Enraging the Alpha

Ch. 1: Down Low

HUCK

My wolf had total control, and he wasn't giving it up.

I should have been horrified by the sight of my people, reduced to what they could carry, trekking up the mountain to fight a war with no weapons. But I wasn't horrified. There wasn't room for horror or regret or sanity. All I had was rage. I'd tried reaching Brooke for the past hour with no success, and she wasn't strong enough to block me out. She was unconscious. She could be hurt. She could be dying at this very moment.

My teeth clenched, and I picked up the pace, trudging through the terrain, biting back the urge to scream. Each bit of resistance goaded me; tree limbs, dense brush, and loose earth could go to hell.

"Huck?" Jewel called behind me.

I grunted.

"Do you smell that?"

"I don't smell anything," I said tightly. Why did she have to talk? I didn't want to talk. I wanted to move. We had so much shit to do, and we hadn't even made it to the low town yet. It wasn't much farther now, but the closer we got, the longer it seemed to take.

"Huck!" she snapped. "Slow down! I smell something."

I sucked a hard breath in through my nose. "There's nothing. Stop wasting time." My voice echoed from somewhere older than my existence, and a miracle occurred.

Jewel listened.

I glanced back to find her glaring at me, her lips pressed into a firm, straight line. Flora said an alpha command couldn't be ignored, but I hadn't realized she meant it so literally. Jewel had to listen, and I couldn't even find it in myself to smile about it.

Instead, I pressed forward, and we didn't take long to reach the first trailers wedged between the trees. Low wolves drifted forward like moths to a light. They stepped out onto porches and appeared from the woods. I recognized at least a dozen from the bar, and most of them looked like it hadn't been long since they left it. They staggered forward, using the trees for support.

I ground my teeth. We were so fucked. "I am the blood of the first," I said. "I am assuming my rightful place. You have one hour to gather whatever basics you can carry. All weapons should be brought to me."

Murmurs spread through the crowd; fear permeated the air. None moved to do as told, though I hadn't commanded them...yet.

"Where are we going?" a child asked. He couldn't have been much older than Briar, and he met my gaze with a fearlessness reserved only for the innocent.

"Someplace better."

"Which is?" a man called.

Whatever he saw in my face made him avert his eyes. My wolf wasn't in the mood to convince him. I was taking back what was mine. I was alpha. Anyone who followed Titan was a rogue. "North."

"Good luck," another man spoke. "There's a blockade that says you won't make it into mid town."

My eye twitched. "A blockade?"

"Sentinels began setting it up hours ago. No one can pass it, not even for work. I tried. They've got some of the biggest guns I've ever seen." He took us in, shaking his head slowly. "Nobody here has any weapons. You want us to march to slaughter."

"Let me worry about the guns. You just get your shit together. We leave in forty-five minutes."

* * *

At the end of June, when the sun was at its hottest, and the flowers had begun to die, hundreds of wolves headed north to do the same.

"Huck?" Jewel said. "Can't you smell that?"