Alphess: An Angel of Death

The Plea

We decided to catch a bush plane out of Alaska and into Vancouver before running down the rest of the way. It would already be a long journey – why fight with the mountainous terrain of Alaska? It took us three days to get close to nearing the border. We settled in a thicket of trees in no-man’s-land for the night before we would edge down between the Olympia Pack and the Skyfall Pack’s territory.

Vanessa rubbed her sore feet near the small campfire, groaning. “I haven’t run like that in ages. Everything hurts.”

Lydia laughed, giving her a shove. “Shut up, you ran faster than I did the entire time!”

I lifted my lips in a small smile, shaking my head. “The underbrush certainly tore up my feet. But, we’re nearly there.”

Vanessa nodded, yawning and leaning back to lay flat. “Is it okay if I take second shift?”

“Sure; I’ll take first,” I said. I was on-edge being this close to my old home; I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep even if I tried. Just a few short hours away was what was left of my blood family, and she was hurting.

Lydia nodded, curling up to sleep for a bit too. I let them sleep until the early tendrils of the sun began to light up the sky, just barely turning the woods from pitch black into a milky gray. Vanessa startled awake, peering around. She frowned, looking over at me. “You didn’t wake me up.”

“Couldn’t sleep. Figured someone should,” I said.

She huffed. “Will you try for at least a couple hours?”

“Fine,” I agreed, settling down next to the embers of the fire and closing my eyes.  I was just dozing off when I heard Lydia stir, shifting to go hunt for a quick breakfast. I was thankful to wake up to the smell of roasting rabbit. I shifted up to a sitting position and untangled my hair with my fingers. “Thanks for finding food.”

Lydia shrugged. “No big deal.” She offered me a stick with some roasted meat on it. I took it from her and leaned against a tree as I began to eat.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” Vanessa asked.

“We snake down the unclaimed land between Olympia and Skyfall,” I said. “It’s only a few miles wide and weaves around, so we have to be careful to continue watching for scent markers. But it shouldn’t be a big issue. I want to head to The High Ground first, see if I can figure out anything from the area.”

“Don’t you think the endless rain in the Pacific Northwest will have washed away any signs?” Lyd voiced.

“Probably, but it’s a starting point. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

She nodded, peering up at the sky as thunder rumbled. She groaned. “More rain…great.”

“You act like Alaska is the sunny desert,” Nessa laughed.

“Shut up!” Lydia smacked her, sticking her tongue out.

I chuckled. “C’mon, lets finish breakfast and get a move on.”

An hour or so later, we were back in our wolf forms and snaking down what my home pack used to call the Strip. The rain was softly pelting our fur as we jogged, more of a mist than a true rain but long enough in it and it had soaked up to the bone. The only good news was that it helped to mask Lydia and Vanessa’s scent since they couldn’t willingly mask it like I could. We paused every so often to give the trees around us a good sniff, searching for any of the pungent scent markers that would mean we had strayed too far east or west toward pack territory. Nothing came up, so when a growl came from the trees ahead of us, we were all caught off guard.

I thought it would be a rouge or two, maybe a small band. They were pretty brave for hanging out between two packs, but who was I to judge? I was about to call out that we didn’t want any trouble with them when a large black hairball came flying in our direction. I rose up onto my toes instinctively and dodged the attack, but three, four, five more wolves poured from around us and went to subdue Lydia and Vanessa.

I let out a loud growl, diving for the black wolf that seemed to be in the lead. I bowled him over and gave him a warning bite on his shoulder – I hadn’t come here to fight anyone, let alone some rouges. But when my teeth connected with his flesh, the scent hit me. He wasn’t rogue. He was pack…Skyfall, to be exact. And from my calculations, we were miles from Skyfall. Why was a Skyfall pack patrol way out here? He took this brief hesitation to knock me off of him. I could hear the cries of Vanessa and Lydia. They were powerful, but they were no match for the two-on-one scenario going on with highly trained pack warriors that had a good 100 pounds on them. I launched myself their way, knocking one off of Lydia and yanking the tail of one about to attack Vanessa to make him lose his balance. The fight continued, neither of us ready to surrender. Surrendering would mean capture, and that wasn’t an option. I couldn’t let my girls be behind bars again. But when two of them had me pinned, scraping my underbelly, I began to consider my options. I didn’t want to kill them – I had nothing against Skyfall. They were innocent, their only crime protecting their pack and their territory. To them, we were rogues. But I couldn’t give up the girls. I shoved hard with my back feet into the underbelly of a large brown wolf, knocking him off of me. This gave me the chance to wriggle free of the dust-colored wolf still on top of me. I leapt on him, sinking my teeth deep into his shoulder. I disengaged my canines and was about to go for his neck when Lydia’s howl stopped me. I looked up to see her struggling, belly-up, beneath the original black wolf. He had his teeth bared and was ready to sink them into her jugular. A moment of panic illuminated my mind like a flash of lightning and suddenly I was off the wolf and on my feet, shifting back. Bone crunched and drew the attention of the pack wolves to me. No wolf in their right mind shifted in the middle of a brawl back to their human form.

