10 years later
Titania couldn't help but let a scowl mar her features.
The wolf in front of her made her upper lip curl; his cowardice tasting foul on her tongue. Her wolf made her distaste known as the rogue clogged the room with the offensive scent of wet dog, another point against the male.
She sat there unimpressed, waiting for words to tumble out his mouth. Titania was running out of patience to deal with trespassing so early in the morning. While the morning light shone brightly through her cabin window, creating beautiful heat on her skin, she couldn't help but shiver at the lack of food in her belly – a recipe for her vile temperament.
The man, not many years older than her, physically shook before her, unable to contain himself before the Alpha female. As he took in her eery features that were trained on him, he couldn't control the fear that he wore on his face like a mask. To him, her presence was one that many spoke about, but none had described her accurately.
They said she was powerless. Vulnerable. A whore. A lowly female. A wolf hiding behind her isolated land.
Yet there she sat; a predator poised to bite his head off with one wrong word. The male had never felt such hidden animosity simmering within those crystal eyes. A gaze which burned from the iciness and sorrow they projected.
While captured by the female's beauty, he had realised too late that he had fallen for her trap. Beauty did not equal innocence, not in any way shape or form. Her dominance now suffocated him, and his wolf was belly up to her in seconds, submitting his neck. With a staggered breath, he shrunk into himself to try to escape her pointed wrath – a fruitless effort in the confines of her crowded office.
The scent of his urine now stained Titania's wooden floor and her eyes narrowed. With a feigned sigh, she straightened, having had enough of the wolf who had already taken up too much of her precious time.
"Since words seem to have escaped you, I will ask. Why were you caught over my pack lines?"
She kept her tone hard and impassive, ignoring the urge to just dispose of the male instead of bothering with pointless questioning but held that passing thought to the back of her mind.
"I....I....was..." His stuttering was grating on her nerves, but she continued to sit rigid. She found his increasing distress somewhat amusing. How the times had changed.
"I will ask once, and only once more. Why were you on Duskfall pack lands?" She spat.
Her Beta, Eóghan, stood perfectly still beside her. A hulk of a man with traditional Celtic copper hair and a beard to match; with several beads adorned in its nest. With hawk-like precision, he continued to observe the interrogated wolf. No pack could be too careful with rogues. Especially after rumours that had circled through some of the European packs.
Power-hungry Alpha's didn't refrain from showing their grandeur, politics constantly behind the scenes within the city packs. With this, came hired wolves for arms and a dark market for everything and anything. A marketplace for rumours and weaknesses within the packs, currently the hearsay focused on a banished Alpha rounding rogues up: shaping the insane and banished into what could be, a lethal pack, and Titania couldn't help but lick her lips at such a challenge. More reasonable rumours had talk of Alpha's using rogues of dirty work: from child kidnappings, theft to murder.
After Duskfall's last encounter there, four years previous, Titania refrained from interacting with many of the packs and their Alpha's. Duskfall went off the grid which only encouraged the whispers. Titania became a ghost, a folktale, popular for packs to discuss but never meet for themselves. She only graced them for compulsory council meetings, but they were once in a blue moon.
After the rogue refused to grant her an answer, she nodded to her Gamma, Garth, who held him tightly in place.
Extending her claws, she approached the still shivering man. She knew her reputation but who was this wolf afraid of? Her or whatever had pushed him onto her lands? Regardless of whichever it was, she had no purpose for such a cowering wolf who refused to talk. He was not of any worth to her and in werewolf life, it was survival of the fittest and this male, was not getting out of her office breathing.
In a quick movement with tight precision, she partially shifted and slit her claws through the tender flesh of his windpipe. Rendering him breathless as he choked on the warm blood thumping throughout his body.
How utterly useless, she thought.
She wiped the bloodstains from her hands to a cloth kept tucked into her jean pockets. Emotionless, she turned to her two packmates and pointed towards the mess of the rogue that had been struggling just moments before, "Get this clean then do a sweep of the borders. There will be no more rogue sightings, not on Duskfall lands. Kill on sight."
"Yes, Alpha."
Garth smirked, appreciating his Alpha's boundless cruelty. The order was one he would fulfil without complaint as he would not allow a common rogue to take any game that was limited in the highlands. Meanwhile, Eóghan agreed with the necessity of such an order, but unlike his fellow wolf brothers and sisters who enjoyed the hunt, he did not enjoy the act itself.
He believed that conflicts could be resolved without violence. A thought that his Alpha would certainly not agree with. While coldly practical, Eóghan was a peacekeeper at heart, something much warmer than that of the wolves of the Highlands.
Both males nodded and closed the door to Titania's office, leaving her to her own musings. She paced and shifted through what she'd learned from the rogue: which was abysmal and turned her attention to the map of the Scottish Highlands pinned on the hard wall. She traced her boundary lines, which ran from the famous Loch Ness and trailed many miles north. Including multiple mountain ranges and steep inclines.
While a full sweep of her borders would take her warriors hours, she refused to show compromise. Safety was key and despite the treacherous land, Titania held firm.
Her land was notoriously harsh, and many died in such difficult conditions but that was the hard facts of Duskfall life. Many wolves preferred being so in tune with nature and their other sides, Duskfall being a pack that had little commodities and Human interaction. However, it did boast strong wolves that were hardy and determined to survive.
Something which could not be said for most packs. Domesticated wolves settled too close to Human cities, smog and had become distanced from their instinctive roots. Titania cringed at such a thought. She had lived that life and did not want to ever go back to materialism and overcrowding.
Her pack had formed nearly over five years ago and already held a reputation. It thrived in the isolated terrain that no pack touched. Surrounding packs didn't care for the land she now claimed as many found it inhabitable; and from there, the wolves she called packmates either survived in such extreme conditions or died trying.
Oak and iron guard me well, or else I'm dead and doomed to hell.
This saying, mentality and the iron will from the wolves who had survived many winters by her side had earned a reputation, one that many seemed to underestimate. Those who could survive the biting winter could survive almost anything.
This was the Duskfall pack, one of the strongest in the European continent. Titania's determination and discipline kept this pack living, breathing and scratching its way to the top. Her warriors were not weak. She was not weak. Titania was a warrior in herself, for she had survived plenty more battles than those fought with just tooth and claw: the great one was forged from something much darker.
But she didn't dwell on what pushed her to become bigger, better. For vengeance was a sweet thing best served with the blood lust that boiled underneath the surface.
And she had had years' worth of deadly intent to follow through with her promises.
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