Inevitable Conclusions

Chapter-Five

Chapter-Five

There is blood in the air.

The scent is sharp, distinct, yet unfamiliar in the best way. He can sense something yearning towards the smell, all the while another part is awake in distress, but in unison it’s a calling, an attraction that stretches into his being with flashes of soft skin and even softer lips, lack of fangs but the heat of a soaring fire inside, and it pulls him out of wave after wave of the raging headache he was currently undergoing.

For an Alpha Prince Werewolf, Augustus didn’t paint a valiant picture of endurance at the moment.

He opens his eyes not to the familiar scent and skin he was hoping for, but rather inquisitive eyes and unintelligibly tiny fingers hovering over his forehead.

Augustus flashes his eyes red, proving that he wasn’t depraved of all his senses after all.

The tiny creature before him falls of his bedside in mere seconds, squeals loudly before sprinting away to hide in the shadow of the larger version of the creature.

“Josephine” his voice sounds more or less the same ignoring the slight hoarseness in his throat

“Brother” the older creature, most commonly known to be his sister sounds disproving, “I’ve told you not to flash your eyes at my daughter”

“She is old enough to look me in the eyes, now?- Aren’t you my dearest?” He takes the effort to look over his sister, yet the smaller creature- also his niece if Josephine is to be believed- simply shifts further away, quivering behind her mother, nor very unlike her useless father.

“She is three, which you would know if you bothered to look at her once in a while” Josephine doesn’t sound too kind, “It reminds her of your worse half when you flash your eyes, and I wish to avoid traumatizing my child, so please, dear brother, refrain from your Alpha posturing in front of my three year old who is yet to understand you inanity. Cordellia, darling, why don’t you go find your father?” she adds to her minion.

“I might be a bit unwell at the moment, but do not test my patience sister, I am still an Alpha beyond all, and we Alpha tend to value our pride” he reminds, a sore subject no doubt with the way the prince’s sister’s face shrinks, but as usual the prince is mostly oblivious and he rides out another wave of healing nausea.

“I am worried Augustus”

“Were you now?” he is tired already.

“You consumed a large amount of wolfsbane, those drugs you took were still under trails, you had no authorization to take it from the labs-” she continues on, “It’s meant to weaken a werewolf for corporal punishment Augustus- so they can feel pain and repent for their sins without healing through, it’s not a fun toy for your pleasure and whims, It took your body a whole day to heal! If you weren’t an Alpha it could have seriously damaged you”

“Well it’s a good thing that I am one, then. I am fine, never been better. You worry too much, it might be because of your weakling husband and that tiny baby of yours, but you are transferring you mothering skills towards me, and I would prefer you would not. I am sure Edd would love to be coddled over too once in a while” he clarifies then even bothered to sit up just to prove the fact.

His scars from his certain ‘extreme’ ravenous entertainments with some gorgeous beta werewolves had completely disappeared, his healing was clear, he could feel the blood rush in his body and the familiar itch of his wolf form called to him easily, Other than the fading reminders of what he hopes wasn’t just a sweet dream that flashes across his mind, he was in fact perfectly fine.

“You joke too much August. This was serious; this was way beyond the line of sanity you keep skidding past in your recklessness” his sister sounds like she is in pain.

“I was enjoying my life, having some fun with all the glorious ornaments that was there for me. You should try it sometime”

“You voluntarily weakened yourself, as an Alpha you made yourself vulnerable to be hurt and exploited-What if Eddrian had seen you like that?- That doesn’t sound fun to me” His sister’s words evoke a set of similar words said to him.

I just don’t think you do enjoy it, because if you did you wouldn’t be here, the words very precise, careful with a tone so soft and unguarded, with a heart thudding too fast, scent of pain and blood in the air, red painted on her body and skin not nearly warm underneath his palm, human. She was human.

His eyes flashes red again, this time involuntary and his sister steps back.

“Augustus?- You can’t just faze me out, not about this. Father is worried too, If something happens to you, Eddrian is the sole heir and every soul in this castle knows that nightmare can’t happened” his sister’s voice brings him back, “I know you don’t enjoy us preaching to you about your responsibilities, you clearly are way past the age to listen, but you are our only hope as it stands. Do you understand?” she asks.

