onto his head and shook it, the drips flying off the tips of his dark brown hair. "Here I was figuring you'd finally take a day off."