from the other side of my bedroom door as I turn and walk away. I know she doesn’t like being trapped in there, but it’s the safest place for her. I won’t risk her being seen by others or worse, getting hurt.
Her power is a liability and if something goes wrong, she could not only harm my men, but herself in the process. I would rather take her wrath than have that happen, and the thought of her eyes alight with anger excites me for later.
I round the hallway and head down the stairs, my brothers by bond and not blood, waiting for me at the bottom. “Are we ready?” I ask Leo as I walk ahead of them, heading to the west entrance of the keep.
“Yeah, archers are in place, wolves are ready, and Rhea’s pack is safe in the keep.” I nod my head in thanks. “We’re waiting for your command,” he says, as I throw open the door and walk through the courtyard, seeing my Elites waiting on either side, wolf and man alike.
They follow behind us as I head toward the gate, the sound of their boots hitting hard on the stone floor vibrating through me. My fingers twitch in excitement for the fight, for the bloodshed to come and to watch the many rogures’s heads roll.
I pause at the gate leading outside the keep walls. The two Elites on either side of the metal structure stand at attention, waiting for my go ahead to wind the cranks to open it. I turn to my brothers as they shuffle impatiently, ready for what’s to come. I look past them to my Elites, all standing still, feet shoulder-width apart and waiting for my command.
“Elites,” I call, and they stand straighter, hands behind their backs. “Rogures are upon us, remember your training. Do not let them bite you, you may as well take a knife to your own throat if you survive it. Their poison will boil you from the inside and eat away at your organs. There is no cure, remember that.” I look over the sea of them, making sure to make eye contact. “Watch your backs, stick with two or more as the rogures will branch off into smaller packs. Do not get caught on your own, or you will be as good as dead.”
“Rah,” they shout, slamming their palms to their chest, acknowledging my words.
“We are Elites,” I roar, feeling the oncoming battle igniting my blood.
“Rah!”
“We are deadly,”
“Rah!”
“We are destruction,” I growl.
“Rahhhh!”
I turn and nod for the gate to be opened. Metal scrapes along the stone wall and as soon as there is enough space, I point to the opening. “Go.” Dozens of wolves race past us, growling and snarling. We follow, blades in hand. Leo pulls out his bow, poison-tipped arrow already notched. Jerrod swings his twin blade axe, getting his grip just right. Zaide has his duel blades at the ready, and Damian has his gripped tightly in his palm, eyes hard.
I watch ahead as black shapes come into view, their number increasing every few moments and I growl beneath my breath. Leo wasn’t wrong. There has to be at least a hundred rogures coming our way, if not more. They stalk out of the trees of the Bayson forest that covers most of the west side of Vrohkaria, their unusual howls only known to them sounding around us, and the hairs on my arms raise in anticipation.
“Fuck me,” Leo murmurs, “There are more than I thought.”
“Kill them all,” I tell my closest. “Do not stop until they are at your feet.”
“Always.” He grips my forearm and I grip his before I do the same with Damian, Jerrod, and Zaide.
We pick up speed over the grassy terrain, my Elites spreading out with the wolves just up ahead. They wait at the top of the small hill for my signal before we head for the creatures that have been destroying the lands for years, plaguing, ravishing and killing everything in their wake.
That killed my family. I will kill them all.
I hold at the crest of the hill, scanning the forest for any signs of more. When it’s clear no more are coming, I face the mass of black against the green of the ground. Their snarls fill the air around us and thick, black saliva drips from their sharp fangs as they continue to stalk toward us. No sense of danger and no preservation of who the fuck they are going up against.
“Hold!” I call down the line, my men taking up their stance to prepare to attack. I wait, watching for the first sign of them rushing, because they will. And not even two minutes later, they do. “Charge!” I bellow, and we move as one, running forward behind our wolves to hit them head on.
Drax growls within me and I feel my markings on my neck appear. I can feel him giving me his strength alongside my power as we rush forward to end the threat.
Just before we hit the bottom of the hill, stones are thrown into the mass that will slow their movements, and then we make impact. The first wolves use the slight incline of the hill to their advantage and jump, landing on the backs of a few unsuspecting rogures. Trusting that they can get the kill, I swing my blade straight through the first rogures mouth, splitting it open on either side and then thrusting my blade upward, straight into its heart. Dead. A second one comes at me and I spin, my sword turning with me as I injure the beast and my foot lands on its side, knocking it over. I waste no time lifting my blade high and bringing it down on its gray, rotten neck, severing it.
An arrow flies past me, its slight green hued poison tip landing in the bone colored eye of a rogure just up ahead. The next second, an axe comes down, embedding itself in its skull. A growl from my right has me turning and taking a leap onto the back of another, gray clumps of flesh coming from its body as I grab its head. Zaide crosses his blades at the front of its neck and pulls the blades apart, slicing through the flesh. The rogure falls and I lock my knees as I follow it down to the ground. I spot Damian to the side, helping an Elite who has a bleeding arm. He takes the rogure down but as he looks at the man with the bite wound and black mixing into his blood, his eyes come to me briefly as I grit my teeth. I give him a nod, knowing there is nothing we can do and this is for the best.
