The silence was deafening, drowning out the sound of the forest around them until every individual heartbeat could be heard. Timothy’s shoulders sagged, and he stuck one hand out towards Cassy. Her low growl shattered the silence, and everybody started speaking at once.
Alex ignored them all. His attention was focused entirely on the light brown wolf defending her kill. To him, her growl was only a natural reaction. Every predator has the instinct to protect it’s kill from other predators. Her actions did not disgust or repel him in any way. In fact, her actions spoke very well for her. She never once acted in anger, and when Justin went for her throat, she reacted in the only way she could to protect herself without leaving herself vulnerable. And when he refused to yield, she had killed him. Alex wondered how long it would take the other young alphas to put together what had just happened. He stepped closer towards her as she was getting up off of the still body beneath her.
Cassy moved away from the body towards the house where Alex, her father, brother and other pack members were standing. They were calmly facing an angry mob of alphas, their stance casual but alert, ready for anything that might happen. She regretted what she felt she had to do, but even now, after taking the time to rethink every thing that had happened; she could still find no alternative option, no other way she could have dealt with Justin. If he had acted differently, she could perhaps have avoided the whole fight, and it would not have been necessary for her to kill him.
As Cassy moved closer, Alex could smell her, and his wolf reacted immediately, straining against the control he forced on his inner beast, fighting him to walk up to her, pick her up, carry her away and claim her. Then it struck him like lightning. If he had such a fierce reaction to her scent, the others would have had the same reaction as well. It had been very careless and short sighted of him and Timothy to let her walk out of the study unaccompanied like that. They knew she had gone into heat; and with her being unclaimed, it was like sending out an open invitation. He had made a huge mistake in assuming that the other alphas would be able to keep their heads, or at least attempt to not offend the hosting alpha by jumping his daughter.
As Cassy stopped in front of them, he decided to send out a message of his own. He stepped up to her and removed his T-shirt and held it out towards her, she stared into his eyes, most likely trying to figure out what his motivations were. After thinking it through, she shifted, taking on her human form. She held out her hand for the shirt, but Alex stepped even closer; not allowing his eyes to travel down her naked body, closing the distance between them until their bodies were almost touching, and swiftly pulled the shirt over her head.
Cassy was so taken by surprise that she automatically held her arms up and stretched them out as they slipped through the sleeves. To her horror, she felt Alex gently tug her hair out from the shirt, his rough fingertips brushing against the soft skin on her neck, sending shivers down her spine. And when Alex’s eyes darkened, she knew he had noticed her reaction to his touch. But her body’s betrayal didn’t stop there. The earthy smell of him, the gentle touch from his rough fingers had the sent of her arousal filling the air, and she closed her eyes in defeat, not wanting to see his reaction.
The sound of his angry growl snapped her eyes open, and she was surprised to see the narrowing circle of alphas, all coming towards her. Slowly, he pulled her behind him, effectively cutting off their view.
“She is MINE! Back off!” He warned them, allowing his wolf to growl at them.
Most of the men stopped their advance, but four of them still closed in on them.
Alex twisted his head towards Cassy, “Go to your room; right now and lock the door. I will come up for you soon.”
Cassy hissed at him. She couldn’t believe he had such a cheek to order her around!
When she did not move, he turned his face towards her. “Cassy, go. Now!” He commanded her, disliking using his power like that, but pleased none the less when she turned and left. He faced the four men, satisfied that his mate was no longer part of the equation. Her sent should soon disappear in the breeze and the men in front of him would be able to think clearly. It took a while, but one by one the four men stepped back and acknowledged Alex’s claim on Cassy. But with his mating acknowledged, it still left the sticky situation of Justin to deal with.
Cassy’s absence had them all a bit calmer, but not for long. As expected, they managed to work each other up to form another angry mob with Timothy, Alex, Gareth and the boys standing to one side, merely observing the unruly alphas. Then the accusations started flying around and soon they were shouting for justice.
Alex was just about to step up and give them all a piece of his mind, but Timothy held him back.
“Let me educate these bloody idiots.”
Alex raised his eyebrows and allowed Timothy to step forward before he stepped up next to him. Cassy might be his daughter, but as Cassy’s mate, he had a greater right to demand repair to the insult against her. Timothy held his hand up for silence.
“What do you want justice for?” He asked from the crowd, and Alex could swear he saw a flicker of a smile on his face.
The alphas did not disappoint. Loud cries filled the air, arguing against the death of one of them. Timothy allowed them a brief moment to voice their objections before he raised his hand for a second time.
