Unwilling - 5. where madness rules

~*Jared*~

Brushes and branches slapped against his body, leaving bloody scratches on his unprotected face. Leaves rustled whenever they took a turn or crossed one of the small clearings where the surrounding trees had grown so high that nothing would grow underneath their shadow. Jared could hear Darwin's labored breath right behind him, trying to keep up with the unforgiving pace he had set. He felt thick droplets of sweat rolling down the ridge of his spine, coating his shirt and the rims of his trousers in wetness that would soon turn cold and clammy. The ground was muddy and slippery from the morning dew, but there was no room for caution. Their pursuers were only a few hundred feet behind them, and they were gaining fast on their prey.

Jared knew they would have to shift into their wolf forms, just like the pack of werewolves following them, if they wanted to have any chance at all. But the first time he had suggested it to Darwin, Darwin had freaked out enough to cost them a few precious seconds.

"No way, I won't shift out here. I told you about my wolf! He's crazy, not even my Alpha could control him!"

"Who says I'd have to control you, we're running away, even a crazy wolf would get that!" Jared had rebutted while gasping for air. In the distance behind them he had heard twigs snap and leaves rustling, signs of how much the five wolves had gained on them.

"Stop asking me to do it, I won't take the risk! I'd rather die!" Darwin had exclaimed, his piercing blue eyes wide with terror, but there had been no time for Jared to remind his mate that he'd actually die if they kept going like this.

And now they were running again, trying to gain distance, but already out of breath and slowing down.

Darwin was still hurt even though he didn't complain about it. Jared could hear it in the way the man huffed and hissed with every step, but there was nothing he could do as long as they were in this forest.

When they reached the foot of Mt. Kennicky the terrain got more impracticable, leading them uphill and downhill in steeping succession. Though Darwin was a tour guide in the national park nearby, it took the last out of him, and finally slowed him down to a limping, breathless trot.

"Jared," he wheezed as he tried to keep up with the blond werewolf, "I can't go any further. I can't!"

It made Jared stop on the spot and look back. Darwin was pasty white, soaked in sweat and stumbling when he came to a halt. Jared quickly scanned their surroundings, but the wolves weren't in sight yet. He could definitely hear their yips and growls coming closer and closer, sounds of triumph at catching up to their prey, and he knew he had to act quick and decisive.

When he saw a small planked rope bridge on the foot of the hill they were currently slipping down, he made a hard turn and headed straight for it.

"Take the bridge, quickly!" he roared, and stopped long enough to let Darwin hobble past him and onto the rickety thing. A cold, clammy wind was blowing downhill, pulling at Darwin's raven black hair and filling the air with his scent and his pain as he clambered over the planks, clutching his side with one hand. They both had to hold on to the rope railing with every step, and it did slow them down considerably, but it was a chance Jared just had to take.

Darwin had nearly reached the other side when Jared heard the growl and the clicking of claws on wood. It made the hairs on his back bristle in sudden rage. The wolves had reached the bridge and were following them, and Jared hadn't reached the other side yet.

He looked in front of him, seeing Darwin's wide eyes, his scared face, and he knew time had finally run out. When he heard the snapping of teeth right behind him, he stopped and turned abruptly, making the wolf at his heels run right into him.

The black and grey wolf showed his teeth and pulled back, ready to attack Jared, its claws barely finding grip on the wet wooden planks.

Jared smiled, then his hands shifted with a sickening pop and a small spray of pinkish goo. "You keep running! This better not be for nothing, you hear me?" he roared over his shoulder, shooting one last dark glance at Darwin.

Then his claws cut the ropes, making the bridge snap and violently twist to one side, then rip apart and fall into the small canyon beneath, taking three wolves and Jared with it.

The only thing left for Darwin was to stand there and watch as they tumbled out of sight.

~*Darwin*~

Jared and three of the wolves were falling into the canyon, disappearing with a splash. Time seemed to just stop for Darwin, and everything ground to a halt. He didn't see the two wolves on the other side starting to run again, trying to find a way around the precipice, and he didn't hear their whining barks quickly disappear to the north.

A small part of Darwin's mind knew they were still on the hunt for him and probably would soon catch up if he didn't start running like Jared had told him to, but the major part of him didn't care... yet.

When he realized his hands were shaking he looked down at them, perplexed by the sheer whiteness of his skin, how fragile and thin his arms looked, how he could see his own blood pulsing through the veins right beneath the pale black hairs behind his knuckles. Pathetic. Worthless. Helpless.

He felt a pain he had never felt before, and it ripped him apart just to put him back together, again and again. His chest didn't feel tight, which did confuse him because he had heard it was supposed to do that when a werewolf lost his mate. It did feel glowing hot, like he was melting from the inside, and his stomach was cramping with panic and shock, but he could breathe just fine and his heart obviously wasn't broken.

He apparently wasn't going to drop dead any time soon, but that didn't stop the pain either. His instincts told him to move already, run and save his skin, that everything was alright, but he just couldn't move, couldn't tear his eyes away from the spot where Jared had disappeared into the depths of the canyon, or away from his shaking, pale hands.

His wolf was urging him to stop this nonsense, getting more and more agitated with every second Darwin didn't comply. Everything was so out of place-- Darwin had never risked his life like this for any reason, and it still didn't occur to him to look for survivors.

