The Wolf and His Queen

Chapter 10: Will We Get Caught?

Gabriel's POV:

To be honest, I actually could not believe that this was happening right now. I was not sure what to do as the one thing that I was not expecting, after what we had done earlier in the day, was to be found out this early in the game. I was almost frozen in my stance as I looked around at the rest of my pack members who were standing around this very cavern. However, I was thankful that my Commander had a sense of knowing what to do in tricky situations, especially the one in which we found ourselves. We were all shocked as to what he said next.

"Leave everything and head out to our pack house and ensure that you do it as quickly as you can," said the Commander with fierceness in his voice, when he continued in an even louder tone than the last words he just spoke. "Do it silently! You do not want me to punish you, the way I did the last member who disappointed me earlier today, I might add."

The look on the pack members' faces all understood what he meant by that. I was trying to realize what my Commander meant by what he said earlier, then I thought about it a bit before I had a reason come to mind. Earlier in the day, a member of the pack thought that he would take the abduction further than he was told to and bash a guard in the back of the head who was standing outside of the girls' door. He was told to knock him out with the cloth that he was provided with to use on the guard. He was not told to injure him any further other than by removing him from the hall and placing him in the closet under the stairs just inside the main foyer.

"It shall be done, my Commander," I said after I bowed at my Commander, and then I looked at the rest of the pack members that were standing around the room.

All at once, that is when everyone started to move towards the exit. No one spoke a word I might have added. He thought that he would take it further when he brought back a tuft of the guard's hair covered in blood on a small wooden bat that he pulled out of his back pocket. He bragged that he took down the mighty Marcus Miller and was the only one who was able to do so. I was told that he thought that this would earn him big bragging rights and a special place in sight of the Commander. Well, he earned something I might add to my own thoughts, and I bet he did not even see that reward coming.

Once the Commander walked into the room, however, and saw what he was holding in his hand, that was when things changed. I found out how he was caught overly bragging about it. The Commander, seeing all of this, was absolutely furious with him. I was not there to see all of this take place but was helping to secure the girl in the holding cell and heard this story from another member of the pack after this had already taken place. I knew that going against what the Commander told you to do was not in your best interest. The member should have known that from the very beginning, but as in any pack, you usually always have that one member who likes to push the envelope and thinks that they can get away with things. Until one day, they push way too far and find out that they have ended up on the wrong side of the glory stream.

As I stopped a moment to look around, I noticed that the rest of the men were leaving and heading out of the mine, down the main entryway toward the exit. I waited till just the Commander and I were left behind. The Commander walked back over to the chair and sat back down as I figured that his head had to be pounding after the impact on his head. I was not sure what he hit or if something went through the water and came in contact with him. Then that was when I then turned to the Commander and asked him something that I deemed very important as I walked over to where he was located.

"Who do you think could have been on our trail so fast?" I said as I approached him, as he was still sitting in the chair. Then that was when he broke eye contact with me before he answered.

"I do not know," he responded in a bit of an agitated voice. "However, we are not going to take any chances of running into any unwanted party guests as we are heading out of our area of hiding."

He stopped to take a breath and looked at the piece of cloth that he had been given earlier when it was placed on the side of his head earlier. This time his head wound was just about healed altogether. As for werewolves, we all had the ability to heal ourselves remarkably fast. The only issue with that was, the impact site still throbbed for a while after it was healed. I guess that was our mental reminder that we were injured and were not free from injury. I knew this as I was burned pretty badly once. I remember looking at the sight after I was healed, but I guess the muscles had a memory of their own and hurt for a decent amount of time after that was long healed. I did not want to see our Commander injured as it was he who had brought us through a lot of tough times. Then the Commander looks up at me as he starts to speak.

"As I am sure you already know," he started out, saying all before he took a brief pause to catch his breath, as he was not as young as he once was. "There is still a lot to do in preparations for announcing that the princess is dead. Then it would be time for the known leadership of the kingdom to change hands. This would soon fall on your sister's shoulders and that of my own daughter."

After he said that last part, he placed his hands on his knees as he pushed down in his attempt to rise to his feet. I dared not to help him at this point to reserve getting a sworn talking to as he may be older, but he did not lose any of his pride. I watched as he finally took a stance before he started walking over to where I was standing just a few feet away from him. I made sure to stand still and at attention while watching him the whole time. Once he reached me, he placed his hand on my shoulder and continued speaking and when he did, he looked straight into my eyes.

