You’re going to need to go faster than that, she said to herself, already level with her mother. Fast and faster she went, her muscles burning.
Muzzle by muzzle, they bounded over rocks and creaks, gliding over tumble-down tree trunks with barely a whisker between them. But a whisker was plenty where a wolf was concerned.
Through the trees came the first glimpse of the compound. There, in the valley, houses upon houses. People milling about among the buildings. They had almost reached the well-marked boundary, the place where they could go no further as wolves, and it was within her reach. She was gaining on her mother. One paw’s length, then another. Her heart pounded. This was it, her chance to break free, if just for a short while. She was going to win.
In hindsight, Freya realised she should have seen it coming. She was a full head in front of her mother, when the older wolf’s shoulder slammed into her side. The pain was instant. Yelping, the younger wolf veered off to the right, stumbling over her own feet.
Bitch! she yelled in her head.
It took less than a second to steady herself but it was too late. By the time she had regained her footing, Lena was already standing upright at the well, grabbing one of the many slip-on dresses that were draped over the top, a wide smirk plastered on her face.
“What happened to playing fair?” Human Freya retained all the anger, and the pain in her side, of the wolf. Bruises would heal fast enough, although the same couldn’t be said for her pride.
“You think everyone’s going to play fair with you when you’re the Alpha? I stayed out of your head, just like I said I would.” Her mother was infuriatingly calm and nonchalant, as always.
“I had you. I was faster.”
“Possibly, but you know that’s not all there is to leading the pack. I didn’t need to hear what you were thinking to know how to beat you. You imagine I only know what’s going on in my pack’s heads because I can hear it? A good leader is so much more than that.”
“Well, we have differing opinions on what makes a good leader.”
The guttural sound that rose from her mother’s throat was cold and unforgiving and would have seen any other member of the pack, in human or wolf form, drop down in submission. But there was nothing her mother could do to her that was worse than the memory of what Freya had already done.
“Save it for someone who cares,” she said. Then, without waiting for a reply, turned her back on her mother and headed straight for the compound.
Chapter Two
Michael
The car coughed and sputtered as it made its way down the rocky track through the woodland. As one of the tyres hit a pothole, the whole vehicle jerked to the side, causing the CD player to skip.
“You’d think they would have given us a better car for this,” Jessop said, his eyes on the road, as he manoeuvred round yet another pothole. “I mean, you’d think they would, right? It’s our first meeting with them. And no one’s been to see these guys in years.”
“Try decades even. Why do you think the Alpha invited us up now?” Michael voiced the question that he’d been asking himself during the five-hour journey. What’s different?”
“You’d think that they’d want us to make a good impression. I mean, what does this car say? I’ll tell you what. It says Blackwatch is short of cash.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe. This reeks of corner cutting.”
“Maybe they want it to look like we can’t be bribed.”
Jessop chewed on his bottom lip. “That’s not a bad point actually. You know the rumours. These guys are supposed to be pretty savage. The women particularly. Maybe it was good thinking not giving us something new to drive. Perhaps they were worried we’d get carjacked and have to walk back to London.”
Umming in half-agreement, Michael stared out of the window, at the grey clouds rolling over the hilltops. He wasn’t the most talkative person at the best of times. And today wasn't the best of times. There was too much to think about. Too much going on in his head. Jessop was right about one thing, at least; almost everything they knew about their current assignment was based on rumours, or had been for the last one hundred years, at least. This was a chance to change that. Of course, everything Blackwatch dealt with was the subject of rumours, if you thought about it long enough. After all, vampires, for example, were a long, long way from being anything like the stuff of cheap movies and easy-read fiction. Half your life was spent denying things you knew were true. To be honest it was no wonder he was still single.
Being paired with Jessop, was half blessing, half problem. More friends than colleagues, they had started their Blackwatch training together, both fresh out of university and ready to change the world. Side by side, they had worked their way up through the ranks, all the way to their current position of liaison officers. But, up until now they’d had someone else with the, to take the lead and steer the ship. As much as he liked having his friend with him on this trip, someone with a bit more field knowledge wouldn’t have hurt. As it was, they were on their own and how they performed here could affect their entire careers. And the last thing Michael wanted to do was screw it up.
The journey had started out fine. Motorways gave way to smaller, narrow roads yet, for the most part, they remained tarmacked well enough. Then, as they approached Inverness, the map took them on a turn into more rugged terrain. For two hours, they had been traveling through wilderness, with the track barely discernible through the overgrown weeds. Up and down hills, ravines and valleys, and even across the odd ford. It wasn’t just the car’s suspension that had been tested. If he hadn’t fractured something with all the jolting through potholes, it would be a miracle. Now, for the last forty minutes, they had been driving through a forest so thick, he wasn’t even able to tell if it was daylight or dusk anymore. Given that it had been late afternoon when they’d entered the trees, either was possible. However, more disconcerting than the lack of light, was his partner’s mood. The closer they got, the quieter Jessop became. And it didn’t make Michael feel good. Jessop was rarely quiet, which meant either he was even more nervous than Michael, or there was something he didn’t want Michael to know. Neither of these options was comforting.
