Born of Blood

Chapter 10

They traveled swiftly.

The snow was steady in the frigid November air. The mountain was white, the native trees branches bowed with the weight of of the incessant flurries passing through the Sierra Nevada mountains. There was no bright sun to break across the beautiful canopy. Dark, grey, snow clouds covered the peak of the mountain, fog rolling low to the ground around the thick, Giant Sequoia, tree trunks. There were no birds singing on that early morning, there were no animals scurrying across the snow ridden floor. It was a time for hibernation and migration, something that the Soranę knew all too much about.

Five men and three women traveled through the landscape. Bare feet broke through the steadily rising snow covering the forest floor. Strong, tan, legs bunching with muscle supported just as vicious looking torsos. Covered with animal pelt, the l muscular men cut through the winter as though it had no effect on them. The snow melted on impact with their skin, their arms breaking branches as they marched through the thick of the wilderness.

The women stayed strong against the storm they traveled in. Their muscles twitching against the cold, though their faces showed no sign of discomfort in their environment. The Soranę were a winter pack, traveling from the Rogue River–Siskiyou Forest of Oregon. They experienced weather worse than this in their territory, with winds reaching up to two-hundred miles per hour, and snow falling up to four feet in one day. Their winters are harsh, they are brutal, and the packs small numbers and inability to tolerate weakness, were the largest show of it.

Soranę was expecting one new child to be born this year, and with that birth their numbers would rise to twenty-four. They were a small pack, but vicious hunters. And with a medium sized territory in the Rogue River–Siskiyou Forest, it was only right that they had to fight other packs from trying to capitalize at their expense.

One of those packs they had fought so viciously against, was Malkún.

Adrienne, a tall woman covered in the finest of pelts, one of which included a wolf head covering the top of her raven hair, stood in the center of her protection. Her long legs easily stepped over stones, and found purchase on the slick, powdery ground. Amber eyes scoured the earth as she dissected her new territory- potential, new territory. Her body wasn't as muscular as those around her, and not as covered in scars, showing her status to those who knew. She was an Alpha Female.

A Luna.

And identifiable based on her scent, she was unmarked, unmated.

She had reached the scent line, she could smell him, Alpha Augustus Malkún, and his son.

Apollo; she rolled the name through her tongue.

Her men and warrior women braced themselves in a protective circle around their Luna, waiting to shift until commanded, Adrienne knew what would come if unknown wolves stepped into a powerful territory like Malkún. It took mere moments for the Boundary Wolves to arrive, growling and snapping their muzzles toward Adrienne. Her amber eyes stilled them, her silent team worked to walk her forward.

The Warrior Wolves of Malkún slowly stopped snapping, getting the scent of the Soranę pack, the smallest of them all shifted.

"What business do you have here?" His voice projected over the flurries of snow hitting the trees and ground around them.

"I've been requested by Alpha Augustus Malkún." Adrienne called to them.

It was a silent moment, the shifted pack member looking over the group that traveled with Adrienne. Their strong gazes bore into the young man, his eyes sizing them up, before he nodded as he waved off the other wolves. They snapped their jaws in threat a few more times before rushing through the trees back to their posts.