Inside the room, huddled in the corner, the women of the Pack put their heads together. “You’ve heard the stories,” one said. “The Blackstone Pack is horrible, their Alpha a monster.” She switched to the link while rocking her young child on her chest. “You’ll live, yes… live to be raped daily and watch your children be taken from you and turned into monsters like him. I’ll never give myself up to them.”
Heads nodded, tears were wiped away. “I’ll kill my own children before I let them be captured by that man,” one said.
“Me too,” said another. One by one, the eighteen females in the room nodded their heads in agreement.
“May Luna forgive us for what we need to do now,” the first said.
Forty-five minutes later, when the door was finally breached, all Todd and his men found was a pile of bloody corpses. The child they sought was not among them.
Cheryl moved as fast as she could through the narrow tunnel, careful to keep the baby from banging into the walls. It wasn’t easy, her jaws had a good hold on the sling, but her back was scraping the top and the sling was inches above the bottom. The emergency tunnel was built of 24″ concrete sewage piping and had been buried underground for four hundred feet until it came out in a culvert near the lake. She reached the end, stopping and using her wolf senses to look for danger.
The air was full of smoke and the smells of strange werewolves and blood. No one was near, so she carefully pushed the grating and was relieved when it hinged open from the top. She crawled out under it, setting her precious cargo down on the rocks before grabbing it with her teeth, making sure it closed again quietly. With all these fighters around, she couldn’t be spotted now.
She waited a few seconds, making sure she was in the clear, then picked up the sleeping child and started moving quickly and quietly along the trail near the beach. The clear, cool night was illuminated by several of the houses burning brightly, including the Alpha’s. Men, dozens of them, and trucks were parked outside the Pack House. She could hear their laughter as they plotted the final destruction of her home and her Pack.
Cheryl moved quickly, glad she couldn’t cry as a wolf. She had her first shift a few months ago, so her senses weren’t as highly developed as an adult. If she let her guard down, they both were dead.
The farther she got from the house, the faster she ran. It was when she heard the howls behind her, the howls of a Pack on a hunt, that she knew her escape had not gone undetected.
She pushed her body hard through the forest, but she was no match for mature trackers who could run for days and had the noses of bloodhounds. The men were getting closer, and her neck was screaming in pain from holding the baby as she ran.
She saw lights up ahead and waited in the woods until the car passed by on the seldom-used county road. She wasn’t going to make it, she could hear them only a few miles behind her. Making a choice, she put the baby down by the side of the road, then turned and raced back the way she came.
A mile or so later, she stood at the top of a granite ledge, the best defensive position she had seen during her run. It was only six feet above the pine straw and dirt of the forest, and her heart pounded in her chest as she saw the group for the first time. Warriors in their prime, running hard on a trail that was easy to follow. Raising her head to the full moon above, she let out her best war cry and prayed to Luna for a good death.
The warriors fanned out, making sure she had no escape. They stopped twenty feet away, and one shifted. “Young one, come with us and you may live.”
She sat down, looking submissive, shivering in fear and baiting him to come closer. He was three times her size, and his chest and arms bore the marks of countless battles. He smiled, seeing her coat and getting a smell, she was newly shifted and unmated. She would make a good addition to their Omegas and help birth the next generation of their warriors. “It would be easier if you just came with me,” he said as he reached for her scruff.
She moved with lightning speed, snapping up and grabbing is thumb with her teeth. Biting down with all her strength, she held on to the digit as she was jerked up off the ground. A large fist collided with her chest, knocking the air out of her and breaking several of her ribs. She bit down on the thumb until it came loose in her mouth. “YOU BITCH,” he said as he tossed her thirty feet, her body rolling to a halt in front of his men.
She shifted, moaning in pain, her body trying hard to catch a breath over the pain of her ribs. “Kill her,” the Blackstone Beta said, then he started looking for his missing thumb. Picking it up, he put it in his mouth and shifted, running back towards the house to find their Pack Doctor. Two men left with him.
They cut her throat and tossed her body into a shallow ravine. “Come on, let’s get back to the others,” one said and they all turned back the way they came.
On the side of the road, the little girl woke up, her little arm working free of the blanket and reaching for the moon high above her. “Oooon,” she said with a laugh.
The motorcycle powered through the turns of the county road, never going straight more than a mile or two before the next lake or river would force it to change direction again. The 1999 Harley Ultra Classic Electra Glide’s twin cam 88 engine roared through custom pipes as Mark accelerated out of the turn. The headlight of the touring bike cut through the darkness of the northern Minnesota forest as he grinned to himself. He loved his new ride, and after a hard season of riding, it was time to garage it and get the snowmobile ready. “I love this road,” he said over the helmet intercom to his wife of twenty years behind him.
“Two more days and we’re expecting six inches of snow,” Dawn replied as she pulled herself closer to his back. The motorcycle was built for comfort, not performance; the second seat was six inches above his, allowing her to see over his right shoulder as her chin rested on his shoulder. Every bit of clothing they had with them had been put on to combat the dropping temperatures of the late fall night. It was right on the edge of being too cold to ride, if Mark would ever admit to that. “I’m glad we don’t have to work tomorrow, there’s a bunch of stuff to do around the house before it snows.” Dawn was a nurse in the oncology ward at a Duluth hospital, while Mark was a State Patrol officer based out of there. They had met at her work when she was a student nurse and he was a rookie, bringing a drunk driver in for a blood test. It was love at first sight, and they were married three weeks later.
“Gives me a chance to fire up the leafblower,” Mark said with a grin. “You can compost the plants.” Although it was only the first week of October, the North Shore of Minnesota was famous for rapid weather changes. The seventy-degree weather that prompted today’s long ride to Ely was a one-shot. Tomorrow it would struggle to hit fifty, the next day it wouldn’t get above freezing. “I can’t wait to hit the hot tub when we get home.”
“I can’t wait for you to make love to me in the hot tub when we get home,” she purred as her hand slid down to his crotch. His mind flashed to all the fun the two had been up to in their marriage, the small tub on their private porch saw lots of action. Soaking and sex were their favorite post-ride activity. “But no fun while you are driving.” She pulled her hand pack up quickly to his flat stomach. “Safety first, you know.”