Unwilling - 12. Explosion

~*Darwin*~

Seeing his father after the days he'd been having was the best thing Darwin could imagine. Hugging him was even better; for a while, Darwin didn't want to let go of the old man at all. As grown-up as he had thought himself to be, right now he was happy with just being a son and clinging to someone safe. If only he could have his mate and his best friend back, the world would be alright again.

It hadn't taken him long to assess Margo's moods by the tone of her voice. Margo had a very expressive set of vocal cords and was more than happy to yell through the whole roadhouse, shooing him from one place to another and shouting encouragement at the same time.

When she remarked on the people outside, Darwin could picture her face, matching her suspicious voice. It was Mary's call, however, that sent a jolt of fear through his body.

"No, no, no, no," he breathed as blood from his extremities rushed towards the center of his body, leaving his fingers cold and shivery. "Please, dear god, no." Darwin jogged to one of the windows, carefully peeking through the blinders and swallowing down gunks of saliva as his mouth ran dry.

Three cars were parked haphazardly on the parking lot in front of the entrance. Familiar people were milling around, looking at George's car, the roadhouse and the area around it, probably checking for escape routes and back exits. Carl was standing behind one of the dark blue SUVs, typing away on his mobile phone, but his attention definitely lay on the roadhouse. Even a blind man could see the preparations for a frontal attack the Banes Pack was making, but Darwin still turned to Margo.

"Those people are going to attack you," he said, hating how his voice trembled. "That's my old pack, our old pack, the one we've been running from."

Another shiver ran through the crowd of slightly hungover werewolves, but none of them got up. The jukebox bleated its last notes and fell silent. Margo cocked her head to one side.

"Why would they attack us? This is our territory and they're far away from home, what use could they possibly have for a piece of crap heap of houses in the middle of nowhere?" She paused, frowned and added, "And don't get me wrong, kiddo, you're cute as a button, but you're just one submissive. That's not enough reason to drive halfway through the country and start a brawl with another pack."

"This isn't about a runaway submissive, Margo. They are here to kill me and after they've done that, they will go up to the cabins and kill my mate and my pack." A small drop of sweat lazily rolled down Darwin's temple, itching and tickling on its way down. He swiped it away with numb fingers and palmed his forehead, trying to think through his panic. "That man out there with the mobile in his paw is Carl. He's the Alpha of the Banes Pack and he already tried to kill me twice. If he finds me here, he'll try a third time and this time I won't be getting up afterward."

One of the regulars huffed and shook his head. "You're talking shit, pup. It's impossible to kill a submissive on purpose."

"I'd love to try and prove it to you, but then I'd be, you know, dead," Darwin bit out. Funny, it was so much easier to get snarky with people when he was afraid for his life. All the agitation made his spine tingle with the first warnings of change; he took a deep breath, tottering back as he concentrated on breathing, and closed his eyes.

"My son is telling the truth." George's voice rang out from next to the bar. "That man out there was my best friend, but he's not right in the head anymore. Last night, he sent three of his men to kill me in my own home, just because I had a conversation with Darwin. And we don't think that his murder attempts on Darwin are a first. He's done it before, multiple times, I'm sure of it. We're sure of it. Our pack has not one submissive left, not one! If it weren't for that, if Carl hadn't taken away everyone who kept his people sane, he'd be alone out there. But those people aren't sane anymore. You can't negotiate with them."

Margo was watching the discussion with tense calmness, looking out the windows ever so often as not to lose sight of the brewing trouble. "We can at least try," she said without inflection, shrugged and turned towards the doors. Her moving had the whole room rustle, swish and click as a dozen guns and rifles found their way out of pockets, holsters, and off the floor. A few of the men got up and snuck towards the windows, those at the bar just turned around, but each of them was armed.

Mary had enough presence of mind to grab George's wheelchair and jostle him towards the stairs and the back room, out of the death zone and out of sight. A few of the patrons also went back there, throwing worried glances back to their pack mates as they sought shelter where bullets wouldn't stray too easily. Darwin followed in a quick trot, fighting against the deep, dragging pain in his back. The need to change was still there, teetering on the edge like a dry orgasm, but he didn't try to suppress it altogether, just enough to hold it off for now. If for some reason a fight broke out and Carl actually made his way inside, Darwin would not sit there and take it, oh no. He would change, and dominance be damned, he would die trying to kill Carl right back.

Margo walked to the door in all her average, beautiful, over-painted glory, opened it and stepped outside, arms akimbo. Her voice was a declaration of war, a tumbleweed in a frontier town, echoing through the guest room as she yelled: "So, what the fuck are you doing in my territory? Did you at least bring cake?"

Darwin, Mary and George froze, looking at each other wide-eyed. George mouthed 'Alpha?' at Darwin, who could only shrug. He hadn't known, either.

