Walk The Line

Chapter 1: Damn

We told my father and cleaned the mess up. We didn't need the pack to worry about anything yet, it was bad enough it was on the Mangata pack line. Most of the pack think that ghosts just live across the line, but we know it's just a wolf with a stick up his ass.

My father and Emmett, the alpha there, have never gotten along. Emmett's younger brother was killed by vampires, murdered brutally. His father, instead of pushing harder to have the bastards brought to justice, decided to stop further bloodshed and create a compromise with the vampires involved. I don't blame him for hating them or being angry. I couldn't say that I wouldn't be the same—I would be the same. I would hunt down whoever took the blood of my blood and ensure they paid ten times over.

But his father was the alpha of his pack, responsible for more than just his children. Pushing the vampires harder could have resulted in a squabble, in more lives being lost. Alpha's can't afford to think selfishly, it's what my father constantly drills into our heads. Thus, I don't blame Emmett's father for doing what he did either.

But Emmett never forgave his father and part of me thinks he even killed him over it. I don't have evidence of that, just an itch that my father,  more Laurent, will further entertain. But the angrier Emmett grew, the further he isolated himself from us, and really any pack that associated with vampires. Dad's' always said that Emmett's been involved with a bad group, with this group of rebels that are constantly stirring up trouble, although it seems like he's more on the fringes of it than anything.

My father never harbored ill feelings towards the vampires like the rebel purists do. They think the vampires are a plague, a disease—a mistake the Moon made. Such talk is blasphemous, my mother would spit at it. They were made by her just like we were, and while they may be different, without a beast that shows fur, they still have a beast to deal with. My father says the world is more peaceful when we get along and I believe him. We've always had good relations with them, and they've been able to help us in return by helping to thwart away humans who accidentally stumble on our land by compelling them, and helping us find reasonable witches to cast magical protection spells around our packs.

The more purists of our kind, the wolves, have isolated themselves from us. We don't see wolves from Mangata or Lusa, another neighboring pack run by Jeremiah Black— a piece of shit. Thus our pack calls them ghosts. We see patrols every now and then, but their patrols are swift, I will give them that. You see them long enough to know they're real but short enough to question their reality.

Lander nods to me. "Three doe this morning, all missing heads, fatty hides, stomaches, hooves—they took the breasts too this time."

The wolf in me stirs at this. This isn't just someone else stealing from us, this is something else, and it pisses us off. No one can just walk into our pack and take what is ours, not for the land that we bleed for every day.

Claire turns, worry reaching out through her eyes. "What do you think?"

I shrug. "I don't know." I really don't. "There's no telling without looking more into it. That and we don't need to work people up."

"You think it's a rogue?" Lander asks.

"I don't know," I reply. "It could be." Because when you go rogue, you lose your mind—become crazy enough to do something mad like this. "But we know who's gone rogue in the area. There aren't any new reports."

"We know from the packs that have told us," Lander corrects.

Claire hums in agreement. He's right. We barely hear news from the packs that have gone "quiet." I know the Mangata Master of Arms talks to Dagger. As far as Lusa goes, we have no idea. I know a few people in the pack here talk to some from there, but I also know that Jeremiah Black hates my pack so much that when he catches one of his members speaking to one of ours, he lynches them. Hangs them high on a big oak tree in front of his pack house. We only know because they sent us the rope and the head of a member who he had caught as a warning to us.