Chapter 34
Konstantine
So much fire.
We’d arrived as the worst of it was happening—a series of guerrilla attacks on Gallos, an independent pack on the outskirts of the Halo. They had been timed to inflict maximum damage, depleting Gallos’s defenses.
There weren’t many of these packs left, but they were a prideful bunch, led by generational alphas who predated even my line.
Grigor didn’t believe in hostile takeovers. But once most packs, as well as lone wolves and the like, had seen what the Fire could provide, they hadn’t needed much convincing to offer their fealty.
Drake had our guards divided immediately, taking one battalion himself and assigning others to Cyrus and Jason.
Pack Gallos’s main house was already a smoldering mess, and the smell of remains burned beyond saving was crowding our olfactories.
Apollo and I, however, had caught another scent that had risen above the others. This one was very much alive and on the move.
A quick signal to Drake, and Apollo was off to hunt.
My wolf had been hungry for a chase for a long time.
Pent up from losing Arax and the ever-frustrating dealings with the council were not helping his frazzled nerves.
He had an advantage though, being a beast. He could drown his rage in blood and bones, while I was relegated to diplomacy and the art of negotiation.
Laying low, Apollo lifted his snout a few inches.
Definitely this way, he said with confidence. He’s close.
Keep vigilant, I replied, the bastard could have marked the ground and shifted in order to climb.
Apollo dismissed the thought. You’re giving his intelligence more credit than I would.
No, I replied. It’s not his intelligence I’m crediting. It’s his motivation.
According to the distress call that had come in, Pack Gallos had been fighting for three days.
Alpha Remy was badly injured, most of his pack’s defenses long gone.
Someone had somehow gotten the word out, based on the strange combination of those attacking the compound.
I had a good idea who it was, but I wasn’t going to dwell on that.
We needed the leader—cut off the head, and the rest of the bodies would fall. If I was right about who it was, I bet he’d ordered his men do the work while he fled.
Apollo stalked forward, stopping to scan the tops of the trees in the distance in case I was right and someone was out here somewhere.
We were deep in the forest, on their territory and away from the fight itself, which was happening at the border.
The wind changed direction, bringing with it a clearer picture of his whereabouts.
Two o’clock, Apollo whispered, grinding his teeth with a thrill, give or take twenty meters. Looks like you were right after all.
Apollo remained unmoving, but his eyes followed the tree line, and there in the middle, a flash of yellow was obtrusive in the dark. The rogue leader had shifted back to his human form, but his eyes meant his wolf was in control. The wind blew again, rustling the trees on my left.
Go with it, I instructed Apollo. Misdirection.
He padded onward, more loudly than needed, and let out a low growl, purposely giving up our location. It was a chase we wanted, not a game of hide-and-seek. I was relying on the rogue’s fear, to take the out he thought was being granted to him.
Apollo circled a tree, putting on a convincing show of snarls and barks while keeping watch on the target ahead. He continued circling, ears pinned in one direction, waiting for the first sign of movement.
It was subtle. If we hadn’t been listening for it, it could have easily been missed.
The leader soundlessly endeavored to leave his hiding spot.
Once on the forest floor, he quickly glanced in our direction and out of his periphery, and Apollo caught him looking.
My wolf made no attempt to pursue him just yet and kept circling, biding his time for the opportune moment.
The man dropped low and began backing away, and at the first sign of him shifting back, Apollo slowed. Too early into shifting, and he could revert. Too late into the change, and we would lose him.
Hold, I cautioned. Wait for it.
I know what I’m doing, Konstantine, he replied as he rounded the tree a final time, his body facing the direction of his mark. He was halfway through his shift—and exactly where we wanted him.
Now! I shouted.
Apollo broke into a full sprint, clocking the timing with infallible precision and dividing the distance between us by half in only a few strides.
The other wolf completed his shift and took off, narrowly evading capture.
Rather than pursuing him at top speed, my wolf dropped back, keeping within reach but staying far enough to observe his actions.
He bounded through the forest, heading north.
This was my land, and I knew the terrain well enough to know where I wanted him.
We were controlling this fight, not the other way around.
Dead end past that hill, I told Apollo.
His silence meant he already had the same thought.
He increased his speed, veering left, and ran almost parallel with the wolf, gradually decreasing the space separating us from him.
The wolf had no choice but to hang a right, corralling himself into a corner and straight into the trap we’d set.
The rocky walls of the small enclosure were too steep to climb and provided no means of escape.
He turned around slowly and growled, which did nothing but encourage Apollo to bare his teeth and block the wolf in, forcing him farther back into the cage we had created. He panted furiously, his eyes darting everywhere at once.