Darwin took a deep breath and finally managed to close his eyes. That small movement was better than nothing, but now that he wasn't focused on anything he finally realized how close he had been to losing control the whole time.

His wolf didn't hesitate. He just took over.

Darwin could feel the skin at his back and his thighs rip open, but the wet sound accompanying it seemed distant and hollow. He also felt the black fur flowing out of the tears in his skin and over his body like a hot, prickling wave. He knew it would be dry and perfect, he had seen it before, and he also knew what would follow next.

With a wet pop his shoulders dislocated and then were re-set, changing the angle of his arms. His fingers knit together and got shorter, sliding out of the casts that had enveloped his once-broken fingers, his arms changed their proportions, and then the fur reached his face. Clothes fell to the ground ripped and stained with clear gel and blood, closely followed by Darwin himself.

As he fell down to the ground with a low groan, his spine elongated as a furred tail popped out of his tailbone, then the groan changed to a high-pitched yip and then a growl as his face changed its shape.

The last thing Darwin felt was the puddle of blood and gunk beneath him, then the wolf took over his mind too, and everything went black for the human.

~*~

The wolf staggered to his feet and shook himself vigorously. It had been nearly a month since he last had had the chance to get out of his mental cage, only to find himself in another more real one, down in a basement. Out here everything was better. He felt the wind brushing through his fur, heard the whispers of tree branches brushing against each other and the song of birds. He could smell a myriad of different scents, bombarding his deprived brain with seductions he had so long missed.

The black wolf definitely loved the woods. The only thing that would have made this moment better was his mate, who was now absent, dealing with their attackers somewhere else.

He saw no reason to fear for his mate's life, not like Darwin, his human brother, had feared for him. The fall had not been an accident, it had been instigated by Jared, and Jared was dominant. He had to know what he was doing, that was the rule of life. Until the wolf saw Jared's dead, cold body lying at the river bank, he wouldn't believe his mate was dead.

With a shake of his furred head the giant wolf took off, moving through the maze of trees and ferns.

He instinctively chose a path away from his pursuers and into the direction that would most likely lead him to the foot of the canyon further down the way. He knew the two wolves behind him would easily be able to overpower or even kill him-- after all he had no experience fighting--, but since he couldn't yet see or smell them he didn't see any reason to panic.

The wolf also knew that he somehow was different from the wolves he had met in his life. He didn't act like them, didn't think like them-- like humans with wolf instincts-- but instead like a wolf with a fearful, sleeping human consciousness inside him. The others had never understood his seemingly crazy behavior, but to him it was a freedom he relished, not some kind of defect.

Following the sound of water the wolf made his way along the canyon side, trotting along merrily, tongue flopping around from the unusual amount of exertion. The surroundings did tantalize him to just take off into the wilderness, but going without his mate was not only dangerous, but also wrong. The human side, Darwin, may be a loner, but the wolf surely wasn't. He would have to find Jared first, one way or the other.

He finally found a small, bumpy path down to the canyon ground, and gingerly worked his way down, claws spread, tail flailing from left to right for balance. The river broadened a few dozen feet further upstream from his position, becoming a lazier, blubbering stream with sand embankments, bushes and bundles of grass on both sides. The wolf was on one side, but on the other side and slightly downstream he could make out movement. The brushes there were thick and lush, having not yet lost their leaves, but amidst the greenery and against the rocky cliff in the back the wolf saw flashes of red cloth and naked skin.

The rumbling echo of water made it hard to hear anything from the other side, but the wolf didn't need to worry. Just when his paw touched the ice cold water three persons broke through the brushes and tumbled to the edge of the canyon river. Two of them were naked, and the third person's clothes were in tatters: Jared.

The wolf may have been calm about the situation as long as he hadn't seen anything, but watching his mate wrestle for the upper hand just a stone throw's distance away enraged him to no end. He must have growled or barked before jumping into the river, because even as he was fighting of his attackers Jared still looked behind him and screamed.

Of course, in his wolf form Darwin didn't understand any of the things Jared yelled, but his wolf at least understood the urgency in his voice and stopped in the middle of the river, treading the ice cold water as the current slowly carried him down stream.

Him drifting away also seemed to meet Jared's expectations, because his attention snapped back to his attackers-- just a second to late.

When the log hit Jared's head he didn't even have time to make a sound, he just went slack.

At about the same moment the two wolves that had taken the scenic route to find Darwin reached the river bed and effectively blocked Darwin's way out.

Going back to where Jared was now hoisted onto the back of one of the naked men was out of the question simply because Jared had ordered him to stay away, and his way back wasn't going to work anymore. The two parties seemed to communicate about what to do now, but the wolf didn't understand them either.

When he saw one of the wolves still in animal form attempting to go after him by wading into the cold water he finally gave up and swam with the current. He'd have to follow them in a safe distance and wait for a good moment to free Jared. The wolf was nothing if not optimistic.

~*Jared*~

When Jared reached land it wasn't a second to soon. One of his attackers luckily hadn't survived the fall and the ensuing wrestling match, but the other two had somehow managed not only to swim to the sand embankment he had reached, but also to shift shape much quicker than they were supposed to. One of them was dark-skinned, with a bulky build and long, tantalizing limbs matching the cocky expression on his beautifully chiselled face, the other looked like one of those hillbilly types with too much meat on his ribs, too much hair on his arms and belly, and a dire need to visit a hair salon and get the backside of his head fixed. Both of them seemed unsure what to do for a moment, regrouping by circling him against the cliff wall next to the river bank.