Of course, Carl reacted just like Darwin expected. "Give us the boy and we'll spare you," he yelled in return.

A few subdued snickers wafted through the roadhouse at that, but Margo didn't laugh. "What'cha want with the boy?" she asked dryly, not bothering to sound surprised. She actually sounded interested, and that made Darwin nervous. She had hidden her being the local Alpha, so what else was she hiding? Had he tried too hard to win her over, said too much?

"None of your business! Send him out, now, or we'll come in and get him," Carl snarled. He sounded rather pleased with himself, probably because of the fifteen werewolves he had brought with him.

Darwin looked around. In hand-to-hand combat, there would definitely be a lot of casualties. Carl's wolves were unhinged, itching for a fight and they outnumbered Margo's pack. If it came to a brawl, they wouldn't stop until they killed their opponents, or died themselves.

Luckily, there would be no hand-to-hand combat, there would be a gunfight. It was highly irregular for a pack to go into a conflict armed with guns, but this was not a territorial dispute or a challenge, this was an assault. Shooting the invading werewolves was a-okay with common pack law. The police would disagree, but that was a problem for another time.

Margo still stood in the entrance, but a few of her fingers twitched, pointing to those inside the roadhouse. It had to be some kind of code, because a few of the men switched positions and one of them even elbowed his way past the cowering submissives around Darwin, Mary and George to reach the back door.

"You are trespassing on my property and I'm asking you to leave. You're not welcome here," she said in a tone of voice that suggested she herself didn't believe they would listen.

Then the world sped up past the point Darwin could follow. A bark from outside marked Carl's command to charge, Mary screamed and the back door and front windows shattered as warm bodies barreled through them.

A shuddering breath later, a half dozen of guns and rifles awoke to life and screamed death against the invaders.

A still shrieking Mary jumped onto George, shielding him with her body and opening a path for panicked submissives to flee the brawl at the back door behind them. A moment later, one of Margo's enforcers who had taken the guard post at the back door threw a burly man towards the front and guest room, grazing Darwin and catapulting him out into the madness in front of the bar.

Gasping with pain from the impact, Darwin tumbled through a hail of bullets, broken furniture and bodies. He came to a halt beneath a table and jerked back as a bullet-riddled girl fell back and crashed through it, landing at the almost exact spot Darwin had occupied a moment before. Her dead eyes stared right at Darwin, moved only by the last twitches her body made as it fought for futile breaths and heartbeats that wouldn't happen again.

The noise was unbearable, loud enough to deafen him as he squeezed himself beneath a bench bolted to the wall. The room stank of gunpowder and blood, hot metal and broken wood, nose-blinding him and filling the air with foggy smoke.

The fight lasted maybe two or three minutes, but it felt like an eternity. The only sign that Margo's pack was winning came with a sudden rush of gun-wielding truckers towards the front door, followed by a panicked call from the outside as Carl and the survivors turned heel to run.

From one pained gasp to the next, Darwin was suddenly alone in the guest area. His ears still rang, his brain played an echo of the gunshots and screams to dim the quiet, and the air was still thick with smoke and dust, but the fight had moved outside.

Darwin carefully extracted himself from beneath the bench, doing his best to avoid the dead girl blocking his path as he crawled out from under the table, keeping low to the ground and pushing a hand against his hurting ribs to ease his breathing. Nine other dead bodies lay strewn in the roadhouse, but except for the enforcer at the back door- and the remaining submissives, who were crouching huddled beneath the stairs, no live body had stayed inside.

Mary and George were where they had been. As soon as Darwin's and George's eyes met, George seemed to calm down enough to let the nurse fuss over him.

Darwin careened back and grabbed a hold of another table to keep himself upright as his thoughts raced. Where was Margo? More importantly, where was Carl? As far as Darwin could see, Carl wasn't one of the dead strewn around the roadhouse, but that didn't mean anything. Or did it? If Carl was still alive, Darwin had to know. If he was dead, all the better, but if not, he would have to make sure that crazy bastard didn't keep on breathing.

Another wave of urgency rushed through his body, intensifying the panic in his chest. This one felt different, though, alien and still so familiar. Gasping for breath, Darwin crouched next to one of the dead men and grabbed his gun, almost keeling over as he jumped back up. Was this what shock felt like? It didn't matter. Nothing mattered, except for making sure Carl was dead and Jared alive.

As soon as Darwin found his footing, he started running, deaf to his father's calls, obeying to the itching pain in his back.

 

~*Carl*~

How could things have gone so wrong? His plan had been perfect, thought through to the smallest move, carefully set in scene and executed. His pack had worked like a well-oiled machine, cogwheels ticking into each other with heartrending precision, a ballet of deadly intent,...

Now they were dead. Put down like a pack of rabid dogs, and with guns of all things. Guns!