“Okay, so, according to the map, we should be coming up to a clearing and then we need to take one more left and this place should be visible.”
As they broke through the forest, sheets of pink and orange light blinded their view outside. The sudden onslaught of light meant it took a minute or two of blinking before Michael’s eyes adjusted to the sight.
“Good God.” Michael’s mouth fell open, as he scanned the scene. He knew there were lots of them. Still, he had expected just a few houses, perhaps a couple of caravans.
“It’s a whole village.” Michael heard his own awe echoed in Jessop’s voice. “Those cabins, do you think they’re houses?”
“I guess so.”
“But there are hundreds.”
“I can see.”
Their vantage point, at the top of the hill, allowed them to observe just how massive the area was. Between the timber-clad huts, were a multitude of other buildings, all varying in size. Cars, trucks and even a couple of tractors weaved in and out of their view.
“Hey! Focus on the road,” Michael yelled, as Jessop hit yet another pothole. It was hard to blame him. He couldn’t tear his eyes away either. Everything they had learned about werewolves–their lack of education, their primitive lifestyle-this had put pay to all of that.
“Well, I guess it’s time we meet the Children of Eve.”
Chapter Three
Freya
Full pack gatherings were a fairly rare occurrence. Ones where no one but the Alpha knew why they were called, were even rarer. The fact that this one had been requested, with no warning, took even Freya by surprise. Typically, she’d just run a bath.
“You don’t think Whipper knows?” Chrissy whispered into Freya’s ear. The pair had been turned at the same ceremony, ha
d spent their early years of school in the compound together and now passed their days bitching about Whipper, the arrogant entitled Beta together. At that precise moment, said Beta looked like she was chewing on a wasp.
“There’s no chance Whipper knows,” Freya replied. “Look at her. She wants to hit something. I wish I’d listened to what she was thinking on the run over.”
“You know you shouldn’t be able to listen in to the Beta, right? The fact that you can even do that just shows —”
“Not now, Chrissy.” Freya glowered at her friend. She didn’t need to have that conversation again today. Or preferably ever.
Excluding those too old or too young to take part in the run, the whole village had gathered in a clearing, around a mile and a half from the village. While they had made their way there as wolves, Lena had commanded them to change back when they reached this particular place so, for now, they were human. The clearing was a popular meeting point for the pack. A sea of yellow dandelions and buttercups, it was one of the few places in the forest that was large enough for them to meet together, outside the village. As such, an abundance of clothing was always available, slung ready over branches.
Freya and Chrissy grabbed the items nearest to them. The attire of the pack varied. Some were wearing simple slip-on gowns or trousers that, like the girls, they had picked off nearby trees, left there from a previous transformation. Some were naked. In the winter months, everyone would be dressed in jeans and woollens, which made transforming a pain in the backside. Which was why, in the summer months, less was definitely more when it came to clothing.
“Do you really have no clue what this is all about?” Chrissy asked, as they made their way to the centre of the crowd.
“You imagine she tells me what she’s thinking?”
“Well, I thought you would have an idea.”
“No, not a clue.” In truth, the fact that she didn’t even have an inkling, caused Freya’s skin to prickle. Whole pack events happened only on special dates, like the summer and winter solstices, or the Birth of Eve. But the solstice was over a week away and the Birth of Eve not until the autumn.
“The fact that she wants us human, means she’s going to make a speech. She always likes to be human when she does that.”
Chrissy nodded in agreement.
“Hopefully she’ll start soon. People are starting to get nervous.”
She was right. Furtive glances darted between different pack members, even as Lena made her way to a raised patch of ground. Only when she lifted her hand to silence them, did the chattering die down.
“Here we go.”
One of the youngest alphas in the history of the pack, Lena rose to occasions like this. It wasn’t just the way she looked–with her hair now tamed into a corkscrew of curls, her green eyes more vivid than any model in any magazine Freya had ever seen–it was the way she moved. The way the air seemed to move around her. How all eyes fell on her. Even Freya’s. Even when she didn’t want them to.
“Thank you, children,” Lena started. “Thank you for running here with me today. There is no feeling as wonderful as racing with my pack. To feel your thoughts burning with mine, our souls intertwined as one.”
“God, I hate this bullshit,” Chrissy muttered into Freya’s ear. “Tell me you’re never going to be like this, when you’re the Alpha.”
“What do you mean? Our souls are intertwined, can’t you feel it?” Freya sniggered back. “Besides, I am never going to be the Alpha.”
Several heads turned in their direction, with disapproving tuts.
