Taking Down the Alpha

9 Risk Accepted

We stopped at a truck stop to freshen up before exploring the city. Liana had taken her own turn to sleep after driving most of the night, so she wasn't too tired. The humans had their own name for the city, but as the seat of power for the royal family, werewolves usually referred to it as the royal capital. More importantly for our purposes, as the urban area with the highest number of werewolves per capita, it was the ideal place to search for our champion. The outskirts on the west side of the city were out of bounds as the heart of the royal pack territory, but the rest of the city was fair game. While I'd failed to procure permission to go onto royal pack lands, they were rumoured to be pretty understanding about uninvited wolves who got turned around as long as they weren't causing trouble.

I didn't let that get me down. It was probably strategically better to stay away and under the radar either way. While we found lots of wolves living in plain sight amongst the humans, we didn't find anyone of interest the first day, and finally gave up and grabbed a hotel room. The second day, we explored some of the more popular wolf destinations through the morning and afternoon, again coming up empty. I was getting frustrated until we stopped at a gym with a secret exclusive werewolf-only level. We spent the afternoon chatting while working out on heavy duty equipment, although truthfully Liana and I didn't do nearly as much socializing as Denise did. She again proved her worth on our mission by charming the gym regulars and learning about their opinions on who were the strongest wolves around.

A couple potential candidates were even present, and she talked to them, but none of them had quite the qualities we were looking for, although she did get their numbers just in case with skillful ease. They seemed almost excited to give them to her, along with rumours about some underground fights that perked my ears, although they weren't very specific about that.

We also got a tip for a fighting gym called Apex Training Center that was run by a werewolf named Samuel. Oddly enough, it didn't even have a human cover of an online presence like most werewolf businesses. We conferred, and we decided that was the next place we'd check out since it seemed so secretive.

We took a quick swim after we were finished in the gym, and as always, both human and werewolf eyes followed Denise wherever we went, although few of them dared to approach her. Maybe it was more than her beauty alone, she had a way of moving that just seemed so confident it was mesmerizing. I would have found that level of scrutiny uncomfortable, but she was unbothered, at least on the surface. Using the change room facilities, we got ready to go again, and were soon on our way across town.

When we got out of the car, the scent of sweaty werewolves hit my nose even before we crossed the street. I had thought the gym was bad enough, but this was a whole other level. Liana cringed, but Denise just smirked. "Sure it smells awful, but I'm sure they are very nice to look at. You can tell the difference between werewolves who sit around all day and just look good because of genetics and werewolves who deserve their physique because they worked for it," she said as she strode confidently to the door. Again I was impressed by how she managed to keep her composure in every situation we encountered. Nothing seemed to faze her.

We hurried along towards the nondescript brick building. It looked like the outside hadn't been updated in decades, and the front doors were plain glass. There was no signage other than the name of the gym on the door in plain white lettering.

Denise pushed open the door. I stepped in beside her, and Liana followed a step behind me.

We made it about six more steps in before we were intercepted. "Hey, what are you girls doing here?" called a gruff voice. Liana hid behind me, and I smiled with fake confidence. Denise walked forward and extended her hand to the grey-haired werewolf who was stomping towards us. I imagined he was Samuel. In spite of his years, he still had the build of a very active man.