"Shameful," Carl huffed through clenched teeth, laboriously fighting his way through trees, underbrush and up the steep incline saturated with Darwin's scent. The decision to retreat had been a hard, painful one, but Carl wasn't ready to give up altogether, yet. A lost battle didn't mean the war was lost, too. He still had Carmen and Graham. He still had a scent trail he could follow directly to that damned Alpha. Killing him had to break Darwin's spirit and Carl was positive that he'd be able to accomplish at least that.

The thought warmed him, made him grin against the freezing cold air brushing against his teeth. Carmen's bushy, gray tail wagged and waved through the trees farther up the hill, pointing the way like a furry flag. Graham was a bit behind him, rasping through the pain of his stomach wound, but keeping up anyway. How those two had survived the hail of bullets, he couldn't fathom. A stroke of luck, maybe? A sign from god? Or had they ducked out of the fight, only to find themselves confronted with his Alpha voice?

It didn't matter now. Whatever the reason, Carl would make sure they did their duty.

For Graham, his duty would probably be the last thing he ever did. Carl could smell blood and the sour stench of stomach acid even from his position, and Graham fell farther and farther behind with each step. Granted, the incline was brutal for the breakneck speed he climbed it with, but Graham was hurt, really hurt. Another victim of the ungodly abyss that was Darwin, another soul Carl would have to take revenge for. Carmen, on the other hand, was a different problem. She was blood-related to that nurse of George's, which made her a thorn in Carl's side. Right now, it was easy to trust her tracking skills, since he had used his Alpha voice to make both of them obey. But even that only worked when his orders didn't totally oppose a wolf's wishes. Carmen definitely wanted to find Darwin, but hurting him... No. Carl would have to do that himself.

After he killed that Jared guy.

The thought made him shiver. He had to stop and lean against a tree to keep himself from stumbling with weak-kneed excitement, which gave Graham a chance to catch up. Carl threw a scrutinizing glance at Graham's pasty, pale face and the tightness around his lips, trying to decide if maybe a mercy kill was in order, then shook his head and turned back towards where Carmen had vanished. "Not far now," he huffed, nodded at Graham and took off again. At least I hope so, for his sake.

The trees around them got taller, the bushes sparser, and the temperature colder, the higher up Carmen led them. A few remnants of frost clung to pits in the ground and tree bark, glittering in the sparse sunlight of the beginning dusk. Scent marks of deer, foxes, elks and something cat-related drifted through the biting cold air. This could have been such a nice, calming place, Carl thought, were it not for those traitorous wolves.

Carmen suddenly stopped, whined and took three steps back, dropping down to hide against the incline as she threw careful glimpses over the last heap of earth separating her from what looked like the end of this dreaded hill. Carl came to a stop a few feet behind her, dropping to all fours and crawling to her side with a low growl.

The cabin didn't look like much, but it probably had a great view over the valley beneath. It was small, lit and abuzz with activity. Carl recognized less than half of the scents coating the perimeter, but Darwin's scent intermingling with Rayne's was almost too much to keep his composure.

"That fucking traitor," he hissed, slid back and turned around, only to find Graham gone. Not a trace to be found, not even the sour scent of blood. Carl ground his teeth, snarling at the unfairness of the world, then crawled back into position next to Carmen. "I guess that leaves us two," he sneered, snatching glances at both the door, the windows and the empty parking lot in front of the cabin.

"Let's end this, once and for all."

 

 

~*Darla*~

So much rage. It saturated every pore in Darla's body, stuck to her veins and to her mind like syrup, ready to jump at her, ready to break through that last thin thread of self-control at the slightest provocation. That new, alien, equally enraged second being inside her reeled from her dreams of killing Darwin, but it did understand her anger at this new existence, recognized her right to be angry at the invisible cage she was stuck in.

On an intellectual level, Darla understood well enough what had happened to her, why she was where she was, and why it was necessary to obey to Jared's rules, to listen to Rayne's advice and guidance. On a more animalistic level, nothing about their situation felt right. Sure, both Rayne and Jared tried to help her, talking her through these bouts of uncontrollable bloodlust. Darwin left her alone as often as possible, and even Harry just smiled and backed away when she barked at him, but all of that just made her angrier and angrier.

Darla had never been a violent person. Assertive and blunt, sure, but never violent, never this angry. She had no idea how to deal with this, herself in this state, and nothing Rayne suggested seemed to help. The only vent keeping her from erupting and attacking Darwin were the woods and her extended patrols. She could shift, scratch that itch at the back of her mind, drown in the scents and run, run, run until her lungs burned and her joints ached.

