Chapter 33: those who seek

A dirty tan-colored wolf stared down at the warrior training fields of one of the largest, most powerful packs on the continent. Two wolves Comhnyall knew were walking among sparring pairs. They were not the Beta he was seeking.

His wolf snorted that they thought they were warriors, their efforts were pathetic, he had fought better than that 5 years ago when he had still been a pup and had earned his first 12 kill warrior marks. The two Betas, one young and one older, were yelling at groups of males who relied on their wolves to fight for them. Some of them shifted so slowly they had to pause the fight to wait for them to finish. He lifted his lip and bared his teeth, he could kill every one of them.

It looked like what his grandmother had said about the brown furs was true. The night they had attacked their pack, the brown furs had brought their best warriors. Warriors who had paid for the mistake of attacking the warrior wolves of the stone caves with their blood and lives. But Comhnyall had learned something else, they had hired a full third of those who had died that night. Mercenary wolves who had no honor and lived to kill, but even that had not been able to overcome the Wemyss warriors in combat, or even the shewolves and children. Only through the use of witchcraft and treachery, had they won leaving less than a fifth of their number alive, and all of those had been gravely wounded.

As Nyall laid under a cedar tree to wait for dusk, he dreamed of a pair of amber eyes, glowing like the dawn. Then of the wolf he had killed in front of his mate and pup only a day ago, or was it longer. Time meant nothing to him, he was hunting. He had planned to kill them too, but the horror of the shewolf’s expression as he made the wolf confess his sins against the Moon had changed his mind. She was innocent of his crimes and had turned her back on her mate after learning the truth from his own lips. He remembered every moment in the a vivid dream.

The dark haired wolf, carried a bag of groceries into a modest house, a toddler pup had run out to the car trailing his mother to get the rest. The wolf’s arm hung almost uselessly by his side. Comhnyall knew this wolf and who had maimed him and when he was maimed. He had spent days following him and others around the Wemyss territory. He laid in the woods across from the house, watching. The male, named Paul, came back out to close the trunk of the SUV, and turned slowly feeling a predator’s eyes on him. He shuddered slightly as he scanned the treeline looking for a wolf he had no chance of seeing or stopping.

Death had come for this murderer of pups and females, and both of them knew it. Nyall crept up to the SUV and pawed the wiring harness and ignition wires, slicing them with razor sharp claws. As the Moon rose high overhead, he sang the warhowl of the Wemyss. Light in the house came on and the male rushed the confused female and the child out to the now useless vehicle. Comhnyall savored his panic and scent of his fear as he slipped around the house. The family was half way back to the front door when Comhnyall’s wolf hit Paul with enough force to break bones. The shewolf screamed and curled herself around her child. The male rolled to his feet, wheezing from the broken ribs. Nyall let him step between death and his family, debating if he should kill him first, or them first so Paul could watch.

"Please... please let them go. She doesn’t know anything about that night and the life I left behind. Please don’t do this, have mercy,” Paul begged.

Nyall shifted and the speed of his shift shocked the mercenary.

"Please Wemyss, mercy."

Growling, Comhnyall demanded, “Mercy? Like ye showed tha children of meh pack mercy? Ore tha females an’ tha elderly? How dare ye ask meh fur mercy?”

"Wha... what is he talking about?” The shewolf’s voice was scared, but there was a quality of courage to it as she spoke up. “What did you do?” She demanded of her mate, her voice getting stronger.

"I.. It... it was a job, just a job... it wasn’t supposed to be like that,” his voice sounded desperate. “Please, Wemyss. I deserve whatever you decide. But she is innocent.”

Nyall’s snarl sounded more like a roar, “S, were tha 317 of meh pack you murdered fur pay. Tha pups who had their throats cut an’ were left ta be frozen ta the ground with their own blood were innocent. Aire ye afraid tha hounds will come fur ye after I kill ye family so ye can kno whet et es like ta feel everyone ye love die?”

The shewolf’s eyes widened in horror and she stared between them, then she looked at Paul as if she was just seeing the murder in him for the first time. “You killed pups?!?! How many?”

He opened and closed his mouth helplessly several times without speaking. She slapped him hard enough to stagger him, “How many pups did you and your crew murder, Paul?!?”

