The People's Alpha ✔

32: Back to the 14th Century

By the time I came to, the battle was over. Backup had arrived, for real this time, and the remaning rogues had slunk back into the forest.

There was the usual parade. Spotlights. But with Thunder Falls oddly absent. They had sent out a message that there had been an unexpected delay and they would be here as soon as possible.

A sombre mood had settled by the time dawn broke. Salmon Creek had lost four wolves and Thurgood two. Brian was still missing, presumed kidnapped by the rogues.

The main hall of the pack house was packed; the crowd spilled out onto the village square outside. Pretty much all the packs in a 50-kilometre radius had come. Nobody seemed in the mood for a gathering. People were huddled in their own packs, speaking as quietly as possible, standing outside making phone calls, smoking.

What seemed like my entire pack had also come. Even Gerta had come. She was outside in the triage centre, treating the wounded.

Tim had also come. Now that Brian was missing he was the de facto beta. He had been on a training camp with Lister and so had missed out on the last few weeks; old man Anderson was filling him in. He had be surprisingly restrained towards me, considering what had unfolded last night. Maybe he was waiting for the right moment. That was definitely a possibility.

Laura was here. Her motorbike was propped against a tree outside. "Thank Monagh you're okay," she said, wrapping me in an embrace. "Evan says he wants to come back for the mid-sem holidays."

"Now is absolutely not the time," I looked outside, through the huddled, whispering masses, through the open front door, at the bodies of the rogues, laid out in rows in the square outside the pack house, next to the white tent of the triage centre. Their peculiar sweet smell was still strong in the air. It was getting more cloying now that the carcasses were starting to decompose. Something Kaden had said last night. Wolves that smelled like humans.

The sweet smell of human flesh.

I had only smelled it once before, a long time ago. The spoilt son of an Alpha whose name I had long forgotten had received a brand-new BMW M3 for his birthday. Naturally the first thing he did was wrap it around a tree while drag racing with his mates, just before the turn-off of our pack, at two in the morning. By the time we got to the scene there was little more to do than to put out the flames. The air had been filled with the stench of burning flesh.

I thought that the smell had been familiar. Now I knew why.

I suddenly had a moment of clarity. I dialled a number. The official number of my own pack. "Hello. This is the Shadow Bluff Pack. How can we help you?"

"Mike? You're the only one left, right?"

"Yes, Alpha."

"OK. Mike. Get Stone River to watch over the pack."

"But-"

"Don't worry about it. My orders. We've got fuck all worth stealing anyway. I have a mission for you."

"Yes, Alpha."

"I want you to drive to the bus depot as fast as you can. There's a packet of mince in the staff fridge. You know where that is?"

"I'm not allowed to go in the staff room."

"But you know where it is."

"Yes."

"Get the mince and get it here as fast as you can."

"Yes, Alpha."

I put down the phone and headed to the centre of the meeting hall, where Thurgood and a bunch of the other pack leadership were discussing the attack in hushed tones. It was obvious to them, too, that this was no ordinary rogue attack. These rogues were well-fed, even though they did not smell like pack wolves. and their aggression seemed no longer attributable this to the panacea of rogue discontent.