This night, Darla didn't run or shift. She cowered in the bushes seaming the lot around their cabin, smeared with mud and fox poop, trying not to gag and keeping an eye on the perimeter with the utter knowledge that someone would attack them, sooner or later. The possibility of a fight was motivation enough to throttle her rage down to a low, steady simmer, but the waiting blew. She didn't give much thought to the after, just as she didn't worry about how she'd get the utter stink of the fox droppings out of her hair when the fight was over, mostly because she didn't like the images her mind conjured.

Mom and dad, flying in to collect my body, that utterly broken look on dad's face, worse than when he found my brother's corpse. Mom would be all alone, would have to organize everything herself, carry all the weight. Dad would probably try to kill himself again, this time for good,--

Her fist hit the tree with a crunching smack. Blood erupted out of the lacerations on her knuckles, spilling over the rough bark. The pain was sharp and deep, raking through her nervous system as her partially cracked bones started to knit themselves, and utterly freeing. Growling low, Darla grabbed a fistful of dirt and leaves, rubbing the mixture over the blood to cover the scent. She so needed something to kill, preferably soon.

Dead leaves rustled, followed by voices and the panting of a canine. Darla ducked and stuck her bloody hand into the dirt, squinting towards the noises. A wolf, a fat old man and a not so fat, younger man stumbled by, huffing and puffing with the strain of the steep incline and not showing a care in the world. The younger guy fell back, smelling of blood and pain as he futilely tried to keep up with the other two.

Darla tensed and smiled an ugly smile. Three were too many, even two would have been a formidable enemy, but the wounded man presented her with a way around their superiority in numbers; picking them off one by one not only gave her the upper hand-- a necessary precaution if she wanted to keep breathing--, it would also drag out the fighting. A perfect target for her rage.

The heavy steps and rustling of the others veered away until only the hurt one was left stumbling after them, slower and slower, groaning and gasping for breath his lungs just wouldn't hold. He would have been halfway through the healing by now if he'd just laid down and preserved his energy, but whatever force was riding those three, it had him in its grips even in his dying moments. Darla ducked, tensed, and pounced.

It was so easy-- too easy. There was no fight left in the man, no challenge as she covered his mouth and wrapped her other arm around his chest to drag him into the underbrush. He waved his arms and scratched at her hands, but his movements were sluggish, his skin pale and pasty from the blood loss. He was such a sad sight, Darla let him go as soon as they were far enough away from his friends. The thought of killing a helpless man tasted like ash on her tongue. But maybe, if he struggled, who knew?

That spark of hope was enough. Darla prowled around her price, growling through an all too human throat, circling the gasping wreck of a man. If he'd just jump up and do something, run, attack her, anything, she would remember the taste of murder and then everything would be alright again. He didn't. The way he clutched his stomach, lying there, bleeding and groaning, hinted to the kind of exhaustion even a werewolf didn't just recuperate from with a few moments of peace. If she hit him, he'd probably just flip over and huff out his last breath. Fuck. Hitting trees was more fun than this. What am I supposed to do now? If I leave him there, he'll come after me as soon as his lungs heal, but if I stay here until then, those others will reach the cabin and do god knows what to Rayne and Harry.

This sucked. "Fuck!" she yelled, kicking a rock the size of a baseball downhill and swearing under her breath. Okay, so yelling wasn't the best of ideas in her situation, but who cared! Maybe those two would hear her and come here? At least then the others would be safe and she'd finally get her fight.

"You're not one of the roadhouse people, are you?"

Darla whirled around and balled her fists. Judging by his breathy voice, her victim hadn't hurt his lungs after all, and that meant there was hope for a real fight after all. He was still lying there, still clutching his bloody belly, but he had turned his face towards her, watching her with a pale, bloodless stare. Frowning, Darla crept closer. "No. I'm with Jared and Rayne," she replied, cocking her head. "What roadhouse people?"

"The local pack. My Alpha made us attack them when he found Darwin's scent there." He paused, laughed, and raised his head to look at his destroyed belly. "Wasn't the best of his ideas if you ask me."

"And still you come here. You must have one hell of a grudge against Darwin to risk your life like this," she sneered, tilting her chin towards the carnage that was his body. Not that Darla didn't believe that someone might hate Darwin enough to come after him, but the way the Banes pack acted was just strange. From what Darla had heard about Darwin's old Alpha, crazy was right up his alley, but why anyone would follow him down the rabbit hole, she couldn't fathom.

The man let his head sag back and sighed. "He used his Alpha voice," he said. "We didn't have a choice, or I wouldn't have come, and not because I'm hurt. Darwin's dad saved my life a few days ago, I really don't want to repay him like this."

"What's 'Alpha voice'?"

He snapped his head to the side and threw Darla a look. "You don't know?"

"Would I ask if I knew?"

"Are you this new to the whole pelt thing?"