He choked out a sob, “All of them.” He gasped a deep breath, grabbing her arm, his tone desperate, “I’m sorry, Eve. I helped kill all of them, all the pups, all the females, all the warriors and elder males, everyone! My nightmares are all from that one night! When I left you the last time, and you came and found me, and I was so drunk I couldn’t buy another whiskey. That night was why I left, why I started drinking again. They hired me and bunch of other mercenary wolves to help kidnap a shewolf for an alpha’s mate. Only then they told us we were to kill everyone else we found. Two warriors refused and they killed them in front of the rest of us. They didn’t just kill them, they slaughtered them and threw them overboard into the frozen sea. They told us they would kill our families too. Do it or die, that was the choice, then the witch with them made us all drink something vile. It made us want to kill. Goddess forgive me, I enjoyed it. I didn’t care when I was hurt, I didn’t care when a bloody wolf that look just like this one ripped my shoulder and arm half off. I just wanted to kill more. Please Eve, please forgive me. I’m not that wolf.”

"You killed pups... All those years of trying to have a pup, and praying the Goddess would have mercy on us and you were going out and killing pups for money.” Eve’s tone reminded Nyall of Moire’s when she got mad.

"It wasn’t like that. I admit I wasn’t a good wolf before I met you, but I wanted only the best for you. So when I got hired for one last job, the money was too good to say no. It paid for this house... and everything you wanted... and they gave us our son” He stopped as she backed away from him.

"What do you mean they gave us our son?” Her voice sounded terrified as she clutched the pup.

The wolf bowed his head, “After you brought me home, I went to the Beta who hired me. I was going to tell everyone what happened that night, but that pack has witches, and the witch asked me if I would keep quiet if they helped me break the curse and have a pup. I told them I wouldn’t use the breeders, because I love only you, Eve. I wouldn’t do that to you. So, she gave me a potion to give you and it worked. Please, please, I did it all for you.” He was on his knees at the end, pawing at her legs with his good arm. “I did terrible things, and I’m sorry. I just wanted a good life for us.”

Nyall watched the wolf begging his mate for her forgiveness before his death, and the darkness lifted a little. He would have done anything for Moire’s happiness, for her forgiveness, well almost anything, he would not have done what this wolf did.

Eve drew herself away from Paul, holding her sleeping pup in her arms. She looked at Comhnyall, “My mother warned me he was no good, but I didn’t listen cause he was my mate. I even took him back after he abused me, left me time and again. I was a fool. I am very sorry for your loss, wolf.” Turning to the wolf on his knees, her face was so sad and angry at the same time, “May the Moon have mercy on your soul. I survived your rejection once, I will survive your death now.”

"Eve, wait.”

"NO! You murdered pups, Paul. Not warriors, whole families! Everything in our lives is paid for with innocent blood. You lied to me and I won’t have my son raised like that. I won’t have him grow up to be the kind of wolf you are. Goodbye.” She turned and carried the pup in the house, slamming the door as he sobbed in the yard.

"Just get it over with,” the wolf begged.

Nyall stared at him coldly in the moonlight, “If ye want yur family ta be spared, ye’ll tell me where the Beta who hired ye es an’ where yur gray haired friend went, tha one who scarred tha Alpha’s daughter.”

"Uh, I...I d-don’t know...”

"Don’t lie ta me, Paul,” Nyall snarled. “I ‘eard ye both talking ta Beta Lucius when ye came back ta see tha’ we were all dead.”

The wolf gasped, then stood up, straightening himself. “If I tell you, you have to let his mate live.”

"It doesn’t matter I will find ‘im,” Nyall growled, he was beginning to feel the darkness settle around him at the thought of Moire’s scars. “The Alpha’s daughter ye were supposed to steal away, she died from tha wounds she got that night with mo pup in her belly. It took hours. I lived her sufferin’ weth ’er, she was mo ceile, meh true mate.”

The wolf’s eyes were wide at the realization of what he had lived through, but he held his ground, "And she’s my sister. I don’t want her to suffer more than she has to. Promise you’ll kill him quick and spare her then I’ll tell you. You’re a good wolf, an honorable warrior, a Wemyss wolf. Please, she’s the only family I have left.”

Nyall’s wolf snarled and paced inside him, wanting nothing more than to stain his teeth with this wolf’s blood, to spend hours killing him slowly, but he was running out of places to search and needed information. “Aye, I’ll spare your family if only because ye did nah spare mine. I’ll kill ye quickly so yur mate doesn’t suffer the hours long death I suffered weth mo’ ciele.”

