novelraw Chapter 471 - [J] Crown Built From Carrion
Chapter 471 - [J] Crown Built From Carrion
***[POV: Drink-Wolfsbane-Already Duskpaw]***
I looked at this chain-link fencing that stretched across the snow. Half-buried in it. Topped with razor wire covered in ice.
And already too low to be capable of stopping us. Even before now.
Choices made against deterring other humans are pretty much... decorative. Useless. We just had no reason to fight the military or show ourselves.
Yet here we are, crouched in the treeline. Myself and eleven other wolves. Half of them from our original pack, half of the other idiots following Chad.
Waiting for his signal. Like damned video game units in one of those things he used to play. I knew I should have started smashing his phone years ago.
My breath fogged in the air and my chest ached. Not from the cold. Just that fucking phantom pull toward *nothing*. She’s nothing, no matter what anyone says.
That kid is also nothing, just an abomination.
"Remember the objectives. Secure the ammo depot first and spread from there."
That jerk’s voice came through the uncomfortable earpieces he’d told us all to wear. Not sure where the hell he got them that sort of fit our hybrid heads.
But it keeps him from being out here with us in the freezing wind, of course. Never out here.
Still back at the convoy they hit on the road closest to the caves we’d been holed up in. Probably plenty warm in one of the stolen human trucks... from that first patrol.
"Medical supplies at their infirmary and food at the mess hall come second, so they don’t grab anything and run with it. Vehicles... if we can get any of them running after the fight then good - otherwise don’t worry about ’em. Not in this weather, boys."
Giving out orders from what he sees as total safety. Like always. Coward. Always has been.
"And the big guns in the eastern depot - those are the main goal but the final priority. Don’t want them shooting off launchers or lobbing C4 over at them. We need to blitz so they don’t blow the place, yeah?"
Artillery. That’s what we’re actually after. The world is cold and he wants to blow the rest of it up. To exterminate anything he calls an enemy.
Three weeks ago during the start of the blizzard, I’d watched him have his assholes hold down our Beta. Then he ripped his own father’s throat out in front of the whole pack.
I just stood there with everyone else. Staring at a dying man who’d enabled his son’s worst impulses. As he just bled out in the snow.
He actually dared to look shocked. That the monster he’d raised all this time had finally turned on him. So did the Alpha.
And my father. And fucking everyone. How the hell was I the only one to see it coming?
Not that I did anything to stop it. Not after their failure at the conclave. Putting me in shackles.
None of them could stop that white haired bitch. Even with the useless Sandhowls. But I took the blame?
"You good?"
Glaring over at the untransformed rogue - pretty sure a damned Cloudtail - I growled to make him back off. I didn’t have patience for these cowards before. And I don’t now.
Just like I didn’t for the Duskpaw leadership those next days after that fight. When I got screamed at for running ahead and put in silver shackles to slow my healing.
The reason Chad gave for killing his father was that he had allied with the Midwest packs behind our back. Bringing the Shadeclaw and Powdernose into a meeting with our Alpha two days after our pointless conclave.
As if we didn’t have enough trouble with other larger than us organizations. The Rimecoat getting so many new wolves... good fucking riddance to bad fucking leaders.
Our old Alpha went the way of our old Beta on the same day. Only this time Chad made a whole speech instead of making it quick and sudden.
Trying to seem like he was doing something he didn’t want to do. Goddamned liar.
His eyes were shining as he did it.
He definitely wanted him dead... and to take control.
A lot more than he wanted to kill his own dad. But it was more than just that.
He got him to *submit* in words, like during a mate bond rejection. Before he injected him with enough wolfsbane to kill seven of us.
And when his screams about burning cold and numb limbs finally stopped along with his heart, it put that brutal red text right in all our sight.
| Σ Chosen / Chad Duskpaw Has Forcefully Taken You As Pack |
| Member Consent Irrelevant, Thanks To System Recognized Surrender |
Everyone watching felt something snap into place inside our heads. Like a... brain collar. Like unshakeable chains linked to that fucker.
I’d felt it too. Still feel it now, underneath the ghost of the bond with that bitch Helene. Another new pull that I didn’t ask for.
Another thing I can’t break apart with my claws.
"Movement at the eastern gate."
Conquered. That’s what we were. Taken. Like territory in a war. One that none of us knew we were fighting until shit had already started.
"Just two guard shift changes. Both human, still no sign of other werewolves."
That was... one of the brownnosing Omegas that Chad had brought in. Criminals and outcasts that he’d been collecting since well before the... Apocalypse. Since before any of his shit made sense.
He’d known something was coming for months, I understand that now. Had been preparing and making plans on that phone of his while the rest of us were stuck on fighting with the Rimecoat.
Probably why he convinced me to reject my bond. Asshole knew.
He *knew* something would happen if I did that.
Knew we’d be distracted while he moved about and-
"Kyle, Jace. You’re on the eastern approach. Neutralize the guards. Quietly."
My jaw clenched at being being ordered like some weak Omega errand-runner. And at being paired. With him. Fucking Kyle. Already moving across the snow.
I only followed because the alternative was... what? The chain in my head pulled taut when I thought too long about refusing. I tested it before already. So did everyone, probably.
We used to sit around campfires together this time of year. Complain about bullshit. Argue about nothing. And Kyle had always been the peacemaker.
The one who tried to calm me down when I got too heated.
Now he just looked tired as hell. Hollowed out by weeks of following orders that none of us wanted to follow. But we’d seen more than one casualty from those of ’his pack’ that refused.
Rogue. Duskpaw. Human. It didn’t matter to someone as detached from reality as him. I didn’t think it would matter to me either. Killing people.
"Did you hear that?"
Huddled inside that small gatehouse. One of them questioned a bit too loud. The world had all but ended and they were still standing post because that’s what soldiers do.
Also following orders. Even when nothing made much sense anymore.
"...Probably just the wind, right?"
I could smell coffee and cigarette smoke. And the sharp tang of human fear, coming out of their cold-sweat. They knew something was wrong.
And I could hear one of their gun’s fire selector clicking from safety, past semi-auto, to full automatic. Like I was right next to it.
Since we became part of this system, those sort of senses are even stronger. Noticing fear in others and sounds that are dangerous just stick harder in my brain.
He called them [Pack Buffs].
The screaming guards, when my claws punched in and started tearing out their bulletproof glass window, would probably call them unfair. The sound of a few rounds hitting the other side of the glass barely muffled Kyle breaking down the steel door.
Or the sound of his jaw crunching the soldier’s gun wielding forearm. Ramming his skull into the wall stopped that good, though.
"What the f-fuck...what the-"
The stench of the other one urinating before I even snapped his neck was fucking unbearable. Older, heavier guy that smelled like he hadn’t been washed in days.
With three chevrons and a rocker patched on the center of his jacket. Which I’m pretty sure makes him... a Staff Sergeant. Fuck.
I start to loot him quickly. Finding what is probably a very useful key. A little book on patrol schedules and their radio channels that would have been useful an hour ago.
And-
"Post Three, this is TOC. Radio check and SITREP, over."