Darla took a threatening step closer, fists at her side. "Either tell me or shut up, but if you mock me again, I will split you open like an overripe grape." The sudden rush of rage left a coppery taste on her tongue as it crawled through her body, but at the same time, she felt more in control. Powerful. Grounded.

The man smiled and writhed, his face twitching as his movements renewed the pain. "We don't have enough time for me to give you a lesson in pack dynamics, but let's just say an Alpha is more than just a chosen leader. They can make you do things you don't want to do, that's what they're made for."

Darla allowed herself a look towards the cabin, grinding her teeth at the sudden worry she felt. "Does it work on everyone?"

"Yes and no. If you don't have an Alpha, nothing will protect you from it. If you're with your Alpha, it depends on their relative strength. A weak Alpha won't be able to protect you, but a strong one might."

A thread of icy fear worked its way up Darla's back, broke through her rage and took hold of her racing heart. "And what if you have an Alpha, but he's somewhere else?" she asked, licking her lips with a too dry tongue.

The man coughed a dry laugh. "Then you'd better hope you can surprise Carl, because he won't give you a second chance if you fail to overpower him at first try."

Darla swiveled and ran, ignoring his next shout, muscles straining as she climbed the steep hill with big leaps, dodging branches and jumping over ditches until she spilled into the artificial clearing. The cold night air stung in her lungs like it hadn't before, fueled by her panic. She barreled toward the house, almost somersaulting as the wolf jumped her out of nowhere and dug its teeth into her leg. It snarled and shook her leg until even shock couldn't dampen the pain anymore and Darla screamed. But with the pain the rage came back, more powerful than before, and the hurt prey noises morphed into a growl and finally another- this time angry- scream.

She kicked at the wolf's muzzle, grinding her heel into the splintering eye socket her foot connected with, and the beast yelped and let go, shaking its head and stumbling to the side. There was no time to change now, but that didn't matter. She had fists and legs and enough anger to make it work anyway. Instead of jumping it, she slithered closer, putting her weight on the unhurt leg as she swung and kicked the wolf's side, catapulting it towards the edge of the clearing with enough force to send it sprawling and crying into the bushes and out of sight. The impact drove daggers of pain through her torn flesh and muscles, drawing another harsh moan out of her, but there was no time to tend to her wounds. No time for anything else but hobbling towards the cabin and the increasingly worrisome sounds of wood breaking and glass shattering inside.

 

#

The cabin was trashed, but at least it hadn't caught fire-- yet. Someone had upended the table and the couch, smashed the chairs and thrown them through the front windows where they had gotten stuck like pieces of modern art. The bedroom doors were nothing but smithereens dangling from torn hinges. Darla spilled into the chaos like a rabid dog, charging through the carnage with more momentum than balance and tried to get her bearings more or less on the fly. The sounds of breaking glass and ripping cloth came from Jared's bedroom, intermingled with shouts and the meaty cracks of fists on flesh. Darla all but jumped into the cramped room, only to be sent flying when Rayne was thrown against her. Something pierced Darla's side as Rayne's weight rode her into the splintered furniture, but the dull, deep pain was quickly forgotten when she saw movement in the bedroom.

The old man from the woods prowled out, licking his split lip with a sneer and not looking all that human anymore. His eyes only grazed their heap of limbs and not even Darla's struggle to move the bloodied body of her pack mate off her seemed to capture his attention as he stalked over to the bathroom door and listened. His lips contorted into an ugly sneer. "I can hear you in there, little wolf! Come out before I come in," he growled through less-than-human teeth and dragged his claws across the wood.

Harry whimpered behind the door. Rayne twitched at the hollow sound, groaned wetly and tried to get up, but the crunching sounds coming from his ribs told Darla enough. He wouldn't get up any time soon, maybe never again if she didn't do something right now. "Sorry," she hissed, then shoved Rayne to one side, using what little progress he had made to free herself. A piece of splintered wood was sticking out from her side, embedded deep enough to rake at her core muscles and make her stumble before she found her footing. It wasn't enough to stop her, though. The old man, Alpha, whatever he was, still stood by the bathroom door, jiggling the handle and grinning broader and broader at the sounds of panic from inside. That sick fuck!

At the renewed surge of adrenaline, the pain in Darla's side subsided enough to bring her ever-simmering rage back to the surface. She charged again, snarling through the utter joy of finally having found a target she could kill, no regret or restraint necessary. Her fingers found purchase in the cloth of Carl's shirt and she twisted, pulled and threw him over her shoulder and towards the door. Something popped inside her as the weight of his body rolled over her and suddenly the pain was back, harsher and sharper and breathtaking in its force. It made her freeze, gasp, leave the otherwise flawless move incomplete. What should have ended with ducking and an upward push to give him momentum, stopped with her head in the path of danger. Carl's claws caught her face as he flew, splitting it open and partially blinding her as blood flooded her right eye.