Apollo stopped and surveyed him calmly, ready for him to strike.
The rogue was nervous; I could smell his fear.
In a final suicidal act, he tackled Apollo, but he was no match for my alpha wolf, who was nearly twice his size.
Apollo parried the attack easily, slamming the wolf against ground, took his head in his jaws, and dragged him to a rock in the middle of the space.
Apollo threw his body on top of the wolf’s, his weight cutting off his air supply.
It was a low hum within the mindlink that gave Apollo pause. I let it through.
“Stan, Alpha Remy is dead.”
Drake’s message was succinct, and Apollo, galvanized by the loss of a fellow alpha, resumed his kill.
With his head pressed over the side of the rock, Apollo held him down with his hind legs, and with his front paw, he forced the rogue’s exposed neck so far back, I heard the bones break.
Not wanting to take any chances, he bent downward, and in a single strike, he latched onto his jugular and ripped out his throat.
The rogue’s body went limp instantly, draped over the rock, his head dangling at a grotesque angle.
It’s over, Apollo snarled, his fangs dripping. He hopped off of the rock and coughed out blood and tissue, then shifted. The taste lingered in my mouth, as it often did with kills like these.
I dragged the rogue leader’s corpse back to Pack Gallos.
My heart was heavy. Nearing the borders, I saw the battle was in its final stages.
Bodies had been stacked in colossal piles, and men were shouting commands, rounding up the remaining rogues.
Their numbers had diminished considerably, but there were quite a few of them left, enough to still pose a problem.
From within the remaining structures, low wails and high-pitched cries pierced my ears, even over the lingering sounds of battle. A pack mourning their lost alpha was not a sound that could be unheard.
“He had two young girls,” Cyrus said, coming to stand next to me with his jaw clenched. I knew he was thinking about Penelope and Eleni.
“His mate?” I asked.
“Died during childbirth.”
I wondered how many more orphans had been made this night.
“They wiped out almost the entire pack.” Cyrus shook his head. “It goes without saying that this is probably only the beginning.”
We were sitting in a makeshift shelter, made of whatever debris we could salvage.
It had begun raining, which was helping to put out the remaining fires, but we were soaked to the bone.
We couldn’t leave yet. I’d sent word to the nearby packs to prepare their spare rooms and be ready to help the survivors.
“And the information you got from Fox and Rosa?” I asked Drake.
“These attacks were completely random, nothing that pointed to any kind of coordinated attack.”
We had been waiting for the intel from Drake’s connections to be compiled and filtered through to us.
Mordecai Fox and his sometimes partner Vincenzio Rosa were gathering what they could.
They had recruits in every pack, selected spies picked by Mordecai himself.
Their selection was strategic, that was all I knew.
Plausible deniability in case the Council ever had anything they thought they could prove.
They were scattered amongst some of the more problematic packs—sleeper agents up until recently, now that the Council, specifically the Nine, were seemingly more active.
Random attacks were nothing out of the ordinary for our kind, but the increase in frequency was cause for concern.
“It’s no coincidence. That’s for damn sure,” Cyrus grumbled, taking notes. “These spies of yours, are we for certain their loyalties still lie with you, brother? We are asking them to commit espionage against their own packs.”
“Stan would have been blindsided by many an incident over this year if their loyalties had fallen elsewhere,” Drake said confidently.
His eyes then filtered from their regular carefree blue to the glacial, apathetic teal of his wolf.
“And besides, who would believe them if they were to speak of this?”
Cyrus gave an unsure shrug. “Better, in my opinion, never to put one’s complete faith in anyone—or anything.”
I nodded in agreement at the mistrust of my beta. “Which is why at the end of the day, we disperse the information sparingly. Need to know. Am I clear, Drake?”
“Quite. I’ll tell Fox, Rosa, and the others to keep their ears to the ground. To them, we’re monitoring rogues, nothing more.”
“Good,” I replied.
I glanced at the clock, which stood in what I assumed used to be the center of town. It showed half past nine. None of us had gotten any sleep for thirty-six hours. Cyrus saw me looking, his dark circles bringing out the yellow of his sharp eyes.
“Stan, you know I have to ask,” he said.
“Go ahead,” I said resignedly.
“All this stuff, and now her… It’s going to be tricky, don’t you think?”
“Your point?” I asked, regarding him carefully.
He held up his hands. “I’m only saying, if she stays, you know what this will mean. She’ll be involved, first and foremost with the council and then all the other shit you never wanted her to be a part of. I know I’m stating the obvious, but someone has to.”
Someone had to, yes. I told Drake to get a hold of my sister. Someone had to stop being selfish. Someone had to remember why they had made the choice they’d made in the first place.
Someone had to let her go.