Wolf Teeth || Book I : Summer {M/M} ❄

Chapter #5

Jezarri and the other recruits tripped in their haste to follow the order. Oryen resisted the compulsion to stay and help. He'd trained in combating werewolves for years, but not without weapons or a squad of trusted and trained individuals. He retreated to the bushes with the rest.

Watching the fight, he recognized he was far out of his depth. A Kappa's huge paw came down on a collector's snout with a sound of splintering bone. Blood striped the ground where another slashed across a wolf's exposed flank. The sight of it ignited every instinct that had been poured into Oryen as a Fen, but he'd never been fighting on the side of wolves. In the violence of the fray he could hardly tell them apart. The excessive tags hanging from the collectors' necks were the only things that made them identifiable. He couldn't transform yet. He had no weapons.

He felt useless.

One of the tag collectors fell to a vicious blow. His body rolled a few paces, then went limp and still. The remaining two collectors seemed to reevaluate their chances as the numbers evened out. Their lips peeled back and blood seeped from shallow cuts. They stepped backward, looking ready to flee, when the Kappas rushed them again.

It happened so quickly that Oryen couldn't quite follow. One collector fled and the Kappa gave chase, vanishing into the foliage. The other lashed out at Shiko, claws extended and aimed for his throat. Shiko backed up just enough that the claws only skimmed through the leather of his collar. Shiko lunged, but the motion aborted before he could slam into the collector. He froze, the fur along his back and neck stood on end. The snarls and scrape of claws was replaced with eerie silence for a second while Oryen looked on in confusion.

Shiko emitted a dry, choking sound. His muzzle yawned wide. Spittle and foam flew from his mouth as his entire body began to twitch. Aryeta bolted out of the trees, drawing a knife out of her bag, but too late. The tag collector morphed and changed, his fur receding, shrinking. He reached down with hands still tipped with claws and cut the tag from Shiko's collar. His prize won, he fled into the bushes just as Aryeta skidded to a stop beside Shiko.

Oryen ran out of hiding. Up close, he still couldn't understand. Shiko's face had contorted into a pantomime of fury and anguish. His muzzle wrinkled back, emitting helpless snarls and choking sounds. His enormous frame convulsed, sending dried leaves flying with every scrape of his claws. Aryeta dodged his flailing limbs and seized the collar. With deft speed, she slipped the knife beneath it and sawed it in half. She pulled it free, blood spitting from the holes the needles had left, and an acrid smell like burning flesh followed.

"What the hell are you—?!" Oryen cut himself short. Aryeta fished inside her bag and withdrew a vial of clear liquid, which she uncorked with her teeth and poured into the wound. Then she slammed her hands over it and held tight.

"What's happening to him?" Oryen's voice sounded hoarse and foreign to his own ears. "Did that guy just poison him?" He had no other explanation. He hadn't seen a moment when it could have happened, but everything had been so fast.

"In a manner of speaking," Aryeta ground out. "Come here. Help me. He's too strong."

Oryen followed her instruction, kneeling beside her and clasping his hand over another needle wound, which still bled profusely. Weren't werewolves meant to heal fairly quickly? Shiko's massive frame bucked and kicked and Oryen did his best to keep his hands over the spot. As Shiko's convulsions abated, Aryeta kept muttering, "Please work, please work."

Shiko went still. Aryeta stopped chanting and sat for a moment in silent focus, her hands still clasped tight over the wolf's bloody neck.

Her face fell. Oryen didn't need her to say that Shiko was dead. Under his hands, the wolf had ceased to move or breathe. Aryeta let out a long breath and sat back on her heels. She wiped at the sweat on her forehead and left a bright streak of red behind.

"It was worth a try," she said.

Oryen looked between her and the dead werewolf. He'd seen death before, but nothing like this. He was at a loss. "What happened?"

Aryeta picked up the collar on the ground and turned it around for inspection. Her fingers found the groove where the collector's claws had skimmed the leather. "Rotgor," she said, and from her tone alone Oryen was sure it was a curse word. "He cut the collar. Triggered its tampering protocols." She swore again, this time in English. "Shiko never stood a chance, but I had to try."

Oryen looked at the collar and touched a hand to his own. Aryeta's words were a cold sluice of ice water in his veins.

"The doc told me this would just tranquilize me if I tampered with it or tried to leave the quarantine area."

Aryeta's brow scrunched in disbelief. "Well, he lied," she told him. "It administers poison. Kills almost instantly."

Oryen let the horror wash over him in a wave of nausea, which he quickly stifled into a numb place where he wouldn't have to think about it. The way Aryeta looked at him, he felt stupid for ever having believed the lie himself.

"That was the antidote you gave him just now?"

"Sort of. I've been trying to synthesize one using what samples of the poison I can get but..." She chewed her lip. "Clearly it doesn't work." A quick shake of her head and she stood.

As she did, they heard rustling from the bushes, but it was only the other Kappa, returned from the chase and panting heavily. They stopped short at the sight of Oryen and Aryeta kneeling over their comrade. Aryeta went over and put her arms around the wolf's neck. It let out a keening whine.

Oryen was thrown off-kilter. The nervous recruits regrouped and prepared to set out for Mardero again, and the remaining Kappa carried Shiko's body on their back. It made the trip feel more like a funeral procession. Oryen still couldn't quite grasp the barbarism of the collar. The greed and ruthlessness of the tag collectors. There were moments as they walked where he felt something akin to panic flaring in his chest, but he quashed it. He'd just have to be careful. Make sure he didn't get into too many dangerous scraps. Make sure he didn't shave too close to the collar. Avoid sharp objects.

He thought it was meant to be normal in here.

Aryeta seemed to sense his disquiet. "If you need to be sick, I won't judge." At his mirthless snort, she tilted her head. "What did they tell you about quarantine?"

"Nothing true." Bitterness tinged his words, but Oryen was still too numb to feel it. "They said it would be just like the outside world. Just a little more regimented." He almost added, which I'm used to, but he couldn't admit that the reason structured living was so familiar was because he'd been a Fen, so he cut himself short.

Aryeta gave him a hard look. "Since they gave you the rosy version, I'll give you the straight one. Don't mess with the collar. You can remove the tag, decorate it, but tampering with the leather or trying to remove it instantly triggers a dose of wolfsbane heavy enough to drop twenty werewolves."

Oryen swallowed. It made the collar bob, and the sore points where the needles penetrated his neck felt all the more sensitive.

"That wasn't normal behaviour though. No matter who you owe your allegiances, werewolves have an understanding. You're only as strong as your pack. No one trusts a wolf who cuts a collar. That's not someone you want at your back. So we don't touch another wolf's collar. We just don't. It's worse than cowardice. It's... Do you know any lycanthropic?"

Oryen shook his head.

"There's a word we have that doesn't translate. Rotgor. It means a wolf without crows. Someone whose corpse isn't good enough for scavengers. It's a wolf without loyalty to pack, principles or even their own pride. It's the kind of word reserved only for people like those tag collectors and a few others."

"Rotgor," Oryen repeated. It sounded good. Like the thing it was. Then he asked, "Few others? Like who?"

"Fens," said Aryeta.