Jared had a plan that involved being overpowered and captured, but as his eyes darted behind his attackers and he watched Darwin's furry form wade into the water in an attempt to save him by risking his own life he was hard-pressed to just kill them all in a surge of primal rage. It wouldn't be that hard, since he had an ace up his sleeve: He was Alpha, able to overpower any werewolf with the sheer force of his will, as long as there was no other Alpha present. It just would have ruined his plan to end this hunt once and for all.

It took quite a bit of yelling at the black wolf and a good portion of self restraint, but somehow he could keep himself from strangling the werewolves and stop Darwin from joining the fun, and not a moment too soon. Just when Jared turned his attention to the two problems in front of him, two more reached the riverside Darwin had used as an entrance and seemed torn about whom they should give their attention to.

To make his point Jared grabbed the hillbilly-guy by his neck to pull him back and throw him against the rough stone surface behind, putting as much force and muscle as he could muster into the throw. If he made just enough of a fuss to keep his attackers busy without overpowering them, they'd leave the swimming wolf that was Darwin alone.

The naked, bulgy man crashed against the rocks with a pained cry, alarming his friends on the other side of the river. One of them was in mid-change, the other one still in his wolf form, and the third, dark skinned one on Jared's side of the river instantly went for him swinging a wooden branch.

Now that Jared had his attackers' undivided attention he felt better, calmer. Not that he was sure about his genius plan of getting caught. If he made one wrong move with those remaining three, they would not hesitate to try and kill him for intruding on their territory. It was an instinctual thing, heritage from their wolf ancestry, although it didn't mean they would win a fight against Jared.

It definitely was a risk to let that one lone guy hit him with the branch, but it was a risk worth taking.

The wooden club met the back of his head with a loud cracking sound, and though he hadn't planned to go down that hard, he actually blacked out for a few seconds. It did save Jared the trouble of bad acting, but it also made him way more vulnerable than he originally had planned.

~*~

Jared finally came to upside down and dangling from a shoulder as the wolf who had swum after Darwin reached Jared's side of the riverbank. Even face down and stunned he could smell the wolf's adrenaline and testosterone hanging chokingly thick in the air. The brown haired guy Jared had thrown against the rocks was stumbling to his feet, stinking of the hunt's excitement just as much as the wolf, obviously ready to take his revenge.

The fourth attacker on the other side of the river had finished her change back to human form and jumped into the icy river to swim to the other side within seconds.

"Damn it, he got away!"

"It doesn't matter. You know him, he'll follow this one no matter what. Just like he'd never leave the pack," Jared's captor said. He had an amazing voice, dark and sultry and thick as toffee, and it vibrated through Jared's limp body like a shiver.

"Gorgeous. But him following this one doesn't help us do our job. Which was to bring Darwin, not everyone else. Carl will be so pissed!"

The breath Mr. Sultry-- as Jared decided to call his captor for now-- took was deep enough to lift Jared's whole body for an inch, which was not a small feat considering Jared was near double his mass. Maybe it was a good thing he hadn't tried to put up more of a fight, this guy seemed to have more strength than his exterior let on.

"Don't bicker with me, it doesn't suit you. We're taking him and I'll handle Carl when it's necessary. Greta, go get the car, bring it down to Fortunis Bridge, we'll meet you there."

Through one slitted eye Jared could see the ash-blond girl jog into the woods, but had to close it when the remaining group turned and started walking, following the river downstream. When he felt sure it was safe he opened one eye occasionally to look for Darwin, but the black wolf had wisely disappeared and was nowhere to be seen.

Jared hoped it would stay that way.

~*Harry*~

It had been silent for too long. Something was going on up there, Harry was sure of it. His new 'friend', Rayne, had foretold another visit by either himself or-- much worse-- Carl, but it had been hours since then, and nobody had come.

There had been faint movement upstairs some time ago, but now there was nothing but silence and darkness, and, quite honestly, Harry was sick of it and sick of being scared shitless.

Since his hands were bound together at the wrists behind his back and his legs weren't shackled, he could sit up without any troubles, but he had yet to dare to get up and walk around. Fear was a powerful thing, able to keep a person glued to the spot for a long time, but fear's power was starting to lose its influence on Harry. Now light and a plan to escape began to look more promising than waiting for fate to come get him.

Harry got up with a silent grunt. The echo of his own sound made his heart pound fiercely, but when a few seconds went by without the world exploding he decided to keep on being brave. Slowly Harry felt his way forward, heading for the spot where he had seen the light switch before, careful not to run into a wall. Every step and every sound seemed magnified a thousand times, but that had to be nerves, just nerves.

If it were Darwin in his place, he wouldn't flinch and just walk over there, Harry mused, and had to suppress a squeak when his shoulder hit the wall next to the door. Whatever problems Darwin ran into, he always seemed to just fly through without a second thought, consequences be damned. And here Harry was, kidnapped by Rayne the Walmart werewolf, afraid of a dark cellar with the light switch just a step away. He felt pathetic.

Slowly feeling his way along the crumbling wall he first reached the door, which of course was locked, because that would have been too easy. Just one step to its left he found the cover plate of the light switch, and after a bit of balancing on the balls of his feet and feeling around bent forward like a human hook he finally found the switch itself, and flipped it.