“What about the insult to Cassy, to me, her pack, but mostly the insult to her mate? That is not the proper way for an alpha to behave. You;” and he pointed towards them, “are supposed to have better control than that. I know it is uncomfortable for unmated males when a female goes into heat, but we are men first, not animals! That kind of behavior is not tolerated by the Council, and will not be excused by me. If you are going to be instrumental in improving our way of living, increasing our numbers, you are going to have to enforce a strict code of conduct where females are not subjected to such treatment. And what makes this matter even worse is that said female managed to kill one of you, simply because he was running on instinct. How often do we have to keep repeating ourselves? Instinct alone. Will. Get. You. Killed! You all need to start thinking! Use your grey matter for a change.”
The alphas shifted around uncomfortably. Most of them realized now that although their behavior had been inappropriate, Justin’s actions were inexcusable, they stepped back and looked to the ground as a sign of their submission. However, there were still three alphas that had an issue.
“But she killed an Alpha. She should be brought to justice for that!” One of them argued.
“Nonsense!” Wesley cried out, preventing Timothy of speaking. “She killed a rogue!”
The silence that followed was broken when Timothy suddenly turned on Wesley.
“How did you come to that conclusion?”
Wesley squared his shoulders, his young voice ringing out clearly. “At that last pass, when he jumped towards Cassy, it started out as a body hit, but he changed the angle of his attack. He went for her throat. At that moment he became a rogue. When you decide to kill one of your own, you are a rogue.”
With a sigh Timothy turned towards the alphas standing before him.
“I sincerely hope that you are able to see now how that happened. And I must say that I am very disappointed that a young boy; who has not even changed yet, was able to see that; while you did not even notice it. You guys are going to have to pay much better attention to what is happening around you and how people act and re-act. As alphas, you ARE required to anticipate how people will act in certain situations, how they think. In essence, you will need to know what makes your pack members tick, because as a werewolf community in large, we can not allow the threat of rogues to re-surface. You will not be able to banish any one from your pack, because nine times out of ten a lone wolf will turn rogue. Any situation requiring banishment will have to be addressed before it becomes an issue. If you guys thought it was all fun and games being an alpha, you need to reconsider NOW. Because when you go back to your pack, you will be required by the council to prevent any situation like that from happening.”
“But she killed an ALPHA!” The same man as before argued. One of the two men, who had stood up with him the first time, stepped back and took his place with the other alphas, his whole posture submissive.
Wesley walked up to the man who had spoken. “She killed a rogue, you asshole. Perhaps you should have your hearing tested.”
Alex nearly laughed out loud at the expression on the man’s face.
“How dare you insult me like that; I am an alpha!”
“When you start acting like one I will treat you like one, Asshole.”
Without any warning the ‘alpha’ punched at Wesley’s face. And hit empty space. Staggering slightly, he swung again, but once more Wesley stepped out of reach.
“If you want to hit me, you are going to have to do better than that, Asshole.”
With an angry growl he lunged at the youngster again, but Timothy stepped up and grabbed hold of his hand.
“If you want to fight him, you are going to have to follow the rules. Are you prepared to do that?”
He received an irritated nod as agreement.
“Then you formally challenge him. You discuss the terms of your contest, and then you abide by the outcome of the fight. Both of you.”
The alpha stepped up to Wesley with a smirk. “I challenge you. I will be fighting in my wolf form if you accept. The fight will be to first blood.”
“I accept.” Wesley’s broad smile had him worried for a short moment, but then he dismissed the threat boy in front of him might hold. There was no way that this boy could possibly beat him.
“Wesley will be allowed one weapon to draw blood with. And not a long knife Wes, we need all the alphas we have. Live ones!”
With a shrug Wesley started emptying his pockets. He chose to fight with a glove-like gauntlet that had small blades attached on the inside of the hand. Although the blades were sharp and could certainly do some damage, there was no way it could be used to deliver a lethal injury.
None of the other alphas had seen this kind of weapon before, so they all crowded around Wesley, and soon some of them had similar gloves on their hands, testing its use.
The alpha shifted, taking on the form of a dark brown and black wolf and moved to stand in front of Timothy, Wesley soon joined him and Timothy ran through the rules. The fight has to stay in the designated area, the person to leave forfeits; the fight ends as soon as first blood is drawn and the fight decides the outcome of the argument between the two. Once again, both agreed to the terms.
As they circled each other, Alex stepped up to Timothy.
“Why are you allowing Wes to fight him?”
“He insulted a visiting alpha, and the alpha challenged him in return.”
“No, what I meant was; how could you allow a mature wolf to fight one of your young pack members?”
“You saw Cassy fight, didn’t you?”
“Yes. But how would that affect your decision?”