As Darla sagged to her knees, leaning her back against the bathroom door to keep herself from falling face down, she caught one last glimpse at the old fart as he tumbled through the door and outside. She closed her eyes, twitching around the waves and waves of searing pain that wracked her body, and smiled. He'd be back. He'd finish Rayne, then her, then Harry, but it didn't matter. At least she had fought, hadn't rolled over and died.

The rage was gone, leaving only serene exhaustion.

 

~*Jared*~

"You have to understand my position here, Jared. You know I'm willing to help, you know I've already done a lot to support you with your problem, but there's a difference between teaching you how to use your powers, and using my powers for you. I can't do that."

Jared bit down a rude retort and took a deep breath. Sure, it had been risky to drive all the way to Chinkope and ask Hector for help, and yes, he hadn't thought he would get an army of well-trained Alphas to come rescue his pack, but facing the fact was angering and disheartening at the same time. In all their training sessions, he had never come this close to actually losing his temper with Hector. Here he was, arguing with his teacher about semantics and details, not knowing if he even had a pack left to rescue. What if Carl had already reached the cabin? Was Darwin still alive? Was his family dying right now, screaming for him while he spent precious minutes with a man who had already told him no?

Jared clenched his fists, growling softly as he fought against the tingling in his eyes, against the change tugging at him. "If you're not going to help, what the fuck am I supposed to do, huh?" he hissed, holding on to his temper with the last shreds of self-preservation.

For the first time, Hector didn't react to Jared's growl. He did cock his head and frown, but what would have ended with a fight for dominance on any other day didn't do so much as elicit a huff from the smaller man. "I know you don't feel like you're ready to handle these things, Jared, and maybe you really aren't," he finally said. "But this isn't a question of winning or losing. It doesn't matter if you're ready and able to win every fight down the line. You just have to decide if you want to fight this fight, or run from it, tuck tail and hide, leave your people to fend for themselves. You wouldn't be the first Alpha to break under the responsibility, and you wouldn't be the last. These things happen."

The need to protest and deny, to bristle at the idea of running away came, tugged at Jared's tongue and left again. Was he ready to die? More importantly, was he ready to die, even if it meant leaving behind Darwin to fend for himself? The possibility towered over him like a pale, clawed hand, ready to crush his heart and grind his being into nothingness. His car was outside, the tank was full, the threatening border a few miles away. If he ran, he was sure to escape unscathed. Nobody would know. The only people who might care would be dead, if they were still alive at all. Could he bear rushing home to find their corpses? Or worse, to get there just a second too late, just in time to watch Darwin gasp his last breath? His heart lurched at the idea.

Jared turned his straying eyes back to Hector, ignoring the numb feel of his paling face. "I'm too young to die," he husked, then clenched his fists again. "But I'm not leaving them behind. Which means I'd better be ready to win, with or without you."

Time lurched and sped up, slapping him with the sudden urge to run, sprint, hurry like he'd never hurried before, and Jared obeyed, haunted by Hector's call. "Instinct, Jared! Use it!"

 

#

Please let me be on time. Please let me be on time. Please...

Jared tore through the twisting roads like a madman. His heart was pounding painfully hard against his ribs, begging him to go faster, faster, but he couldn't. Already the bulky car swayed and reeled through the turns like a cutter in distress, blurring the trees zipping by in the near-blackness of night. He was almost there, almost far enough up the hill to see the cabin, but that voice in his head still wouldn't shut up.

Such a small change in attitude, so many revelations. Just hours ago, Jared had felt stressed and overburdened with the responsibility of safekeeping the members of his pack, the pressure to become a better Alpha, to reach some convoluted goal he hadn't really believed in. That old Jared would have frowned at him now. Maybe even laughed. The new Jared felt more like crying with frustration and fear.

Besides the harsh purr of the engine, the cabin was silent, too silent for the spiraling thoughts in Jared's head, or for the thump of his heart, the twitching in his fingers, the shudders in his flanks. The scent of new car, a mixture of untouched leather and plastic, burned in his nose as if taunting him. It was wrong, too clean, too innocuous, like he was supposed to preemptively smell the carnage he feared coming home to. Something was happening, something bad, and without him there to stop it, people would die. The knowledge bit his neck and drove his foot harder against the pedal.

Tires screeched as he took the last few switchback curves, spewing pebbles as the big car skidded across the two parking spaces in front of their cabin and finally ground to a halt. Jared jumped out of the car and ran towards the open door, hissing at the crashes and screams coming from the living room. He threw the already gaping door open, ready to storm inside, when a body flew through the opening, wiping him off his feet and throwing him backward. Groaning with pain, Jared stumbled to the side, grabbing the door frame to keep himself from following the man-turned-projectile down the stairs and into the gravel below.