Suppressing any more smirks, Freya turned her gaze back to her mother. She would have felt bad ruining the mood for others, only she knew it was actual bullshit. Her mother never spoke like this when other members of the pack weren’t around. Not to her at least.
“You will, of course, be wondering why I called you all here today.” Lena’s eyes moved across the group. “I know many of you have work to do, families to look after but please, rest assured, this is important. I needed you to be here with me now, to hear this from my own lips. When we return to the village, there will be two men awaiting us. Two outsiders. Two men from Blackwatch.”
A series of gasps echoed round the pack.
“Our children! We must go back now,” someone called.
“No, you will stay. You will all stay here.” Her eyes glowed. Even in human form, they couldn’t disobey her. The links had been in place far too long. Obedience, down the generations, was ingrained. “They are here at my invitation. I invited them to the village.”
“No!”
“Why?”
Fury rose amid the uncertainty.
“Why, why would you do that?”
Chrissy leaned in to Freya and repeated the same question. “Why? Why on earth would she do that? After what they did?”
“I don’t know.” A knot was growing in Freya’s stomach. “But this is my mother we’re talking about. She never does anything without a reason.”
“Please, children.” Lena’s voice brought them back to silence. “I understand your fear. Of course I do. I, like all of you, grew up on the rumours of Blackwatch. I know the stories of how they turned us into prisoners and fought to train us, to become their own army, no better than the ones who formed us in the first place. No better than our monstrous creators. But that was years ago. Decades. Before my grandparents' generation. None of us alive, here and now, has suffered anything at the hands of Blackwatch. They kept their promise to us, to give us distance. Freedom.”
“Then why are you inviting them back?” It was the second beta now who called out. Dominic. He was as loyal to Lena as they came. To hear him question her caused Freya’s knot to tighten further.
The pack waited, dozens of men and women, silent.
“Wolves are not lone animals.” Lena spoke slowly, picking her words carefully. “We live together, we hunt together. Our family is everything to us.” She paused, and Freya felt the next words directed at her. “A pack grows and shrinks with the seasons and time. We have experienced this. Over the last generations, with our freedom, we have grown so much, that we have two packs now.”
A mummer of approval rumbled in the clearing. There was no rivalry with the South Pack. They were, after all, family.
“And while we remain steady in our isolation, the world outside is changing. We know the world is growing and developing in a manner which would seem almost incomprehensible to the wolves of old. There was a time when our ancestors would have said that ignorance is bliss. But we know this is not so. We know that much of what we have achieved here is due to our links, your links, with the outside. I believe that now, as society changes, ignorance of what is going on around us makes us vulnerable. Threats come every month, every year. It would be naive of us to think that in our seclusion and privacy, we will be safe. We need an ear to the ground.”
“But we have that already. We have people on the outside.” Dominic questioned her again.
“But not enough. We do not have enough resources. We need Blackwatch.”
There was silence, until a single voice broke the quiet.
“Do you trust them?” it asked.
“They have given me no reason not to,” Lena responded. “But at the same time, I, like you, have not forgotten my grandparents’ warnings. Trust takes time to develop, on both sides. This is a first step. I have given them free rein of the compound in its entirety. They may wish to speak to you. Please, invite them to dinner. Show them your talents. Tell them about your lives. Show them that our souls are deeper than any human’s. Help them to realise that they have nothing to fear from us. For it is only when people are afraid that they strike.’
Murmurs of approval and disapproval rippled through the group.
“What do you think?” Chrissy whispered.
Freya could offer no reply. Something was hanging in the air, like static, a prickling that sent a cold shiver down her spine. As if there was something more for her to hear
. It took just a moment to find out what that was.
“One last thing,” Lena addressed the group again. “Two men are here, but I will be leaving with one of them to go down to Juliet’s pack. In my absence, my daughter Freya will be the other’s guide. She will be in charge of his stay here. If you have any questions, you can ask her.”
Chapter Four
Michael
Michael scanned the area. To all intents and purposes, the place looked deserted. Like it had been abandoned after a hurricane or flood warning. There were signs of life – clothes hung drying on lines and randomly slung over walls and fences, children’s toy tricycles and bikes abandoned in front of homes – but as for people, there were none.
“Where do you think they all are?” Jessop asked.
Michael ventured further from the car. The nervous anticipation that had been roiling through him all day stepped up to a whole new level. Why Blackwatch? Why hadn’t he been content training as a bog-standard cop? He could have just said no when they’d recruited him. At least if he were a police officer, they’d have given him a gun or a Taser.
“Where did the Alpha say we should meet her?”
“By a well of some sort.” Jessop checked his notes. “Over on the west side of the compound, which I guess is…” - he turned around in a circle, trying to orientate himself - “…that way. Sun sets in the west, right?”
With Michael’s heart performing a nervous jitter, they made their way over towards the edge of a forest.
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