The Ruined Luna

Four

Kyrian

(TW)

Kyrian Vilkas sat at the head of a pinewood conference table; one hand lightly wrapped around a lowball glass. Two fingers worth of dark amber whiskey remained. The original pour had been generous. It had to be in order to look through the mound of documents and photographs spread across the tabletop. Most of them contained descriptions and images he was sure would be burned into his brain for the rest of eternity.

"Fucking gods," his Beta and closest friend Avery Winslow ground out then rubbed at his eyes. "These sick bastards."

Monsters, in every sense of the word. "It's bad."

Avery snorted and leaned back in his chair, staring up at the tope ceiling tiles. "That's an understatement. I'm going to see this in my nightmares till I die."

Kyrian agreed silently. This kind of rogue pack wasn't something he'd ever heard of or come across himself.

Twenty-two human women kidnapped, tortured, and nearly all of them murdered. Only one was confirmed to have survived. A second was unaccounted for. This level of sadistic violence wasn't found in most wolves. They were animals, yes, and power struggles between packs did occur and lives were lost. But this...this was some human level shit. The stuff you got put on true crime podcasts and studied for decades for. If the culprits hadn't been discovered by their kind and identified as wolf, he doubted he'd believe it had been wolf related at all.

"The things they did to them Kyr." Avery glanced back down at the photo in his hand, his features turning to stone. "Fuck."

Kyrian eyed the stack between them. "And documented every step."

"Over a story." Avery spat in disgust. "Even if it worked...gods I can't wrap my head around that either."

He took a sip of his whiskey, letting the burn settle into his stomach and warm him. It was an old story, one passed down from family to family as a cautionary tale to not bite humans. How the werewolf bite was poisonous, and that only one human had ever survived. It was not to encourage the depravity the rogue pack demonstrated by trying to bring the story to life. Zealots attempting to circumvent the fate that bound them all together.

"One survivor. The chances of finding a single human who could survive the venom was astronomically low."

"A made wolf." Avery mused, frowning. "They killed all the rogues they could find, but what about her? Did the Canyon Tooth pack kill her?"

That was the million-dollar question. "They're extreme traditionalists. Isolated except for outer pack interactions as much as possible. They avoid and generally hate humans on principle as lesser beings. A wolf that was created from one? I doubt they'd mine putting her down."

"Wish we knew why the rogues had bothered to try and turn a human anyway. You'd have thought they'd have screamed it from the rooftops, but we've been over this crap several times. No mention of a motivation."

"They probably had several." Kyrian replied gruffly. "None of them grounded in reality."

Avery tapped the pile of documentation. "And you want to bring her here? What if she's dangerous?"

Kyrian chuckled darkly. "We're all dangerous."

The Beta glowered. "That's not what I meant, and you know it. We have pups here."

"I know, and I have a plan. The whole situation has too many variables. But I would rather have her here, where I can keep an eye on her, than them kill her. We need to learn more about this."

Avery narrowed his eyes, an understanding flashing there. "You think if they kill her the fuckers that got away will just set up shop and start this mess all over again."

He nodded. "That's about the size of it."

"So let Collin keep her. He's a...capably enough Alpha."

"He can't. His pack is in an uproar about her presence as it is. He's willing to sell her to us for next to nothing just to get her off his hands." He looked at his friend, met his gaze head on, and tossed the picture of her across to table so that it landed in front of him.

Avery lifted the photo, his mouth tight with distaste as he studied it.

"I think she's suffered enough."

The Beta's mouth worked, jaw tight, before he sighed, slumping back into his chair. "I'll arrange the transfer."

"Good. Make sure Britta knows what's going on, the girl will need female support among other things."

"Like copious amounts of therapy."

"The guest a-frame cabin can be hers exclusively. It's far enough away that she'd be spotted before anything could happen, but close enough for the same reason. Make sure it's ready."

"Yes sir, Alpha."

Together the two gathered the documentation and shoved it all back into its folder which Kyrian carried back to his office and promptly locked inside the vault at the back of a closet.

Downstairs his pack was busy with their daily tasks, ensuring that everything ran smoothly and was under control. He hummed, pleased. They had come a long way since his father had run the pack, much smaller than it was then. At present, there were over a hundred males, females, and children who called the Hard Luck pack home.

He stepped out onto the porch, eyes seeking out the small cabin tucked into the nearby tree line that faced the lake. Kyrian wasn't sure why he felt like this, this vague drive to bring a stranger into their midst. Yet his wolf whined softly, pleased with the decisions that had been made to bring her here. His wolf had never led him wrong yet.