Obsidian Night Pack

59

Alaric's POV

"Shit, that's it," I mumbled to myself.

"What, you go something?" Brett asked as he stood up and walked around my desk to get a look at the papers in front of me.

"What is this?" To anyone else looking at the papers, they looked like a bunch of jumbled up numbers that meant nothing. Random numbers, but they held so much more meaning to them.

I was barely 15 when my father got word. There was a pack whose members were slowly disappearing and no one realized it until it was too late.

~Flashback~

"Alaric, come look at this." My father called me over to him as he placed the pieces of paper down in front of me.

"Tell me what this is."

"These are the population recorder for the Iron Providence pack from last year."

"And this one." My father moved another paper in front of me.

"Population recorders from three years ago, same pack." This information meant nothing to me. Every Alpha has to fill out certain records every year about the population of their pack. If someone other than my father were looking at those reports I could imagine they would have missed it.

The population fluctuates for every pack. Depending on if the pack is known to start fights and lose them or if the pack is known as a peaceful one where new mates can settle down. However, for this pack the Iron Providence pack their population always decreased. One could assume it was due to the loss of warriors in battle or rogue attacks on average pack members. And that's what most other packs thought. The thing was no one read these reports let alone took interest in them. Most packs filed them away or discarded them entirely.

Unlike my father who took it upon himself to review every document on other packs. It was like he always expected to find the worst in others. So, it never surprised him when he did.

Such as when he discovered that Castle had infested a pack and was killing off its members to obtain eternal youth and live forever. My father took it upon himself to always do something about these personal hells that occurred in the world around him. This pack, the Iron Providence pack, was no different.

Because my father noticed that their population was decreasing meant nothing on its own. It was the fact that he knew they hadn't been involved in any battles or scandals to decrease their population that made him dig deeper.

"This pack, Alaric, there are rumors about them." My father said to me as he leaned back in his chair as if he was mulling over all the possible transgressions this pack was involved in.

"What are people saying?" I asked more out of obligation than curiosity.

"They say, those who are mated into the Iron Providence pack will become wood for the rest of the fire."

"Who says that?" That was another thing about my father, his information reach was limitless. It was as if he could pull facts from thin air or a lead right out from the ground beneath him. He always had eyes and ears everywhere. It's where most of the rumors of him being a tyrant came from.

"Some friends I have in dark places." To this day I don't know what he meant, but either way the information his so-called friends gave him panned out.

The further my father dug into the Iron Providence pack the more he discovered. Pack members were disappearing, but there were certain types of members that had gone missing. Newborn pups, the elderly, and lastly the dead. Yes, the bodies of deceased pack members were gone. The most concerning part of it all were that it seemed as if the Iron Providence pack didn't care, but that only angered my father more.