"Sheri is the current advisor to our own Kingdom of the Riverlands," he said as he took another pause and adjusted his stance. "As it was previously known to the now need-to-know, late Princess Rosalynn."

I knew that the Commander was working on a statement to have Sheri address the kingdom that their beloved princess was dead just as her parents were before her. He would definitely make a statement in regards to how The Guard and the famed pack, which was charged with the protection of the princess and that of the late king and queen, failed to do their job once again. They were supposed to be protecting that which mattered most. However, they failed and the Commander was going to make it well known that they were not to be trusted. If they could not protect our king and queen, or the princess because of that fact, then no one would be able to trust them ever again.

After hearing all of this information, when the time would soon come, whoever that pack had allied with would no longer choose to do so and break all ties with the once-famed pack and their so-called trusted leader, Derek Mathis. Oh, how I longed for the day that I thought sarcastically to myself, how I wished that I could be able to see the look on his face when that day was to come. I smiled inside just thinking about it. It was such a tragedy that her parents could not make it to see her return from afar though. We knew that the only way to get the princess to come home was to have word sent to her that her parents had been tragically killed on a peacekeeping mission. When this word was sent, we were sure not to give out many details about the reason surrounding their death but left it at that.

Rosalynn knew that her parents never did anything dangerous so we had to stage a little accident for them. This was to ensure that there were not going to be any mistakes in their escaping once captured and she might have found out about it. So we killed two birds with one stone by ensuring their parents would not ruin our plans for our family, the Marks, by taking their very own kingdom from them. The Grace family has run that kingdom for far too long and the Marks family never received the proper credit for making sure all things were as they should be and everyone has come to know. It was time for a new ruler, one that we could control, starting with my little sister, Sheri.

"All clear!" said Oliver as he came into the room and walked over to us as I was standing there with the Commander and then we both turned to face him. "We checked and all the remaining tunnels have been searched and there was no one else that we could find in our own pack."

On a separate note, I did want to admit to my own thoughts about whether I trusted Oliver or not. And the reason why I did so is that he was the one who had betrayed the famous Derek Mathis, who was the leader of his pack and the leader of The Guard. The wolf pack that was supposed to be guarding the princess failed miserably. I almost laughed out loud at this thought but struggled to control my thoughts and had to clear my throat to keep from laughing openly. I was not pleased, but I knew that we did what we had to in our times of desperation.

"However," he said and then he continued speaking. "We even tried to find a way around the tunnel that caved in to get to the holding room but that path was blocked off due to a massive cave-in, and then the ground gave out underneath us and we even lost a member."

After he had finished saying what was pertinent and needed to be said, we then all headed out to the entrance together without any other words spoken. Once we reached the entrance, I realized that I had forgotten to blow out the lights in the entrance and down the main tunnel so that no one could easily find the entrance to the mine. After the flood, the other pack members found the lanterns and lit the path so that we could see our way through those dark tunnels. I knew that this glow could be seen if you were standing in the proper location outside, which worried me.

Just then, something could be heard not so far off in the woods and we knew that there was no time to waste in blowing out a few lights. Instead, we all needed to get to the road as fast and as quietly as we could before we had any unwanted guests preventing us from leaving. We all knew what this whole thing meant to me and The Commander and we did not want anything that could cause an unwanted fight on our hands. We did not know it, at that current moment in time, as there were still a lot of variables that were still unknown. One is especially the fact that she was even dead or alive. The fact remained in the back of my mind and I was shocked and still hoped that she was done away with and not a worry anymore.

Back to the matter at hand, and to ensure that we got to where we needed to go quickly, we all shifted into our wolves, grabbed our clothes in our own mouths, and ran quickly to the awaiting vehicles. We did not want them to find our clothing left behind as that might have left more clues than necessary as they had already found out where we were in the woods. Will we get caught before it's time? In reality, we did not want to spoil our plans, on account of getting found out, before the time was ready for us to do what we needed to accomplish ourselves.

We had way too much to do and way too much to get done to let one little dog fight halter, which was most important to ensuring that the Marks took their proper place as leaders of the Riverland's Kingdom. That was that kingdom for ourselves instead of doing what we do now and never receiving gratitude for it. It was our time to shine and we were not going to let pride get in our way of a grand future that was soon to come.