Paul had looked up at the Moon, tears ran down his face. “Thank you, Wemyss. You are a better wolf than I.”

Nyall opened his eyes, he had slept a few hours, there were no patrols so far into the territory. The Des Rues were as lax in their security as they were in their training. The wolf told him where to go and also where to find the two Betas who had come to the Wemyss territory, and the Beta who had led the attack. Killing the Beta who had lead the attack would be easy, all Comhnyall had to do was find him. He had removed the wolf’s head quickly, so his mate wouldn’t suffer as much from his death. It was the first one he had killed that way. The others he had killed slowly.

Days later, the wolf who had taken Moire’s eye had abandoned his mate and fled like the dog his was, but another had taken his place when he had the poor luck of coming to visit his friend to warn him that death was coming for them. Then Comhnyall had turned and headed into the heartland below the great lakes. After he finished the coward, the First Beta of Des Rues waited for his claws, as his teeth waited to be stained with his blood. He stretched and then slept more waiting for the Moon to set. Seeking his enemy could wait until the full darkness just before dawn.

‘Only two left, Moire, an’ I’ve killed them all fur ye an’ our pup. Fur our family an’ our pack.′

Delilah and Kaiyou walked thorough the airport of one of the largest cities in the world, they hurried to make the connecting flight north. She had come back to the continent of her birth by a circuitous route, stopping at the two oldest Temples of the Moon, Petra and Delphi. Neither had information to help her so she had sought the aid of the vampires and their ancient repository on the island of Patmos. They had refused to see her at first but one of the ‘monks’, an ancient vampire named Viktor came to her hotel the last night with a scroll.

Delilah had thought what transpired for the entire flight from Athens.

Viktor read the account, translating it from the ancient vampire Bacchusi dialect, a language that dated back to the same time period as the Lycaeon temple dialect the werewolves used. The scroll was from the first years of the exploration of the new world. It described an empire that burned the hearts and blood of their victims, they believed the soul of their high priest was passed from one generation to the next. They worshiped a deity called Huitzilopochtli ,the sun-war god who demanded blood sacrifices daily. The monk who had made the original recording had only escaped and survived because he was a vampire. He had spent days observing the worship and practices of the cult before fleeing into the jungle. It was nearly dawn when the robed vampire finished the translation.

“Thank you for reading this to me,” Delilah said softly. Her brow furrowed with concern, vampires never did anything for nothing, so she asked, “Why did you bring it? What do you want in exchange?”

Viktor stared at her quietly, he looked deceptively young but that was the nature of vampires. “My Goddess sent me, she woke me at dusk, led me to this scroll and said to read it to the sister of the Augur. Is it true, does an Augur live, do you know her?”

Delilah nodded, “We helped rescue her children from a group of rogues who wished to sell them to the one my Goddess calls the Sunwolf. He was going to sacrifice them. He worships a sun god of war and blood. He is seeking to lead the wolves away from the Moon Goddess and he, along with his witches, use the blood of vampire children to give themselves power. The Augur Lanea and her children are safe now, hidden. But this wolf is elusive and I cannot see him through the Tides, so I am seeking other resources to learn of him in the hopes of finding a way to defeat him.”

“And what does the Augur say of this sunwolf?”

“She says he is an old soul who wears a new skin. We have both seen that he drinks and burns the blood of both our peoples to restore his flesh. He is evil beyond anything either of us have encountered.”

Viktor bowed his head, and was quiet for several moments, his voice so quiet only wolf ears could hear it.“My sister was an Augur. She told me a day would come when a burning wolf would seek to enslave the world, he would burn our blood to steal the gifts of our Goddess and eat the hearts of his own kind to destroy the faithful of their Goddess. After a thousand years, he has finally come.”

Before Viktor bid them farewell, Kaiyou had told Viktor how to find the hidden underground city where the Augur now lived. He had vanished in the hazy fog of the morning as the sun tried to break through the clouds, dappling the sea with light.

The bump of their plane landed in the snow territory of the Greater Montreal pack woke Delilah. Later as Leon drove and Kaiyou talked of their trip, Delilah closed her eyes again, seeing the serene scenery of their last morning on Patmos. Imagining the sun dancing on the water, she started to drift back to sleep.

Seeking a way to defeat the Sunwolf seemed like an impossible task now that the queen-to-be was dead, but she had to find a way, she prayed the Goddess would help her as she finally fell asleep.