Coldsnap: The Billionaire Alpha's Fated Pregnant Princess (GL)

Chapter 473 - [J] The ’Could Have Been’ Duskpaw Alpha...

I couldn’t sleep laying in the back of one of these trucks.

Staring at the ceiling and listening to some wind outside. To the sound of other wolves that were scattered around the roadcamp, doing what the rogues did when they weren’t killing things.

Which was playing grab-ass with anything nearby that couldn’t stop them. Or fighting amongst themselves about some stupid shit.

The convoy had stopped at an old logging facility about twenty miles from the base. Good defensible position, Chad had said. Plenty of space for the vehicles and the cargo.

Some were sleeping in actual tents they just stole. Or walking around on watch properly, wielding guns like they were toys. Feels like things are going even more to hell.

Every time I closed my eyes I saw Chad’s expression. Looking at his pack members like they were soulless. One of them shot another one earlier over an argument about a meal.

He just shrugged and had one of the other ones tear off the killer’s jaw as an example. Weeks of punishments like that and they still act up. But he doesn’t care about expendables.

As long as they don’t expend themselves too quick.

"Quick deaths."

A few times I’ve seen that woman soldier’s face again. For some reason. The hatred in her eyes was more emotion than anyone has looked at me with in... a while.

Voss... and Helene. Both looked disgusted, fed up, or angry in combinations at the conclave. Others looked at me like that too, afterwards.

But all of it was closer to how Chad looks. Like I’m a fucking irrelevant blip.

A stone to kick out of the way and keep moving on past some little annoyance.

"How quick and how many people die when those fire?"

The Rimecoat had been taking in refugees since the blizzard started. Humans and wolves alike, all crowding into that tower.

Like it could save them from the end. Don’t know how the bastard knows that, when we were all holed up in a cave dozens of miles away. But probably something to do with his system.

He also mentioned having ’spooks’ in place. Just scoffed and turned away when I asked what that meant. If anyone deserves their jaw ripped off...

I sat up slowly, my shoulder still aching. When he first told us about increased healing it worked good. That’s why I think it either has limits he didn’t tell us... or he can strip it from us without our knowing.

"Par for his shitty course."

Kyle was supposed to be sharing this space with me. But I hadn’t seen him since we split up in the fight. Hadn’t wanted to.

Because he’s annoyingly perceptive when I’m about to do something ’not worth it’.

The camp was quieting just a bit. Most of the watch would be focused outward, looking for threats from the wilderness.

Rimecoat patrols if they’ve started. Or any military survivors who might have followed us.

Not looking inward. Not expecting one of their own to make a move.

My claws extended before I’d fully decided to transform. Some part of me had already made the choice, maybe hours ago.

Back at the treeline. Because my wolf and I are tired.

Of following orders.

⧖ ☾ ❄ ☽ ⧖

Two particular big ass rogues stood guard outside the command tent’s main flap. The kind he had tasked specifically for their willingness to do violence without asking any questions.

And only when following instructions. Maximum protection, maximum distance from any real danger from outside. Yet they barely glanced at me as I approached.

Because I always followed orders too, until now. Didn’t even bother saying anything as I went in. I never spoke to them either.

Chad was alone. Sitting at a folding table with maps from the military base spread out in front of him. His phone lay on top, screen dark for once.

He looked up when I entered - and that same emptiness was there. Doesn’t even bother to hide it anymore. Just calculates me as no threat.

"Couldn’t sleep?"

"Something like that."

I moved two steps closer. Stopping at three. Casual pose. Just an old packmate coming to talk to his current leader. Yeah. Play it cool.

"I’ve been thinking about the assault. Three days isn’t much time to get what you want in place."

"It’s enough. They are playing the diplomacy-turtle strategy, but the Rimecoat won’t be expecting bombardment. Not considering how primitive our first wave hit them."

Four Duskpaw wolves died out there the other day for that. According to my father. Twelve rogues bolted from the fight and didn’t come back here.

"By the time they figure out what’s happening elsewhere, we’ll have reduced their defenses to rubble. And erased whatever population numbers my opponent was trying to achieve."

He said it so matter-of-factly. Discussing mass murder. And he’s treating her like the mastermind over there still.

Citra Lomdi. Fucking stupid name change.

I shake my head and step sideways, not at him. Looking at the map like it had some sort of answer I sought.

"And then what? We just... take this place over?"

"We take what we need. Food and supplies. Anyone useful who’s willing to join us before another Chosen shows up. The rest..."

He shrugged and smirked. With some kind of emotion in his eyes worse than hatred. Confidence. Madness. I don’t know what to fucking call it but it’s god damned evil.

"Natural selection I guess. The weak become resources for me. One way or another."

That’s what we all were, to him. Weak and useable. The rogues, the conquered Duskpaw, the humans we’d slaughtered at the base.

I lunged. Claws out faster than they’d ever been, aiming for that fucking throat that says things like that.

And something hit me from the side.

Sharp, familiar feelings exploded in my head. Of being flung across a room by a bigger wolf. That white furred Alpha.

Panic actually surges in me. Sprawling, crashing through the folding table and scattering paper maps everywhere.

Before I could scrabble to recover at all, a weight slammed onto my back.

And pinned me down with my face in the floor.