“She does most of the training for the teenagers.” A quick look and Timothy saw from the expression on Alex’s face that he still did not understand, so he explained further, keeping his eyes on the fight. “When the rogues went around, attacking packs, it became clear that their aim was to kill the females and children. Most packs built shelters for them where they could hide safely while the wolves in the pack fought the rogues. In a lot of instances, the rogues still managed to get through the defenses and they killed a lot of women and children that way. Even when the packs had wolves defend the shelters, it did not always help. The rogues always attacked with more numbers than the pack had available to defend, and the rogues always got through. Our teenagers decided to help. At first, we as adults, could not accept that these kids be allowed to fight. They would just get themselves killed a lot quicker. But then, one day…” Timothy stopped to swallow the bile that rose in his throat; “one day, we went to help a neighboring pack after an attack. When we got there, there were no children. Every single one of them was killed. Even the babies. That was when I realized how wrong we were in not allowing the youngsters to fight. If they were going to be slaughtered like that, they deserved a fighting chance. So Cassy took it upon herself to train them. And she does it very well. We were attacked once, and thanks to the sacrifice of one of our pack members we were given a fighting chance. Three rogues broke through and got to the shelter, but our kids stopped them. We lost three people that day, and all of them were adults. Our ‘big’ kids saved the lives of our little ‘kids’ that day. Wesley killed one of them and if they had not been able to hold them off, we would have lost so much more that day.”
Alex had trouble believing what Timothy was saying, but as he watched the boy and wolf fighting, he had to admit that the boy knew how to defend himself. He had passed up the opportunity to draw blood twice already, and the wolf had been forced to slow down his attack to consider his moves. The boy had punched the wolf in the ribs, in much the same way Cassy had done with Justin, but he had not broken any ribs. The end of the fight came so suddenly, that it was over before the audience could properly register the strike that drew blood. But there it was, dripping off of the blades on the glove on Wesley’s hand.
The surprised expression on the wolf’s face was almost comical. But he dipped his head towards Wesley and changed back to his human form. When he was dressed, he approached Timothy who had stepped up to Wesley to verify that blood had been drawn.
“You are going to have to let this young man come with me to teach the kids in my pack.” He told Timothy as he reached out to shake Wesley’s hand.
“That would be cool! Can I go?” Wesley turned to Timothy, anxiously waiting for his reply.
“We can talk about it. But if I allow this, it would only be during school breaks.”
Alex excused himself, now that the situation had been diffused, he had to see Cassy. Besides, he was getting hungry.
He entered the house by the kitchen, following her scent up the stairs and to a door that he was certain, led to her bedroom, her scent was so concentrated here, that his whole body shuddered with the internal battle against his natural instinct to break the door down and claim her. Lifting his hand, he knocked softly knowing Cassy would be able to hear it. If he could hear her moving around and muttering to herself, then she could hear him.
The door flew open revealing a very upset woman, properly dressed again, but rather upset, and he took a step back.
"We need to talk. May I come in?"
Cassy did not feel like letting him in, not after he had dismissed her like that, but she knew that they had to start sorting out all their issues at some time, so she stepped back, allowing him entry to her room.
Alex was not entirely sure what he had expected - he knew she was not be the 'pink and girlie' type - and the decor in her bedroom proved that. The room was mostly white, and while some may say that it is a very sterile colour, it was so not true.
The walls were all white with a thin twin pinstripe of brown and green running across the walls, about a half metre under the ceiling, there were two pictures on the wall, both oil paintings of a forested area with waterfalls.
The bed was elegantly carved from a beautiful dark wood, the covers in plain white with brown in a marble effect, and surprisingly actually looked good.
He interrupted his observations when she started tapping her foot impatiently.
"Look Cassy, I am sorry about what happened out there. I should have considered that they would also be affected by your scent and accompanied you when you left us. I know it is going to be a bit of a bother for you, but I would appreciate it if you allowed me to accompany you while the others are still here."
"You are not going to claim me?"
Alex ran his hand through his hair. Claiming her would alter her scent, and make her less 'apealing' to other males, letting them know that she had been claimed, while upping the level of how potent it would be for him. But somehow, he was reluctant to rush into it.
"I think it is best if we get to know each other a bit better. It will certainly complicate things for the both of us, and I might have problems breathing around you, but that cannot be helped."
Cassy crossed her arms in front of her, and caught the quick flicker of his eyes as they followed the movement. She found it very difficult to concentrate on what he was saying, he was still shirtless, so she reached for his shirt on the bed and handed it back to him.
When he lifted the shirt to his face and sniffed, she almost burst out laughing, and she wondered if he were one of those crazy people that smelt their socks when they took them off.
Alex shook his head slightly. "I will get a fresh shirt if you don't mind. No need to torture myself like that. And we should get down there and feed the horde before they stampede."