The room instantly was flooded with dim yellow light that hurt in Harry's eyes. He had to close them and wait until they had adjusted to the brightness, then finally took a good look around.

The cellar wasn't as big as Harry had imagined it, but still pretty spacious. Definitely big enough to fit a dozen small wine barrels in, or six big ones, like the one standing there on the far side of the cellar. Harry could have easily hidden in it, but since it was the only obvious place to hide it wouldn't do him any good. He did spot old inclined air vents on the right wall of the cellar, and though they were covered with old metal hatches, he would probably be able to tear one of them out. Fitting through the air vent and climbing up the steep funnel was a whole different story, made impossible by the shackles on his hands.

Harry didn't want to give up that quick though. It felt good doing something, anything, to help himself. Maybe Darwin was already on his way to rescue him, if he had forgiven Harry for the whole 'Jared-incident', but Harry was fed up with waiting for other people like a maiden in distress.

With an audible sniff he walked to one of the hatches, because he was already pretty sure that plans weren't made in one go but instead came to people as they went. The hatch was a good foot over his head, unreachable with bound hands, so he went to the barrel next. It didn't have a lid to stand on, but the walls were massive and the whole barrel probably weighed enough to not move if he tried to stand on the rim. If he climbed onto the barrel and balanced on the rim he could reach the hatch on the wall, and maybe tear it open... as soon as his hands were untied, that was. What to do after that would be a problem to solve when he came to it.

Harry felt exhilarated as ideas streamed into his head, all by his own doing and without any help from anyone. Nobody was here to criticize him or talk him out of it, nobody had a better idea he just had to follow through. No. For the first time in his life he had to try his own thing.

Just as he began the complicated climb up the side of the barrel with his back wedged against the cellar wall, he heard steps from the stairs behind the cellar door. Someone was coming!

He quickly wiggled out of the small spot between the barrel and the wall, hurried back to the middle of the room and sat back down, trying to look inconspicuous. It was not a second too soon, because just as the dust settled around him, the door was unlocked and pushed open, and in stumbled...

"Jared?"

~*Darwin*~

It wasn't hard at all to follow the scent of his mate, even after they'd piled into the 4x4 and accelerated. Darwin's wolf had kept himself to the bushes far off, always keeping an eye on the small group and staying downwind and invisible.

When the car zipped away he fell into an energy saving canter, following the road on a parallel trajectory just a few feet into the woods as long as possible. They did at one point go through the outskirts of the city, which the wolf didn't like at all, but since it seemed to be a quiet, wide-spread neighborhood he finally followed them with ears flattened to the head and tail tucked between his legs.

A few children were out playing, but didn't pay him much attention-- they probably couldn't distinguish him from any other dog. Luckily they also didn't try to run up and pet him.

One of the elderly neighbors watering his lawn wasn't quite as calm as the kids. He took one look at the wolf, dropped his hose and sprinted back to his front door, simultaneously yelling at the children on the other side of the road.

The sudden commotion provoked Darwin into a short sprint back the way he came, and he only stopped when the road he had followed before disappeared behind trees, wild hills and bushes. Had he been a real wolf, he probably would have tried his luck again after dark, but Jared would have been dead by then.

It was the first time Darwin's conscious mind left his dark place and tried communicating with the wolf instead of screaming mentally and shying away from the strange presence. He wouldn't have tried for anyone else, but this was Jared. Jared who'd rescued him-- essentially saved his life-- without blinking an eye, twice.

He had to save him, there was no other way, no compromise around it.

Two minds touched each other after years and years of trying so hard not to, and only Darwin's insistence and unwillingness to delay any further allowed him to finally convince the wolf to just cut through the woods and go around the suburbs instead of singlemindedly following the smell.

He could see the reflections of red and blue lights of a police car entering the neighborhood he'd been to just a few minutes before, but his minds were still not communicating quite as well as they could have. The human mind knew that the police and wildlife rangers would come into the woods looking for them and tried planning ahead for that, the wolf didn't see any immediate danger and just wanted to follow the route his mind was mapping out for him.

The cornucopia of smells was distracting Darwin constantly. There were the smell of rotten wood and leaves, the stink of mice and wild rats, fox markings, deer droppings, the sharp scent of freshly distilled moonshine somewhere uphill, and the stinging pang of fuel following the tracks of motor bike routes. The wolf just went with all the distractions, having had to cope with it his whole existence, but the human tried to sort through them, make sense of it, and got lost and confused so often it affected them both.

Most surprising about this experience was actually being conscious and able to remember it at all. Darwin didn't even realize that big difference until he reached the gravel road leading towards the pack meeting house, and when he did he started to panic instantly. Losing control and conscious thought once more he retreated into the dark, quiet place inside his mind.

With this, the wolf was on his own again. Shaking himself to fend off the unsettling sensation of not being alone in his body he started walking again, keeping himself to the ditch next to the road, following the scent of Jared. He was near now, there was no doubt about it.

~*Jared*~

They didn't cover his eyes for the trip, and they didn't stop him from looking out the car windows. It was a very subtle gesture, but it was also very hard to misinterpret-- they'd kill him. Maybe not now, maybe not soon, but they didn't plan on letting him get away. His hands had been shackled together behind his back with a pair of silver and titanium infused handcuffs, but otherwise he was free to move around as he pleased.