“I do” he says despite the fact he barely heard a word, “I need to find someone”…

*********

It turns out the Vikram pack isn’t one of the spectrum of douche packs out there, because despite her presumptions she doesn’t even get a warning from the Alpha for what happened at the party, no subtle threats or hints, no accusing glares towards her restrained wrists, no gratitude or praises, no jeering assaults or the whole ‘eww, a human touched me’ thing. There is whole lot of lack of reaction in general, most likely because the packs didn’t want to turn the issue even more messy in the middle of the mating festival at an event held by the Royal Pack, it was one of the rare few times they do show civility despite the fact the other wolf could have potentially mauled the kid, but hey who cares about children when pride and well-being of their pack name in involved?

In the end they just tell her to go to bed, make sure she doesn’t bleed on their perfect floors and expect her to be working by the next day. Something Astrid fortunately was able to do regardless of the blood loss and a night of pain and misery from her bitching shoulder.

One would think the whole thing didn’t happen at all if it weren’t for those giant ass claw marks on her skin that Mrs. Reynolds still frowns at every time she catches Astrid, she would presume so would Jeremy if he knew about it, because she suppose those are the closest thing she has in the place to acquaintances, but she doesn’t expand on any of it, she hides it and talks her way out of Mrs. Reynolds lectures and Jeremy’s curious eyes.

It is all well and good really, expect the fact that this somehow meant she gets even more babysitting duty. It’s not that she didn’t get to do enough ‘cub- duty’ earlier, but her trackers meant that there were always a couple more slaves posted with her to make sure she didn’t murder all the cubs, it also made sure that the younger, more impressionable kids stayed away from her and her very obvious ‘I am a bad human’ card, it meant that she didn’t have to do much and she could sneak away and do her own thing while the rest of the slaves ran behind the rabid kids, but all of a sudden it’s like she lost the ‘I am a bad human’ card among the cubs because just a day later after her clawing incident, she is assigned to take care of the younger cubs, all by herself.

It doesn’t make sense, really it honestly just f*****g doesn’t and she has no idea how the hell she manages to get herself into these situations. You try and stop one pre-teen from getting mauled and all of a sudden the wolves consider you trustworthy regardless of the very obvious, very clear ‘Most likely to kill a werewolf’ bracelet placed on both her wrist and her ankles just for good measure. It’s either that the parents of these things just can’t stand them or they are more or less hoping to get one killed or lost because they have way too many of them running around. Whatever it is Astrid is not very impressed considering if something does in fact happen to one of the mini-monster her head is on the line, on a very sharp, claw like line that will rip her to pieces in seconds.

All in all, just as she expected, they are insufferable in twenty different ways. She is meant to take them running in the forest nearby, to ‘burn off’ some energy according to one of the kids mother’s, but the only thing these bunch of demons seem to have the potential of burning is the forest itself. It is hell, the younger ones, the toddlers doesn’t listen to their own Alpha most of the time to bother listening to the puny human chew toy, the older ones are just d***s, just plain, morninc d***s that are doing everything they are not supposed to be doing mostly just to wind her up knowing that she can’t react or reprimand them, she is pretty sure this is how the wolves develop their sadism.

She is in charge of five of them, with the rest of the kids being split between the other poor slaves on cub-duty for the day. Within her five, the oldest is ten and the youngest around three, but five seems to be five hundred when they are either partly or fully shifted running around the forest, ripping tiny forest creatures of their head in front of her very eyes and practicing their ear piercing chocked off howls, all the while Astrid was freezing her ass of in a wet rainy forest. The wolves’ blood ran a few good Celsius higher than humans did, even the tiny ones’ so she was the only one shivering in the middle of forest trying to keep track of five moronic baby werewolves.

Barely an hour in and Astrid has already garnered a couple of pretty scratches and a few good baby wolf bites while trying to stare the cubs away from other packs’ territories and areas that aren’t within her trackers limits for her to follow. It’s fair to say she is already contemplating letting one of them into enemy territory if it meant she won’t have to do this s**t ever again, she would probably end up just like the squirrels the cubs keep shredding ‘because it’s fun’ but at least that will be quicker. It’s while she is weighing the pro and cons of doing just that one of the smaller wolves, fully shifted is running towards her in maximum speed.

