Runaway Rogue

Chapter Two: Caspian's POV

Caspian watched the rogue who smirked at him from behind bars. She might have been a normal looking girl if she hadn't stunk so badly and if her teeth had seen a brushing in the last year. Sometimes, when he saw rogues, he thought that it was a damn shame. The werewolf mind was not meant to be packless, it made some of the best men crazy. Every once in a while, he could see the person they could have been, the one who had gotten lost.

But this woman didn't cause those feelings to arise within him. There were rogues who couldn't bend to the rules of pack life and needed to be on their own. They kept to themselves. Then, there were rogues whose only need was to dismantle and destroy packs and everything they represented. He knew which one she was.

And when he saw people like her, he remembered. He recalled what it was like to watch his then alpha scream for his fallen mate. He remembered leaving his parents somewhere he thought they would be safe and coming back to lifeless bodies. He thought of the children crying as he tried to console them, their parents lying in pools of their own blood.

They had moved off the packlands where the slaughter had happened, Forest believing that it would be the best thing for the pack, but the memories followed. Forest took on his father's role as alpha. Caspian moved in as his beta, far earlier than either of them expected. The pack was re-established with new homes and new businesses. Life went on. Except for those who didn't make it.

"Are you going to sit there and stare at me all night?" the woman asked, flashing her rotting teeth.

"Are you going to tell me why you wanted to attack my pack?" Caspian replied.

Her grin turned feral. "We know how this game goes, don't we? I give you enough information, you let me go. So, tell me exactly what you want to know and I will tell you, then you'll put that fancy key in this lock and let me go," she bargained.

Maybe, at one point, they would have struck a deal. A long time ago, Caspian used to marvel at the rogue brain, used to want to know what made it tick, what made it yearn for blood. That was before. And he had been lucky to spot this rogue prowling after a little girl who could have been no more than six.

Now, his pack had a strict no tolerance policy.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," Caspian sighed, rising to his feet. He probably could have gotten some information out of her, but over the years, he realized it was useless. How could one anticipate what an unstable mind was going to do? Each wolf was different, each one had its own mind and motives. He also wasn't in the business of false promises. The kindest thing he could do for her is not tell her that she would be dead by sunrise. Her food had been poisoned. She would fall asleep softly, then never wake again.

She called something after him, swore at him, cursed him for leaving her in that dark cell for another night. She didn't know that it was well into the wee hours of the morning now, didn't know that she wouldn't make it through the night.

Despite his exhaustion and the unusually late hour for him, Caspian pressed on after he exited the compound. He could have waited until morning, surely, but he knew Forest would be awake all night, even if he said otherwise. So, Caspian crept into the alpha's house quietly.

It was no surprise that Forest was sitting at the kitchen table, glaring down at a map before him. Forest was pale, dark circles beneath his eyes. His body seemed to be begging for rest, his whole form hunched forward.

"Hey," Forest greeted, smiling a little when Caspian seated himself at the table, plucking an apple from the fruit bowl. "Don't tell me you're still up because of pack business. It could have been dealt with in the morning."

"You're still up," Caspian pointed out. He brushed a hand through his medium brown hair and jerked back when a small chunk of moss fell onto the table. Christ, he needed a shower and a change of clothes.