They had put him in the rear trunk of the car, and he understood that choice too. With a normal human being it would have been enough just to sit him in the middle of the back seats and have someone sit left and right from him to cover the doors, but a werewolf's mouth was just as dangerous as his hands, and much harder to control. Having him in the cargo area cut him off from direct access to the car doors and the necks of his captors.

The four werewolves were silent as they were driving, which was kind of unsettling. They didn't whisper to each other, they didn't discuss directions or later tasks or the weather, and they didn't turn on the radio.

It felt like a trip to a funeral for a body that was still breathing.

The driver was Mr. Sultry, the dark skinned guy-- Arabic heritage mixed with something darker, Jared guessed-- who had landed the winning blow to his head, and now that Jared had the chance to watch him, he was even more impressed. He had a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and a very tight expression around his jaw, but those were the only signs of his nervousness. Much more obvious was the unhappy expression around his eyes and brows.

Was he unhappy about how the hunt had ended? That he couldn't kill Jared? About the task he had gotten? It was impossible to guess, but still quite interesting.

When the ringing sound of a mobile phone disrupted the tense silence everybody except the driver jumped. He pulled the phone out of his pocket, answered the call with a single, sultry, "Yes?", and then seemed to listen to a distinctly angry sounding mumble coming from the speaker. Jared couldn't understand what the other voice was saying, but from the changing expressions on the driver's face he got the impression that they didn't like each other very much.

"No sir, we didn't get him, just his companion."

A short pause followed as Mr. Sultry listened intently, then his eyes met Jared's icy blue ones in the rear view mirror. Testing. Frowning.

"No sir, I don't think he's an Alpha. We had him in mere minutes."

The voice on the other end of the line got louder for a moment, loud enough for Jared to hear something about, "what use is a foot soldier to me? I need Darwin, and I need the Alpha!" and some more swearing. The driver kept his cool though, and only the groan of the faux leather covering the steering wheel betrayed his temperament.

"We'll be at the pack house in about ten minutes, sir. I'll see you then," was the last thing Jared could make out before the call ended. 'Sir' the driver had said, so Jared guessed he'd been talking to his Alpha, or a high ranking enforcer. He assumed the mentioned pack house was the same house he'd visited-- and killed at-- before, but he'd been too out of his mind then to remember the way now.

There were many questions Jared would have liked to ask his lovely companions, but he didn't. This was neither the time nor the place to play word games with a bunch of aggravated werewolves, and it didn't work like in the movies. Bad people didn't just tell you what they had planned for you just in time to stop them from doing it. No, Jared had to wait for the right time, the right mood, or he wouldn't get any answers at all.

He just had a very intense feeling of relief his captors hadn't realized yet that they had already found what they wanted.

As they reached the city outskirts he saw a black shadow making its way through the bushes on the side of the road, and nearly cried out in surprise. It was a wolf, Jared had no doubt about it, and the only possible candidate he could think of was Darwin. But Darwin had told him that his wolf was out of control, dangerous and unpredictable, so why was he following the car?

Jared hastily turned his eyes away from the window, hoping no-one had watched him stare to the side of the road. His captors wanted Darwin, not him, which in itself was strange enough. It was nearly impossible to distinguish an Alpha from a dominant werewolf if he chose not to show it, but it was impossible to not recognize Darwin for what he was: definitely submissive. You didn't need to capture a submissive as long as you had its Alpha or a dominant pack member, they just followed the flow wherever it led.

It reminded Jared of the story Darwin had told him about his Alpha, about the way he had to hide what he was for fear of getting killed. Maybe this was the same thing, Jared mused as he tried to find a more comfortable position in the cramped space while his head throbbed unhappily.

It was reasonable to want to catch or kill an Alpha intruding on pack grounds, it was the way it had always been. It was just as reasonable to get rid of his dominant followers or simply catch them and bring them over to your own side, but it was practically a sacrilege to even think of harming the submissives. Jared would have understood hurting one's own submissives much easier than the mere idea of hurting another pack's submissive members. It would be like kicking a pregnant woman in the belly, mindless and senseless violence.

What the hell was going on?

The urge to break his silence and just ask the three werewolves was nearly overwhelming, but luckily the car made a turn onto a familiar road before Jared could give in. They were back on the gravel road that lead to the house Darwin had fled from just two days ago, but the car didn't stop at the first small building. Instead they passed it and followed an overgrown maintenance road deeper into the wilderness.

They also passed five or six people walking by the road with firearms-- mostly hunting rifles-- who were obviously watching the woods for uninvited intruders. Jared's heart jumped with fear for Darwin, and for the first time he hoped not to find him following the car.

Did the others hear his heart pumping with fear? They didn't look at him as the car stopped near the almost picturesque doors of a big, classy holiday cabin, but that didn't mean they didn't notice his sudden increase in anxiety.

All four of them went around the car to the rear hatch, and in the background Jared could see one other guy aim his rifle at him. Just to be sure he didn't bolt, he guessed, as the rear hatch was opened and four pairs of hands grabbed him.

They didn't care if he came willingly or not, Jared was pulled out of the car with brutal force, thrown to the ground without a chance to catch himself, and then dragged to the entrance of the cabin.

His feet scraped over the gravel, his knees were cut open, but he didn't make a sound. This was a spa treatment in comparison to the things his family's pack had done to some of their intruders.