The minute the furry thing makes contact Astrid goes down too, her butt landing in a nice wet spot of mud and head barely missing a log, but the kid is in her arms in second, growling and groaning in distress as it keeps scratching and moving.

“Ow- f**k- OW, Stop it” she says at the feel of sharp baby claws on her thighs, her shoulder is barely healing as it is.

The kid stops, but it’s not because she asked it too, but because the rest of them are running towards them too. The younger ones rush to her side and the wolf in her arms, but one of the older ones misses her entirely and keeps running towards the pack house. The wolf doesn’t get far, there is a loud piercing growl echo among the trees and the kid that was running towards the house stops in seconds, makes another distressed pathetic sound before it lays down on the floor in misery and keeps whining.

Astrid turns around to see that all the wolves around her are making similar noises too, looking to be in actual pain, the partly shifted girl at her side actually starts crying, not screaming like wolves tend to when in their human form but actual painful sobbing with tiny muffled hiccups.

Astrid is worried.

“W-What’s going on?” she bothers to ask the partly shifted one, reaching out to touch her, but the kid moves away, but not too far to get away from her that it’s just confusing.

By the time the last of the cubs come forward and lands by her side, shifting around in the wet mud as if trying to dig themselves a hole under the dirt, she notes there is movement by the edges of the shrubbery. There is a flash of fur between the trees, traveling around them, grey fur with something dark around the edges and the howls echoing the movements, in mere seconds Astrid gets just what the kids were scared of.

“s**t- s**t- s**t!” she swears as she gets up from the mud, holding two of the younger cubs in her arms even though the weight was straining on her shoulder. The growls continue on, from the stranger in the territory and the cubs.

“HOWL- Call for help, Call your mom and dad- Do your thing” she tells the kids all the while she tries to move towards a more secure sport rather than out in the plain damn forest, not that it’s much of a help, it’s obvious that the other wolf has seen or caught their scent, and these little s**t are damn good trackers.

She can’t believe her life, twice in one god damn week she is gonna get mauled because f*****g werewolves and their pack politics.

“Come on buddy, Do something, Howl- Look at me, do I look like I will be of any whatsoever help to you here, I am the literal definition of useless piece of crap-“she turns to the oldest of the bunch, completely shifted and seemingly peeing where he stands, she crouches down and stretches a hand across him to his head to at least get him to listen, but other than the noises getting closer and seemingly more violent there isn’t much.

“Go! Run or something-Oh my f*****g god-” she swears as she turns around frantically, just to see an even more distinct dark grey fur disappearing around the trees. For a second she had thought it was the wolf from the party, out to get revenge on her or something, but that one had been all dark black and small, just a teen himself from what she could recognize, but this one was seemingly large, very large and very old that she couldn’t even distinguish the gender clearly, What’s even more surprising was the large wolf wasn’t being necessarily loud, it was huffing and making noises within the shadows but not anything that would garner the attention of the pack a few miles away, as it was doing deliberately so. Astrid was very not equipped to deal with s**t like this.

“You dumb lupine baby idiots!” Astrid is frantic as she tries to move, the cubs weren’t running no matter what she did for some reason. So Astrid tugged at the cubs’ ears, all rose up in alarm and distress, and tried to get them to move along with her, she gets a total of three feet until she stops and prominently decides that this is the day she dies.

Because all of a sudden the shadow that glimmered between the shades of the trees is uncovering her.

The wolf standing in front of her is huge, its height could easily reach up to her chest; it’s the biggest wolf she had ever seen in her god damn life working for werewolves that for a minute she is too shocked to actually be aware of the situation. Then she notes the eyes on him and remembers just how f****d she is, because those s**t are damn dark red, Alpha. Standing in front of her was a scary as hell, massive, angry Alpha looking down at her.

Astrid can’t even swear at the thing that towers over her, she shakes a little then holds the werecub in her hands tighter, in return the cub digs it’s claws to her back, for once it’s not to cause her pain but rather the little thing holding on for dear life because she wasn’t the only person seeing the massive grey beast in front of them. Astrid is scared shitless at the sight of a werewolf after a long time of thinking herself immune to their posturing; the beast asks her to be scared and promises vengeance for any fall step she may take.