Damian murmurs something to the Elite, his eyes a flash of sadness before he speaks back, his palm slamming against his chest. He drops it as Damian drives his blade through his chest and into his heart. The body drops to the blood soaked ground and then Damian turns and heads for the next rogure just as I do, pushing my power out of my palm and spearing it.
We can’t stop and mourn the dead yet.
The sun slowly begins to set as we litter the ground with dead rogures. I stand on bodies, both my men and beast squishing beneath my boots as I look at the carnage in front of us. Blood and guts trail over the now red grass, the smell of death clinging to the air. I search for my Elites and count how many men we have left. I look across the battleground, spotting an Elite crouched on the ground, his hands shaking another body and I home in on it, tilting my head as I hear his pleading cries for his brother to get up. Another Elite further on growls and repeatedly kicks a dead rogure, calling it a bitch like it can hear him. I swing my gaze to my left and spot a few Elites near the Bayson tree line, talking amongst themselves and looking back in my direction. I narrow my eyes, instinct telling me something isn’t right when they break off into the forest. I stalk after them, calling my brothers and leaving the rest of the Elites to deal with the last of the rogures.
They reach my side almost instantly, covered in sweat and bits of gray flesh, their skin more red with the splatters of blood. “You good?” Damian asks, looking at the blood seeping down my arm from where one of the rogues sliced their claws through my leather armor.
“I’m good,” I tell him, checking them over for injury and seeing nothing serious. “I think we have found ourselves some new traitors,” I growl, nodding in the direction the men went as we hit the tree line and stalk inside. My men are as stealthy as I am, listening to anything to indicate the traitors’ whereabouts.
I hear heavy breathing just up ahead and I move fast, rounding a large tree to see some of my Elites lined up and facing us. “What the fuck are you doing?” I snap as my brothers stay at my back.
The blond, Christian. “No can do, Alpha,” he says in a mocking tone, and growls sounds behind us. I know what they are from, I don’t need to turn to know the sound. I’ve been hearing it since the day I had news that my mother and sister were killed by them. What does surprise me though, is how did they sneak behind us?
My brothers turn, protecting my back as I snarl at Christian. “Explain. Now.” I call my power to my hands, and then I feel a tingle at the base of my spine as two masses appear at my back. Christian and the others look upon my power with disgust, they will soon look upon it with terror.
“We don’t want no fucking Heir scum to be the Alpha of the Elites. You belong in the pits of Derraztfur,” he spits on the floor, mentioning the lava filled caves of the Dracozar Lands that lie past The Drylands’s mountains. “And that’s where you will go now while Patrick Kazari takes over as Alpha.” He shows me a port stone and I tilt my head, my eyes narrowing in on it. My eyes change.
“I don’t know whether you are brave or have a death wish daring to attempt to do this to me.” More growls come from behind my Elites and they all laugh.
“We dare because a new age is coming and it doesn’t include you. Patrick will take over the Elites and Vrohkaria will be ruled as it should.”
“And how should Vrohkaria be ruled?” I tilt my head, my eyes scanning the men.
“By having women on their backs,” he snickers, his eyes crazed. “We should be able to choose who will birth our strongest line. All this bullshit of consent and needing to have mating arrangements.” He rolls his eyes and my vision narrows. “Even Lord Higher Charles thinks it’s so fucking dumb, Patrick told us so in a tavern weeks ago. All we have to do is get rid of you first, and what better way then to send Heir scum to the pits? There would be no way you could make it out alive.”
“All you have to do is betray your Alpha, right?” Leo scoffs from beside me, his bow aiming at the rogures behind me. “The people of Vrohkaria won’t stand for this new age. You’re a dead man anyway, so you won’t see it fail.”
My power slashes out like a rope and wraps around Christian’s neck until a deafening crack slices through the air, causing the others to stumble back in shock. Christian falls to the floor, his head now at an odd angle. I take a step forward, trusting my brothers at my back as the other traitorous men fall on their asses.
“W-wait,” one of them cries as my power sails over them, aiming for the eyes of the two rogures behind them.
I feel their eyeballs pop as my power enters their flesh, aiming for their brain and killing them instantly. My men take care of the other rogures behind me quickly as I stare at the two men before me. Walking toward them, I bend down when I reach the first male, the tails at my shoulders moving back and forth. I smell the undoubtable stench of piss, and I look at the man to the left, Gerry, and scrunch my nose up.
“It was all Christian’s plan, he made us do it,” he says, and I sigh.
Weak fucking bastards. How did these males become Elites?
I tilt my head and look up through the branches above, seeing the night sky alive with stars and moonlight. I smirk. I know exactly what I’m going to do.
I stand and turn, moving past my brothers and call over my shoulder. “Take them to the basement.” Their chuckles are all I need to hear to know how we are going to enjoy getting information out of them.
Those rogures that were with them did not attack them, they didn’t come for the men that tried to take me to the pits of Derraztfur To be burned for eternity in its caves. The question is, how did they control those rogures?
