Walking into the town reminded Verity of a horror movie she had seen as a child, about the end of the world, where once busy places were abandoned in the face of a zombie apocalypse.
Windows were broken, doors torn from their hinges, and the contents of businesses and houses had been pulled out into the main street of the town, where wooden furniture had been broken into pieces in order to construct a bonfire, whilst bench seats and tables had been set haphazardly in preparation for a meal that, looking at the carcass of a cow that lay on top of the still-smouldering fire, hadn’t lived up to expectations.
“Does no one know how to cook?” She asked Charon.
“These are by majority from the slave owning part of our civilization,” he replied under his breath. “So, no.”
“They didn’t even gut it,” Maverick observed with amusement. “I mean, I am a f-king wolf, and I wouldn’t eat that shit. Quite literally. Cows have four stomachs, that is a lot of shit.”
“They are hungry,” Dior observed flicking a look at Charon with a smile. “Their stomachs did the deciding for them.”
Raiden had made the same observation and signalled his wolves, a number of whom peeled away from the company.
“Where are they going?” Galatia demanded sharply.
“In the spirit of goodwill,” Raiden replied evenly. “They have gone to retrieve food. We will share a meal once we have finished our discussions. That is how we do things in this realm. Is it not how you do it on yours?”
“Let’s see what we can contribute,” Dior decided in an undertone. “Etienne and Charon, stay with Raiden and his wolves. Blaise, you, Maverick and Verity are with me.”
Etienne and Charon followed Raiden. The alpha werewolf began to rearrange the various bench seats into a circle upwind from the foul stench of the charred cow. After a moment, the winged people began to assist, creating a place to sit and talk.
Dior spotted the sagging sign that looked to him like a grocery shop down the street. “It might be optimistic,” he observed. “But let us see if there is anything there that we can use.”
“So, now what?” Verity asked Maverick as they put some distance between the alpha werewolf and his company. “Will Raiden make you go back?”
“I don’t know,” Maverick answered, but he did not seem daunted by the possibility. “If he does, I will just try again,” he reassured her with a mischievous grin. “It is not my first escape attempt, and it won’t be my last.”
“Why would you seek to escape your pack?” Blaise wondered having eavesdropped with fascination. He offered Verity his hand to help her over a section of road where the townspeople had obviously tried to build a wall between them and the winged ones using vehicles and furniture.
“A better question,” Dior observed. “Is why won’t they let you go if you are so determined to be free?”
Maverick shrugged a shoulder. “Before, I came and went as I willed. When this war started, and the packs moved out to the runs, I was with them, so I came too. It was alright for a while, plenty to do, but as things sort of settled down, I got itchy to move on again. I moved from Raiden’s run, to another in the pack, and then to Wade’s but,” he paused a moment, looking in a window. “Nothing,” he told the gargoyles when they immediately became alert. “Someone’s kid wandered into sight. Mother freaked and took it back away from the window. What was I saying?”
“You moved between packs.”
“Ah, yeah, but things were getting more dangerous. It is like these winged people are migrating, you know? They all seem to head this way. Wade and Raiden decided it was best to hunker into the runs and not travel between so much. It didn’t work for me, and I rubbed them up the wrong way,” he raised his eyebrows and shoulders in implied disbelief and innocence. “And me so likeable and all.”
“Do they all move this way?” Dior wondered as he tried the glass doors of the supermarket.
The internal roller doors were down, and the glass windows and doors were, surprisingly, intact. He began to work his way around the building towards the back entrances. It was possible, he thought, that the gargoyles could smash the glass and force up the security screens, but it seemed to set the wrong tone to add to the wanton destruction that had taken place in the town if there were another way to enter.
“Yeah,” Maverick paused and picked something up from the ground. “Hey, a penny,” he exclaimed. “Or close enough. That’s good luck, eh?” He rubbed the pad of his thumb over the shiny surface and then stuck it into his pocket. “I am keeping that,” he declared. “Haven’t you noticed that they head this way?”
“We normally kill them, and go home,” Blaise replied lightly.
“I guess that would explain it,” Maverick’s grin was bright.
“Why do they move this way?” Verity asked the question that Dior was thinking. Blaise had tucked her under his arm and was nuzzling, the jeans he was wearing not disguising that the goat was hard. A flush rose on Verity’s cheeks and Dior could clearly scent her arousal, responding to the gargoyle’s pheromones.
“And can we use that migration to our advantage,” Dior added under his breath. The gargoyle and the werewolf caught it sliding him curious looks. Dior tried a door, putting his shoulder behind it, and felt it give. He needed to assist Raiden in preparing a feast, and then find a private spot with his mates, the gargoyle decided, before one of them got carried away. “Blaise?”
The goat gargoyle ceased nuzzling with a heavy sigh and came to place his shoulder to the door with Dior. “Shift?” The goat suggested when their next push shifted the door in the frame at top and bottom but held firm in the centre. It was possible, Dior thought, that the door was barred from the inside.
“Here, let me help,” Maverick joined them. Under the next shove, beneath the strength of three powerful men, their muscles tensing against the fabric that they wore, the door cracked. The next, and they were bend the top of the wood inwards. “Not the usual way to make a farmhouse door,” Maverick snickered. “And I don’t think it will appear on the front of a House & Country home décor magazine, but I like it.”