The doors were pushed open and a dizzying cloud of werewolf-scented air washed over him, clogging up his senses as they kept dragging him through the tastefully decorated house. It was hard to breathe through the dozens of different scents as they coated the insides of his nose and his throat, but breathing through his mouth only brought a short respite. Dazed he let them drag him along, watching a few unknown faces pass by.

Their tour ended in front of a solid looking door.

"Bring him down and throw him in with his pack mate", Sultry said.

He was dragged down a set of concrete stairs, his legs hitting each and every one of them with a painful thud. Another door at the bottom of the stairs was opened as Jared found his footing and managed to stand up, then he was pushed inside, stumbling into a nearly empty cellar, and into the arms of Harry.

~*Rayne*~

It had been six months since Rayne had joined the Banes pack. He would have left the minute he realized that the local Alpha was a bag of crazy and nothing more, but he had always known he couldn't. There was no place left to go for a wolf like him, so this was it.

He had tried to fit in, kept his head down and his mouth shut, but it had gotten harder and harder every week. It was his curse, or to be exact the curse of his upbringing.

When Rayne had been young, there hadn't been that many packs around. Hunters-- not the normal kind, but the metaphysical kind-- had kept their numbers low without anyone noticing, but modern age had made killing citizens a very hard and dangerous field of work. There were security cameras, the internet, linked databases for everything, intense finger printing for every offense,...

Hunters were a dying breed.

With the rise of packs another 'breed' had started dying. Rogue wolves, werewolves who didn't commit to a pack but instead kept themselves to small family groups, had been hunted and killed or forced into communities for the last decade, even though nobody really wanted them. If you were a rogue wolf you only had two choices: join a pack and be treated like garbage, or run and be killed eventually.

Rayne's parents had chosen road number two. Rayne had chosen road number one after that.

Of course you could always switch packs if you didn't like the way they treated you, but everywhere a rogue went he was treated like a smudge of dirt on a lily-white pack coat. Only the bigger packs even considered taking rogues in, since they were powerful enough to enforce their position and hold sway against any attempt on their pack lands, but since they weren't dependent on one more or less member, they also tended to treat them more carelessly.

The Banes pack was the last pack in northern US Rayne hadn't joined and left yet, so now he was utterly and truly stuck.

There was nowhere else to go, forcing Rayne to try his hardest to keep his Alpha and his fellow dominants happy, even if he didn't like it.

As Rayne watched the guy they had just brought into the pack house getting dragged down the stairs to the cellar, he quietly asked himself why he had risked everything for such a sorry sod. Sooner rather than later Carl would find out that they already had the Alpha, right there in their own cellar just beneath their feet, and somehow he'd know that Rayne had known the whole time and kept quiet. Rayne had seen many Alphas in his wandering years, but none as good in smelling a lie as Carl was. So why the heck had he lied?

Turning away from the cellar door he walked into the meeting room, one hand furiously clawing through his short hair, eyes lowered to the ground as he mentally cursed himself.

He nearly ran face first into the fistfight erupting right in the middle of the room.

Jerking his head out of the way of a flying fist he stumbled backwards and put up his hands for cover, but he needn't have worried. Greta and Dennis, both dominant pack members, were too intent on caving each others faces in to bother trying to get him involved again.

The scenery was unreal.

Rayne stood there, hands ready to block a blow or grab a fist, frozen as he watched Greta, a typically very guarded and noncommital fitness trainer, take out her rage on the wiry and thin, definitely untrained tax accountant that Dennis normally was. While Rayne understood Greta's melt-down, after all she had been one of the group to catch the Alpha-- not the most challenging of all hunts, but definitely up there in the most frustrating moments ever--, he had absolutely no idea how that alone could have provoked Dennis to engage in this all out Fight-Club-style slapfest with her. It simply boggled the mind.

Worse than this display of aggression was the effect it had on everyone in the room. There were seven other dominants dispersed all over the furniture in the room, and everyone watched those two with fixated, intent, heated glares. Nobody had moved to join in yet, but the longer this went on, the more dangerous it would become for everyone.

The worst thing however was that Rayne felt it too. The stinging tug on his veins, the increase of his heartbeat, the mind numbing pins and needles triggered by the thick stink of testosterone, it all beckoned him to join the tussle, taste blood, feel flesh rip beneath his claws, hear a heart beat its last sluggish pulse before quieting forever.

Rayne felt his fingertips starting to itch.

With a deafening roar he jumped forward, slamming into Greta and Dennis, and using his momentum to thrust them into different directions, effectively breaking them apart.

Greta tumbled into another young dominant, and Rayne could actually see the girl twitch with the instinct to pounce on her, but somehow she managed to contain herself.

"Have you both gotten insane?!" Rayne bellowed just when Dennis managed to get back on his feet, eyes still fixated on Greta, who had a harder time extricating herself from the girl and the love seat she had sat in.

"Not another goddamn step, Dennis, or I swear I'll throw you into the cellar with that other guy!"

The yelling seemed to help. The air was still sizzling with the potential for violence, but at least it hadn't escalated. Nine pairs of unhappy eyes locked on to Rayne's face, and for a moment he felt like the proverbial rabbit in front of the pack. One wrong move and they'd use him as their outlet. Not a pretty thought.

Licking his lips Rayne looked from Dennis to Greta, and back again. In a quieter voice he asked, "so, what's gotten into you?", hoping that question alone wasn't enough to re-boil the skirmish.

"He challenged me."

Greta spoke up first, back on her feet, chin held high.