The stranger tumbled down the few steps and out of reach, but the slipstream accompanying him brought the scent of blood. Familiar blood, pack. Rayne. Darla.

Rage bloomed inside his chest, blossomed and became a monster of its own.

My pack.

The scent of pine resin and decomposing needles became overpowering as the twilight around him grew lighter, more contrasted. The banister splintered beneath Jared's claws, complementing those wild mountain scents with that unique note of dry, broken wood and bent metal. The cold from before faded away beneath the shiver of bloodlust accompanying the partial change.

Their blood on his clothes.

A more civilized part of Jared's brain recognized the leathery old man down on the gravel, knew that this was Carl, that Carl was dangerous, an Alpha, the person he had been worrying over for weeks. Another, wilder part didn't give a shit about who or what that creature was, as long as it could bleed and die. Jared ripped his claws out of the broken banister, snarling through his elongated muzzle. Cloth ripped with a light, whining sound, mixing perfectly with the more guttural sounds of the changing werewolf.

Carl shuffled through churned gravel, finding his footing far too quick for a man of his build and height, growling through the wet, sharp sounds of breaking bones. His eyes blazed yellow, catching and breaking what little light the cabin fixtures threw through the windows. He smiled through bared teeth, lips quivering as the flesh surrounding them changed before Jared's eyes, a wide, murderous grin dripping with blood that was not his own. "Oh, I've waited so long for this moment," Carl growled with a voice that wasn't human anymore, but still carried obscene glee.

He obviously thought he'd win this fight, even though Jared was rested, uninjured and younger. Something about Carl's grin, the way he eyed Jared like an insect, made him madder than the scent of pack blood on Carl's clothing, mad enough to throw caution in the wind. He charged, propelled himself off the stairs and barreled into Carl while his face was still in that half-finished, horrifying stage between shapes. The impact sent dull shockwaves through his bones, rattling his brain and stunning him just enough to make him slow as Carl twisted through the fall and slammed him into the gravel hard enough to break his skin and bury a handful of pebbles in his flesh. Then the older Alpha was off, skittering back like an evil, leathery crab as Jared's claws ripped through thin air where Carl had just been.

Groaning, Jared staggered back on his feet. Hector would have cuffed him over the head for this, for charging blindly, for treating this like a bar fight, for underestimating another Alpha simply because he was old. If this fight kept going like this, Hector wouldn't get the chance to cuff him ever again. He couldn't let that happen.

"What's wrong, boy? Has Darwin's influence already castrated you? Are you afraid?" Carl hissed, still grinning that ungodly, bloody grin, still carefully treading backward and away from the cabin, taunting him to follow. "That's what he tried to do to my pack, him and the others. They are a plague, those submissives, and you're infected. Sick, that's what you are. Sick in the head!" Carl twisted one of the mirrors off Jared's car and threw it at him, hitting him square across the face and staggering him again. Too slow, Jared. Move it!

This time, Jared did move. He raced forward, prepared for the punch Carl tried to land against his chest and dodging it with the ease Hector had pummeled into him through their training. He also didn't wait to finish his flourish, but brought his elbow against Carl's face as quickly as he could, tumbling out of reach as soon as he heard the crack of a breaking nose.

Carl stumbled and moved back, spitting a glob of blood as he circled around Jared's car. This wasn't right. Carl was supposed to fight, not flee, but Jared's battle-heated mind had a hard time concentrating on strategy. He followed, tensing his arms in anticipation of an attack. A few pebbles dropped out of the abrasions on his arms, but he suspected he'd still be in a world of pain later. If there was a later.

No, if he was to have the ghost of a chance of winning, he had to get Carl to attack, to give up his guarded stance. To stop him from assessing Jared's strengths and weaknesses. To get him mad enough to throw technique into the wind and give in to rage.

"Darwin told me you were a crazy fuck, but he forgot to mention you're a spineless ninny! What's with all the running away, afraid you'll lose?" he taunted, keeping up with Carl's shuffling backsteps and pressuring him through speed. Not enough speed to make Carl stop and face him, but enough to keep him backing up, walking backwards, retreating. Carl's grin was already wavering, broken by the need to look back ever so often as they reached the edge of the lawn surrounding the parking area and access road.

Unfortunately, the taunting didn't work. Jared bared his teeth. This would need a low blow, something so evil that even Carl couldn't give it a pass. Darwin would have slapped him for this, but it had to be done.

