and the other was missing an eye and an ear. They were both crying, choking on their own blood. Reid wanted to go for them, but I barked at him, and he retreated. Thorn growled at the women one last time, and when he was certain they weren’t going to move, he turned to me, waiting for instructions.
We were all Alphas of the Woodward pack. Chase had been too, and now he was gone, leaving us to lead our people. The pack was our legacy, passed down to us by our father. We’d promised to make him proud, and it shattered me to know that I had failed him. We had failed him. We hadn’t been there when the humans had executed our brother like he was nothing, like he didn’t have a soul and didn’t deserve to live. But the hunters were at my feet now, pissing themselves as they watched me, Reid, and Thorn with terror in the eyes they still had, wondering what we were going to do next. To them, we were wolves, nothing more. Unnaturally huge, strong wolves, but animals nonetheless. Fools. If we’d been normal wolves, we wouldn’t have even attacked them. Wolves rarely attacked humans, and especially not in their homes. We were something else, and as minutes passed and the women stopped screaming, I could see it in their eyes that they were starting to understand. They were beginning to catch on to the fact that what was going to happen to them was worse than death.
The males were shivering in fear. One of them had pissed himself, but the other gave off an even fouler odor. I stepped over them, motioning to Thorn to take over. Thorn positioned himself over them, and the men whimpered pathetically at the sight of Thorn’s sheer size. I approached the women. Two of them were middle-aged, and seemed to be the wives of the pissing, shitting, sorry excuses of men crying in each other’s arms like babies. The third female, though… She was young. And oh, she was beautiful.
Long, yellow hair that fell on her narrow back in waves, eyes as blue as the summer sky at noon, soft, pale skin, a splatter of freckles on her nose and cheeks. I had to give it to the filthy humans – their females were delicious, juicy morsels that begged to be devoured. I stepped closer to her. One of the other women wrapped her arms around her, and I growled menacingly at her. She must have been her mother because she had the same blond hair and blue eyes.
“N-no,” the woman begged. “Go away! Leave her alone! Go away!”
I would’ve laughed, but in my wolf form, that wasn’t exactly a thing. I sneered in the woman’s face. She was weak. I could smell her fear.
“Mom, stop,” the beautiful bitch said. “I think he understands us.”
That took me slightly aback. If nothing else, the bitch was intuitive.
“Isabel, shut up. It’s an animal. We have to…” She was whispering now, looking around frantically. “Fire, wolves are afraid of fire…”
Oh, I would’ve laughed my broken heart out. I stepped away from the women and locked eyes with Reid. He immediately understood what I wanted from him, and he lunged at the three females, grabbed the young one named Isabel, and pulled her aside. For now, I wasn’t going to touch her. She was the daughter of the man who had killed my brother. I didn’t know what the other men were to her, but I could tell they were all family. She was going to watch as I tore them all apart. Limb by limb. It was what they deserved.
The two men had almost bled out. When I finished them off, I felt no real satisfaction. They didn’t fight me. I turned toward the women. By this point, Isabel was screaming and crying, begging me to stop. It was as if she truly believed I wasn’t just a wild animal and could understand her words. She was right. I did. No, I had no intention to show mercy to her family. Her mother stood up on shaky legs. Mildly amused, I allowed it. She reached for a blunt table knife that had fallen on the floor in the whole commotion and pointed it at me. I rolled my eyes at her, and that threw her off. She stared at me, mouth agape, finally accepting that yes, I wasn’t just an animal, and I was capable of higher thoughts and