"I walked in here, and he challenged me because of a god damned seat!"

Dennis took an angry step forward, but Rayne gave a sharp whistle to bring his eyes back to himself and away from Greta.

"She stomped in here like the Queen of England, tried to snarl me out of my spot and then she grabbed me. Like a teenager, she just grabbed me and tried to pull me out of her way!", he hissed, knuckles white under the pressure of his balled fists. Rayne could see an artery throb on the top of his bald patch.

"Greta, this is not the time or the place to be led by anger over something else. Get yourself a damn chair out of the kitchen and sit down before you lose control and change."

Rayne could feel Dennis smirk without needing to look over.

"And Dennis, do I look like a parent to you? I'm half your age, at the most! How come you're standing there and looking all proud of yourself when I just had to yell at you like an unruly teenager? Sit your ass back down and try to keep it together, then you can grin like that." For a moment Rayne felt the anger take over again, so he balled his fists until his fingernails bit into his hands. The pain kept him at least a bit more anchored.

"Am I the only sane person here?!"

Greta was a nice woman, ash-blond hair, just turned thirty, and she was used to command hunky guys around when at work in the gym, so no big mystery there as to why she hadn't been afraid of a fight. But Dennis was a tax accountant with a wiry body in his mid-forties, shorter than Rayne and usually very calm and soft-spoken.

This should not have happened, and it wouldn't have happened with submissives present. But there weren't any, and Rayne had waited on the social outskirts long enough to feel entitled to find out why nobody did anything against that.

"You know this isn't you, people, so stop this madness. Let's use all that pent up anger in a productive way and find out where we can recruit some submissives, before you kill each other for good." It wasn't much, but the thought of having submissive pack members to calm the waves would at least lower the level of aggression, Rayne hoped.

This time the angry murmurs stopped completely. Everybody was back to watching Rayne intently, but it was the young girl Greta had fallen onto before that took the initiative this time.

"We aren't supposed to", she said. Her pretty grey eyes had the serious expression of a teenager reciting house rules to a grown-up guest.

"Shh. You'll get yelled at again, Carmen." This from Greta.

Carmen turned her gaze to Greta, frowning. "I'm just explaining what the rules are, how's that a reason to get yelled at?" Again that serious expression.

"Well", another male voice chimed in from next to the windows, "because Rayne is new and we don't know if Carl trusts him yet." Rayne's eyes followed the voice and found Grahams face. He was a car mechanic, twenty-something, but Rayne had never had any direct contact with him before. It was unusual to even see him here.

'If Carl trusts him yet', Graham had said. It was such a peculiar way to word it that Rayne frowned instantly. He hadn't said "we", he had explicitly talked about Carl's level of trust. It wasn't much, but at least Rayne could start to puzzle together a picture.

Carmen didn't seem fazed by the reprimand. She brushed back her ink-black hair with one of those hand flips that somehow only teenage girls could manage, then put up a bored facade. "Well, he's here, isn't he? And he brought two of the guys Carl wants, so I'd say he's got his trust alright."

That broke the dam, and suddenly everyone was talking at the same time, a cacophony of voices that grew louder and louder until Rayne feared his head would explode.

"Shut up!"

Even yelling at the top of his lungs wasn't enough to silence them instantly, but at least they stopped arguing one after another and looked his way once more.

"What aren't you telling me? Why won't we go look for submissives?" Rayne asked more bluntly. His hair started to stand on end with an inchoate feeling of dread.

Suddenly all the eyes focused on a point behind Rayne.

"That's because I told them not to, Rayne."

Carl stepped into the room, smiling charmingly.

~*~

Rayne stumbled back with a surprised expression on his face. The rest of the dominants fell silent and all the calm Rayne had tried to re-establish suddenly came all by itself. It was the presence Carl exuded, he simply commanded respect.

It wouldn't hold forever though.

"So, what's all that ruckus about?" Carl said casually strolling over to the couch, but not sitting down. He stared at the cushions for a few seconds, then he turned around and looked at Rayne.

"Just a little disagreement, it's all good", he answered, lips automatically forming a small smile.

A small nod from Carl, then he sat down next to Dennis and looked around as if to check if anything had been broken.

"Seems you've got it under control now. Just as I said you would." Carl smiled at the pack members like a proud father.

There were a few nods and affirmative grunts from the crowd, and suddenly everyone looked very relieved and pleased, except for Rayne.

"I don't get it."

Carl's eyes snapped back to Rayne, who still stood next to the entrance and didn't really know what to do next, or what to make of this strange situation.

"Well, I brought you into this and here tonight so I can explain 'it' to you. I want you to join our cause after all." Again this hello-well-met-smile was shot into Rayne's direction.

There was a slight shuffle coming from the other dominants. Rayne took a short moment to watch their faces, and most of them were looking at Carl or at Rayne, but two or three were looking somewhere else, their faces guarded and unhappy. Whatever this 'cause' was, not everyone was as convinced as Carl. And not the whole pack was even present.

The Alpha scooted back and forth a bit, finding a comfortable sitting position, and leaned back in what should have looked like a relaxed pose. Then he began to explain, his voice calm but forceful, demanding attention.

"The year my wife died I found out a few hard truths about us and about myself. One of those truths is the fact that our pack is stained by submissives, who weaken and sully us until we'd rather fight against our own ranks than against them or outside forces. We'd kill for the safety of a submissive, but we are the ones who bleed and fight and lose family and friends, while they do nothing at all in the best of times.