I stood there butt-naked, dripping with rain drops, in the midst of six pack warriors. “STOP!” I yowled. “Stop fighting. I invoke the Prisoner’s Plea.”

All the wolves looked at me, surprised by the power held in my yell. They growled lowly as they were instinctively forced to bow their heads to me – a perk of being a true Alphess. The black wolf looked up, shifting back to his human form as well. He was a tall, muscular man with black hair and bright green eyes. He had a scar the length of his right cheek and chiseled features. Something about him spoke of power; maybe it was the scowl on his face.

“Prisoner’s Plea?” he echoed, his voice sounding more like a growl. “I haven’t heard of that being used in quite some time. Some would say it’s a legend.”

“Any wolf worth their salt knows it’s still tradition to abide by it,” I said. My eyes briefly flashed to Vanessa helping Lydia to her feet, both of them shivering and dripping with blood. They shook their heads at me, knowing what it meant. Knowing I shouldn’t do it. But to save them, I would. “Let them go. They will leave this place and not return. Take me, and only me. I will stand trial for the trespass.”

“Not just for the trespass onto Skyfall territory, but for the attempted murder of its Gamma,” the man growled, nodding to the dusty gray wolf I had been two seconds away from killing.

“So be it,” I said, holding my chin up. “Although, last time I checked, Skyfall’s territory started 5 miles to the west.”

“Times have changed,” he said. He looked at Lydia and Vanessa. “Jensen will escort you to the edge of our territory. May you never return.”

They looked at me with wide eyes and I nodded at them. Go. Tell Taryn she’s in charge now. I watched as they reluctantly followed a brown and black wolf the way we had originally come. The Prisoner’s Plea was a last resort, not used for decades. When invoked, tradition states it had to be honored. The person that stated it would become the other party’s prisoner and stand trial for the crimes committed by the entire party. Sometimes, the trial would take days. Sometimes, it would take months. Just depended on when the pack wanted to get around to dealing with their prisoners, if they chose to at all. You could forfeit your entire life to living in a prison cell; you were truly at the mercy of whosever’s hands you allowed to chain you. If you came to trial, you’d be facing not only the Highborn of the pack, but also the Wolf’s Council. Which meant…I was walking right into giving myself up for the past nine years of crime I had committed.

The man who had been speaking pulled on a pair of sweatpants he’d had strapped to his leg and grabbed my arm, hauling me through the underbrush with the others flanking behind us. When we got close to the tree line, he told me I could shift so not everyone would have to see me naked. At least he had some decency. I shifted back and he placed a hand on the back of my neck to control me, steering me out of the woods and down a steep hill. When I allowed myself to look up, what I saw nearly had me stopping in my tracks.

At the bottom of the hill, stretched out over the rolling grassland, was a beautiful mansion. The front drive was long, stone pavement and it was lined with gardenia bushes. If I craned my neck, I could just make out the gardens behind the mansion complete with the gazebo topped with a little wolf figurine. My stomach rolled, nauseating me. I knew this mansion….it was the same mansion from my dreams. Oh, Moon Goddess…you’ve really done it now. I thought to myself, my feet feeling like lead as I trudged toward my mate’s pack house. He was in there somewhere; I could feel it. My wolf wanted to run streaming down the hill, bust down the door and scream for him. But I pushed the idea away – I was here to stand trial. I had a job outside of these walls, and if I played my hand right, maybe…just maybe, I could make it out of this alive to go deal with Titan. I wasn’t here to find my mate and live happily ever after. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll never actually come face-to-face with him. Won’t that make it easier? Or maybe I was just delusional! Maybe this just reminded me of my dream, but it wasn’t the same place? A girl could hope, right?

I was shaken out of my thoughts, nearly literally, when the man shoved me to prod me along faster and I fell face-first into the mud. He scoffed at me, hauling me up harshly by the back of my neck. It took all I had not to swing around and bite his arm off of his body. I shook the dirt out of my eyes, following him around the edge of the packhouse. He opened a short black iron door and shoved me inside. What I didn’t realize was that there were stairs immediately after the door, so I stumbled and ended up tumbling down the entire flight, landing with a thud. I groaned, shaking stars out of my vision as I got to my feet. The long journey, the sleepless nights and the post-battle fatigue were getting to me – I was shaky and nauseous and felt exhausted. I heard him trot quickly down the steps before he turned on a light and illuminated the area with a dim orange lantern. I could see a long hallway and another iron door at the end, which he led me to and unlocked with a key on the wall. Behind that was a labyrinth of various cells. I was hoping that maybe a few were occupied, so maybe there would be longer for me to come up with a plan on how to escape. But luck was not on my side today – they were all empty. I’d be the only prisoner Skyfall had to focus on.