"Doesn't matter, we all know you're weak. No Alpha worth his salt would have let himself be taken for a ride by a submissive. For years, Carl! I mean, how does a thing like that even happen? Even I knew that Darwin was a submissive within ten minutes of meeting him. And to think, here you were, trying so, so hard and still failing so miserably, no wonder your wife left--"

That did it. Carl stormed forward, screaming inhumanly and clawing at him like a madman. Jared tried to punch him, to derail him with sheer force, but it didn't work. His forehead met Jared's face with a loud crack and both of them fell, spouting blood as they grappled for the upper hand. Dust filled the air as they rolled back onto the access road and suddenly Jared found himself on top of a struggling, coughing Carl. He instinctively grabbed on and his claws found purchase, burrowing into Carl's ribs with a wet sound. The flesh between his fingers twitched and shivered, tightening around his fingertips and effectively trapping his hand as Carl arched up and swiped Jared's throat with his own claws, rending open his flesh and spraying the ground with blood.

The pain was immediate but short, dampened to a dull throb by adrenaline. Gasping, Jared threw himself backwards, ripping out his claws and a few clumps of Carl's flesh in the process. A sharp gasp for air proved that Carl had missed the most vital parts on his neck, but whatever relief Jared felt was wiped away as Carl tore after him, all but crawling onto him as he again targeted his throat, grasping and grabbing and cutting his chest to ribbons in the process. Jared grabbed the next best part of Carl, kicked up his knee and flipped them, coughing up a glob of blood as he struggled against the bulky man.

They rolled through the dirt, both clawing at each other as they painted the gravel red, but whatever prowess Jared had thought himself to have, Carl still beat him. When they came to a stop, Jared landed on his back with Carl's claws around his neck, gargling and gasping as those fingers tightened. Needle-sharp claws slowly bore into his skin, digging deeper and deeper as he pushed against Carl's arms, trying to reach his face, trying to get to his eyes, anything to break free. Gray spots danced through his vision as Carl broke through his trachea with a wet, popping, oddly hollow cracking noise.

Jared's claws scratched across stubble and Carl twitched a little. His chin. Blood sprayed out of Jared's neck and everything went dark, his fingers cold, his chest heavy and hot. Jared knew he was dying, right here, right now. But dying like this was a last act of vilification that Carl would carry with him for the rest of his dishonorable existence. Just a little bit higher. You can do it. Do it for Rayne, Darla. He stopped pushing against Carl's arms, squealing as the older man's claws all but squashed his throat and punctured his neck veins and throat. It didn't matter, not anymore. Jared twisted his shoulders, reached forward and punched his spread claws into whatever part of Carl's face he could find.

His claws met resistance, then punched through it, and suddenly the weight from his chest disappeared. Strange, wailing, gurgling screams filled the night, then loud bangs tore through the darkness and the screaming stopped.

Then nothing.

 

 

~*Darwin*~

A dream. It had to be a dream.

The stench of blood and entrails overpowered the biting sting of gunpowder, but the sulfuric smell stuck to him even after he had dropped the gun to grab Jared's neck instead. Blood was pouring out of it, the only sign that he even had a neck left to bleed out of. He tried to keep the blood in, to somehow will the flow to stop with simple pressure. Darwin knew that it was useless with wounds like this, that either Jared was strong enough to heal what had been so utterly shredded, or not, but it didn't matter. He couldn't sit idly by. He had never been able to watch when he could help.

"Please don't die. Please don't," he whispered to the gasping, twitching leftovers of the man he loved. The pain in his chest was back, but different than before. It didn't feel like an impending shift, nothing like that panic he had felt back in Banes or the roadhouse. It was pain, too much pain to scream, too much to cry or call for help. Nobody could fix this. Nobody but Jared.

People ran and shouted around them, Margo's pack probably, doing what they could. Harry yelled inside the cabin and the chugging sounds of cars pulling into the parking area filled the background with white noise. Jared gasped and gurgled, fighting for another breath as his body twisted and twitched. His skin shivered and boiled, then quieted down again.

"He is trying to shift, that's good," a faceless voice said. Darwin moved his index finger to cover a hole spewing hot, sticky blood over the back of his hand. Someone tugged at his shoulder, but Darwin ignored it. Whatever they wanted, it would have to wait.

More voices, more tugging. The blood started to dry, sticking his hands to Jared's gored neck and Darwin frowned indecisively. What if him sticking fingers into Jared's body was slowing down the healing process? But could he let go? Would Jared's body heal fast enough to close the gashes and holes before he bled out?

Arms twisted around his chest and shoulders, putting him in a headlock and ripping his hands away from Jared's neck as he was dragged backwards, screaming and kicking. More hands appeared, catching and restraining his legs as he was pushed to the ground. Something thin and tight was slipped around his wrists and ankles, tightened to the point of pain. A solid, warm weight settled on his back, but still Darwin used breath to scream. "Nonononono! You're killing him!"

"It's useless, he's gone feral," someone shouted, then a needle pierced Darwin's arm and warmth flooded his body, burning against his eye sockets and finally wiping away everything.

2014 Hannah L. Corrie; All Rights Reserved.