-- Don't say anything yet!" Carl interrupted by putting up a hand just as Rayne wanted to object, and he closed his lips again.

After a short pause Carl went on. "We would do anything for them. We give them our hearts on a silver platter, and they just... take it. The only thing they give is calmness and peace, but it's not real. They are like a Venus Flytrap, lulling us into believing we need them so they can slowly digest our souls and bodies. They make us believe that we could never ever exist without them, that we would rather kill each other without them than control ourselves, that we would ultimately cease to exist, like raving beasts without any sense of self."

The mask of calmness had started to slip with every sentence, and by now Carl's fists were balled tightly and his voice was dripping acid and anger.

To Rayne's surprise it was Graham who interrupted the rant.

"I know your wife was like that and I'm sorry, Carl. But she was an exception to the rule, not a standard. I still think we'd self-destruct without submissives, and today was the best example. Had Rayne not intervened, Greta and Dennis would have really hurt or even killed each other, and we were this close from joining in." He held up a hand to show a very small gap between his thumb and forefinger to visualize his words. "A pack can't exist without submissives, it's a fact. We just have to be more careful which ones to let in."

"This is where you're wrong." Carl sounded very smug, which was astonishing. Rayne had expected an explosion, but there the Alpha sat, smiling triumphantly.

"I know for a fact that there's a pack in Canada consisting only of dominant werewolves, and it has existed that way for many, many decades."

There was a sequence of short gasps and sounds of disbelief, but now even Graham shifted and sat more upright.

"Not only have they existed like that for decades, but they're thriving. Do you remember the Chinkope Hills Pack? Their Alpha, the one who killed those hunters and saved the pack from extinction, he's from that pack. Can you imagine the power that Canadian pack must have accumulated if they send away such powerful Alphas? And they did it without the submissives. WE can get there without submissives."

The excitement was now thick in the air, like a cloud of tension pushing against Rayne. It made his skin tingle once more, but it wasn't excitement on his part, it was fear.

He knew the pack Carl had talked about. He also knew why it wouldn't work anywhere else.

And he knew he'd be killed rather than listened to if he said anything, because they were too intent on believing the story Carl had just concocted, and what he knew was even more unbelievable than a pack without submissives.

Rayne tried to clear his face of emotions as the voices around him got louder once more. This was another one of those hair-thin paths he would have to navigate, but not to stay in the Banes pack rather than to survive leaving it.

"I've heard of that pack too. I'm in", he said, trying for grim and earnest because he just couldn't fake the excitement everyone else seemed to feel. He needed to buy time and think up a plan, and lying seemed to be the easiest way.

Carl nodded approvingly, smiled at him and clapped a hand onto his thigh. His ability to sense lies didn't seem to cover moments where he wanted to hear one thing, and one thing only-- Rayne counted on it.

"Perfect. Now we just have to get rid of the last submissives. Giselle and her husband have already decided to move as soon as she's out of the hospital, but Darwin won't ever leave his father behind, even though he's hurting him with his mere existence. It doesn't matter if he's dominant or submissive anymore, he's got to go. I wish George had listened to me when I told him to put the kid down, but be it as it may, we've got the chance to finish it now."

Letting out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Rayne settled against the wall next to the door, crossing his arms and trying for 'attentive but quiet', a facade he had gone with for the last months.

"Somehow Darwin has found a new Alpha that's now intruding on our grounds. I'm pretty sure we'll get that one to leave if we show him what's what, and we've got his pack members to make our point. If he agrees to leave we don't have to kill them, and that'll make it easier to avoid calling attention to ourselves. I don't think Darwin will leave though, and he's broken the rules when he switched sides to the intruder, so we'll probably have to exercise pack rights on him."

Rayne could sense the unease some of the listening dominants felt. Especially Greta and Graham looked unhappy when they realized they'd actually have to kill someone, but Carl had made a good point. An untrue one, but the way he had explained it everyone could see the reasoning behind it.

For a moment Rayne bared his teeth in anxiety. Carl was a dangerous man, even more so now that he could see his brilliance.

Carl seemed to sense the uncertainty in the crowd too, so he sat up and leaned forward, his voice getting more insistent and sympathetic.

"We will all try to make this whole thing as easy and peaceful as possible, there has been enough unfortunate violence and loss in this pack. All the accidents and the robberies are a sign though-- we need to get stronger, and soon! We need to catch Darwin, bring him here or get rid of him on the spot and then find the Alpha. He'll get to choose if he wants to keep his heap of crap pack and leave instantly, or if he wants to fight and ultimately die after we kill his people. Those are the two ways, and I'm praying with you that he'll choose the first one."

This time Rayne had the uncanny impression that Carl was lying his ass off, instead of the other way around. Noone would survive if they caught Darwin, and Carl would make sure that it looked like their choice, not his.

"I need you to find Darwin, and I need to know where his Alpha is. Head out, people, we've got a lot of work to do!"

With those words Carl stood up, and with him the other dominants. They headed out in a single, chattering file, picking up their jackets and boots and rifles, ready for a hunt that didn't look like the prey had any chance to survive.

Rayne didn't follow them, and nobody seemed to notice. As the door closed behind the last one, he pushed off the wall and slowly went to the cellar door.

He had to warn Jared, and this would be the only moment available.