“Yay,” Verity clapped. “So strong! Well-done, boys.”
“Appreciation and admiration,” Maverick preened. “I like it. Maybe I need to rethink taking a mate.”
Dior released the bar holding the door firm. “A bit more destructive than I was hoping for,” he admitted. “But it was unavoidable.” He swung the door open.
Maverick inhaled. “No one’s been in here for weeks.”
There were boxes stacked in the loading bays. Dior peeled the tape back on one and opened it. “Dried produce,” he looked around him. “If these are all full…”
“I wonder why the townspeople haven’t stripped this shop bare?” Verity commented. “If it was the city, they would have.”
“Maybe the winged ones chased most of the people away and those still here haven’t gotten hungry enough to risk leaving their bolt holes to find food,” Maverick speculated.
“Maybe we should ask them,” Verity suggested. “Before we just help ourselves to their food supply.”
“How?” Dior wondered.
“Knock?” She suggested.
Blaise met Dior’s eyes and shrugged. “There is no harm to it?”
They walked out of the building and looked around. The street was mainly given to shops and pubs. There was no sign of activity, beyond the winged ones and Raiden’s wolves.
As Verity looked up the street towards them, she saw Etienne look her way and smiled, her heart warming. Her men, she thought. From the moment she had spotted Etienne in the sky, it was as if the tension drained out of her. When he had dived down towards her shifted to man, his arms around her had been blissful, his skin against her cheek had been heaven.
When Dior, Blaise and Charon had followed, it had felt like all the pieces of her puzzle had fitted together in perfect harmony. Her family, she thought, had been searching for her, just as she knew they would, and they had found her.
“Maybe where mummy-wolf and cub were?” Maverick suggested, jerking his head in that direction.
“We can only try,” Dior replied.
They wound their way back up the debris-strewn street.
“They really had a party,” Maverick observed. “Reminds me of schoolies week.”
They approached the glass fronted shop where Maverick had spotted the child and mother through the glass.
“Blaise,” Dior looked to the goat gargoyle. “You are the least intimidating of the three of us. You go to the door with Verity. We will stand back.”
“I am not sure if that is a compliment or an insult,” Blaise grinned flirtatiously at Dior and flicked his white-blonde hair back from his shoulders, as he placed a hand on the small of Verity’s back and escorted her forwards.
“Randy goat,” Dior muttered under his breath, suppressing a smile at Blaise’s blatant invitation.
He really needed to find his mates somewhere quiet and private, Dior repeated to himself, before they imploded under the hormones. He would prefer to return to his city and nest, so that they could indulge in the mating instinct as they were meant to – by f-king for days on end – but the times they lived in would not allow it. They still had a city to feed, and an enemy to vanquish.
The door had been glass, but that glass had been broken. There were no broken shards on the ground, Verity noted, so someone had cleaned it up. And someone had also patched the door with wood and whatever other building materials could be found. Verity knocked firmly on the patched panel and waited. And waited. And knocked again. After the third knock and wait, there was movement inside, and the door opened by just a finger.
“I have a gun,” the woman said.
“That is probably wise, considering the times we live in,” Blaise replied with a wide smile. “Hi.”
“I am Verity, and this is Blaise,” Verity said. “Behind us is Dior and Maverick. We came with the local werewolf pack, to negotiate a peace treaty with the winged people and get them to stop marauding in the area. They are currently having a discussion about the details up the street a little, but the winged ones have pretty much agreed to help protect the locals, so everyone can go back to what they were doing.”
“You have no idea what you are dealing with,” the woman said darkly. “If you think those monsters decent enough to abide by any peace treaty.”
“I do actually,” Verity replied. “It is a long story. But we were wondering two things. The first was whether the townspeople would like to join the discussions up the road. The werewolves are bringing fresh produce from one of their farms, and there will be a feast.
The second is that we have found a grocery store of sorts down the road, with food stuff in the back. Do you mind if we take some to go with the feast to make sure there is enough food for everyone, including the townspeople if they choose to join?”
“Are you insane?” The woman demanded. “They are rapists and murderers.”
“It is really much more complex than that,” Verity glanced over her shoulder towards the gathering of winged people and werewolves. “I understand that you have probably lost people and have suffered horrendous acts of violence towards yourself and probably your family. But the winged ones are also victims, in a way. They are forced through the portals to attack our world.”
“Come and listen,” Blaise added. “Please.”
“Expose myself to them?” The woman shook her head. “It is not safe. I have children,” she started to close the door.
“Is there a leader?” Blaise asked. “Someone who will attend for you all?”
The door paused. “There is, but I will not betray her.”
“Perhaps you could pass a message on to her, for us?” Verity suggested. “Let her know that the werewolves have come to negotiate with the winged ones.”
The woman on the other side of the door hesitated. “I guess I can do that.”
“And tell her we are taking some supplies from the grocery shop,” Dior added.
“Alright,” the woman shut the door.
Verity sighed and wrapped her arm around Blaise’s waist, leaning against him as they returned to Dior and Maverick. Blaise put his arm around her, and she pressed her face into his chest, breathing him in. Blaise met Dior’s eyes. The gargoyles could scent Verity’s rising desire, which meant the werewolf could too. The need for privacy with their mates was increasing.