Betrothed to the Alpha

CHAPTER 5

There was a commotion both outside and inside the manor. The town folk outside were trying to break the front gate down and the people gathered in the drawing room downstairs were baring fangs at claws at each other.

“Derrick, stay with your wife, do not let anyone get past you. Do not let them know what exactly is going on outside even if they ask you. Wait until after the delivery….”

“Father, wait, let me come with you”

“No!” Mr Sullivan was unnecessarily stern and loud.

“She… they need you more than anybody right now. My worst fears might have just been brought to life.

Oliver, come with me”

Oliver now already having had back his breath looked longingly at Derrick as he turned to follow Mr Sullivan.

“But, father where would you be going.”

Mr Sullivan stopped for a brief second and adjusted his coat.

“To do my job”

By the time Mr Sullivan reached the stairs overlooking the drawing room, the people in the courtyard were almost at each other’s throats.

He turned to Oliver.

“I’ll be walking down there and you’d be coming with me. Make sure to stay close at all times. Werewolves haven’t had this much tension in a long time and we can be quite… instinctive.

Oliver swallowed hard.

The shouting of the crowd in the drawing room had devolved into snarling and growls when Mr Sullivan finally spoke.

“SILENCE!”

It wasn’t just the booming sound of Mr Sullivan’s voice that seemed to stop the tension. Oliver could have sworn he felt the sound rattle his bones and travel up his spine and froze him.

“Have you all forgotten why we are here?”

Everyone had either turned up to look at Mr Sullivan as he came down the stairs with the young human or hung their face low in either submission or shame.

Oliver had been friends with Derrick Sullivan for as long as he could remember. His mother had been a maid in the Sullivan’s household eve before she had him. The werewolves were the most respected of the town and Antonius Sullivan was the most respected of them all. Not many werewolves were as close to the Sullivan’s as he was. He saw Derrick’s first transformation, saw him grow in strength as they both grew up and went on hunting escapades together and with the family. But tonight was the closest he came to feeling the power of a werewolf and a Sullivan. Especially since there had never been any reason for conflict.

“Have you all forgotten where we are and why we are here, or have your anger overruled your judgement alongside your respect for our history and our very way of life??

The hands of the Ryders have been the hands that have ushered all of our respective families into this world and that is a fact. What I find flimsy is that you would tear down this house on mere allegations that those same hands that once brought us life has taken that same life from us.

I share your anger and pain, but we are not rabid mutts, we have a way of life and a way to settle such matters and punish wrongdoers. And that will be done, I swear it.

But if you think for a moment that I would allow you besmirch my grandson’s arrival with such Ill omens then you are gravely mistaken.”

From the minute he opened his mouth to speak these cold words from his mouth, an even colder chill ran down the spines of every living thing within the sound of his voice. But the old wolf wasn’t done yet.

“Justice will be dealt, and judgment shall be passed, your grievances will be heard, all shall be addressed. But only after I have word that my daughter in-law and daughter of the Ryder family has birthed her cub.”

With that even more heads were hung in either submission or shame. Although Mr Sullivan could hear snickering and low grumbling. Still he continued.

“Now we shall hold her own and guarantee he safety of….”

BANG!!!

That was unmistakably the sound of the Ryder gate coming down and what followed was the sound of howling and stampeding.

All eyes turned to Mr Sullivan

“You’re all noble men. I trust in your capabilities whether you are werewolf, witch or human. Calm your people’s as I have done”

With that he turned around and hurried back upstairs along with Oliver. They found Derrick talking to Anna Ryder, Monica’s mother.

“Father…”

“Anna, you have to get Monica out of here this instant”

“That’s impossible, Antonius. We can’t move her mid-labour. It was complicated at first but we are close.”

“father...”

And then they heard the main entrance into the drawing room blow open and the sound of unraveling chaos.

“Derrick, there’s no time. I believe in your strength and wisdom. Find a way get them out of here.”

“But father…”

Mr Sullivan held his arm and his gaze as understanding passed between them.

“its alright, Son”

He hurried back down towards the drawing room to see the undiluted chaos as more and more of the mob poured in through the broken entrance.

In a split second two large wolves, fur as black as the night with golden ingots for eyes flew straight at him.

Mr Sullivan might have been over a century old but unlike humans….with age came power with the werewolves.

Mr Sullivan moved as swift as the wind his blue eyes shimmering like the sky at noon. He stepped around one of the lunging wolves and grabbed the scruff of it’s nape and slammed it into the other one.

It drew attention from some of the others in the mob and while some decided it was a bad move to make any more lunges at the oldest werewolf they knew, others saw a giant threat that opposed them. A threat that needed to be put down.

A green tendril of light stuck him from behind. It only got an angry grimace out of him as he backhanded d witch through a door into the study.

Mr Sullivan looked up and saw a giant white wolf form being overrun by a number of black wolves and witches.

And so he leaped, transforming in mid air into a ten foot long, 6 foot high ravenous beast and pounced on the flank of the attackers of Corvus Ryder.

Around them was utter chaos; fangs and claws, flashing tendrils of light from the witches and the occasional gun shot.

Derrick was anxious. He could hear the chaos, his dad was down there. Mr Sullivan was unrivaled in power and the moonstones were easily the stronger breed but they were outnumbered. And probably soon they’d come upstairs. He was torn between defending his wife and his father.

A familiar form approached him from the edge of the courtyard. It was a humanoid form calmly working towards him.

Derricks claws and fangs were already elongating.

It was unmistakable.

“put away those things Derrick. They won’t be of any help to you”

Nicholas Brisbane had come to visit.