Then its mouth opens, extending fangs that are sharp, long enough to cut through skin in second and as if that fact wasn’t seen there is also a tint of red in its sharp edged teeth, showing just what those scary ass things were used for. From the shape of the fangs she thinks it’s a male, but she could be very much wrong as it’s f*****g gender is the least if the least of her problems.

The beast doesn’t appreciate her it seems because his eyes glow an even darker red and teeth shines, the cubs cries get even more painful all the while Astrid wonder where the hell the rest of the Vikram pack is when there is a monstrous Alpha wolf in their territory. It takes her a second but she realizes that the beast is growling at the kids around her, and specifically at the fact she was holding them.

She assumes it’s one of the ‘purist’ ones then, the type that doesn’t want humans polluting their precious baby werewolves, all the more reasons to kill her. Astrid hesitates for a second, and then slowly puts the werecubs down despite their hold over her, the cubs whine but the demon wolf finally stops growling.

“Okay- Not touching the baby wolves- I am not touching the baby wolves, that is exactly the kind of s**t I am not doing- doing right now- See?” she chokes out the words.

That apparently, was a very bad thing to do because in seconds the beast is moving closer to her, growling and then later kicking the cubs away from its sight. Astrid thinks this is not the way she expected to die, then a flash of Bella’s face and desperation kicks in with the adrenaline that she ends up walking back until her back hits the back of a large tree.

The beast jumps and she falls to her feet, skidding over something and saying something she could not even progress. There is second where she thinks it’s all over, a second of life gnawing under skin and anger coming to the brim.

When she opens her eyes the beast is looking down at her, paws placed on all side and completely encasing her under its huge body.

“I can’t die, Not right now- I have to do something, I promised- she promised-“she finds herself saying when one of the paws come down on her. She is not begging, but rather it’s the anger that’s speaking, the determination in her that states very clearly she is not ending her life today underneath this wolf’s feet.

She tries to push the beast away, but he simply weighs down on her harder.

The paw comes down, but she is surprised to find them clawless. In the background she notes the werecubs running away, all five of them towards the house and the relief at the realization that they will be safe is both saddening and sickening, in a second the paws shift to her face and pushes until she turns her head and her neck is exposed.

There is second where she meets the wolf’s eyes, a second where the red fades and there is something else in there, something she can’t comprehend, something reflected in her own eyes, but then she is shifted again and the wolf opens its mouth and the fangs come down.

“s**t-f**k-NO!” she curses again helplessly, but the fangs doesn’t reach her neck either but rather there is something cold and wet going through her neck.

“Are you f*****g licking me?” she almost shouts, feeling like she is going insane. The wolf doesn’t say anything, as most wolves tend to when they are shifted, but rather holds her down and keeps licking and sniffing all over her, all across her neck, then proceeds to stretch her shirt until he can get access to her collar bone and continues to sniff and lick through her bandages, seemingly trying to rip it away.

“No-No Dude, It just stopped bleeding- STOP-STOP-f*****g and it’s bleeding again- Great, just perfect, thanks for that asshole” she feels the heat pool through the bandages, the wolf seems pleased at having a taste of its meal.

Astrid struggles and kicks all she can, but the wolf goes on. The only time it stills is when Astrid raises up a hand to push its face away and he takes notes of her trackers, he growls again and she is starting to realize that it might not be growling at her rather than at her body parts, it seems to be a picky eater for someone enjoying human blood.

In seconds he is attacking at her wrist, more specifically her tracker trying to bite at it. Astrid shouts again, but it’s futile. She realizes the thing is tightening and sending shockwaves through just as the wolf is trying to bite it off and if it goes on the poison will soon be injected, the wolf must feel an aftershock or something because he finally moves its f*****g face away.

There is second of relief where it is not literally breathing down her neck and Astrid takes it, she notes the mid region of the wolf and kicks upwards as fast as she can. The beast is pushed an inch back, it isn’t much and the wolf barely looks effected but it gives her the inch to draw her legs up and get to her feet.

She doesn’t turn back, she jumps away from the wolves reach and runs, runs like she’s done so many times before but this time towards her werewolf masters rather than away from them, but yet she doesn’t turn back and keeps running and running even as her shoulder drips blood onto the earth and her legs skid over more wet mud and leaves.

She runs because she is not done yet, she runs because her anchor still remains, she runs because she has to.

The wolf doesn’t follow.